Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions 9463729054, 9789463729055, 9789048554065

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Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions

The Early Medieval North Atlantic This series provides a publishing platform for research on the history, cultures, and societies that laced the North Sea from the Migration Period at the twilight of the Roman Empire to the eleventh century. The point of departure for this series is the commitment to regarding the North Atlantic as a centre, rather than a periphery, thus connecting the histories of peoples and communities traditionally treated in isolation: Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians / Vikings, Celtic communities, Baltic communities, the Franks, etc. From this perspective new insights can be made into processes of transformation, economic and cultural exchange, the formation of identities, etc. It also allows for the inclusion of more distant cultures – such as Greenland, North America, and Russia – which are of increasing interest to scholars in this research context. Series Editors Marjolein Stern, Gent University Charlene Eska, Virginia Tech Julianna Grigg, Monash University

Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions

Edited by Emily Lyle

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Image stone from Tjängvide, Gotland, Sweden. Carved limestone. Currently housed in the Swedish History Museum, Stockholm. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 905 5 e-isbn 978 90 4855 406 5 doi 10.5117/9789463729055 nur 684 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2021 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

Contents Preface 9 Introduction 11 Emily Lyle

Celtic Tradition 1 The Nature of the Fomoiri: The Dark Other in the Medieval Irish Imagination 25 John Carey

2 Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri in Cath Maige Tuired 49 Elizabeth A. Gray

3 Exploring Cath Maige Tuired through the Concept of Hybridity Ina Tuomala

71

4 How Time Flies in the Cath Maige Tuired 95 Joseph Falaky Nagy

5 The Idols of the Pagan Irish in the Medieval Literary Imagination 117 Alexandra Bergholm

6 Myth as a Historical Resource: The Case of Orgain Denna Ríg (The Destruction of Dinn Ríg)

135

7 Hagiography as Political Documentation: The Case of Betha Beraigh (The Life of St Berach)

151

Kevin Murray

Ksenia Kudenko

Scandinavian Tradition 8 Baldr’s Achilles’ Heel? About the Scandinavian Three-God B-Bracteates 173 Karen Bek-Pedersen

9 The Cult of Óðinn in the Early Scandinavian Warrior Aristocracy 197 Joshua Rood

10 Myth to History in Saxo Morten Warmind

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11 The Scylding Dynasty in Saxo and Beowulf as Disguised Theogony 235 Emily Lyle

12 Loki the Slandered God?Selective Omission of Skaldic Citations in Snorri Sturluson’s Edda 251 James Parkhouse

13 Ymir, Baldr, and the Grand Narrative Arc of Mythological History 271 Jonas Wellendorf

Index 295

List of Tables Table 10.1 A comparison of narratives in Thórsdrápa, Saxo, and Snorri 224 Table 11.1. The four-generation divine model showing Helga/Helgi as the father or grandfather of Hroðulf/Rolf Krake 240 Table 11.2. The effect of the inclusion of the Yrsa generation on the parallels between the Danish and Geatish royal lines 242 Table 11.3. Illicit intercourse present in Saxo and absent from Beowulf 242 Table 11.4. The Old Norse gods in Snorri who have equivalents in the postulated theogonic sequence in Saxo 245

List of Images Figure 8.1 Skovsborg (IK 165). 176 Figure 8.2 Fakse (IK 51, 1). 176 Figure 8.3 Killerup (IK 51, 2). 176 Figure 8.4 Denmark (IK 40). 176 Figure 8.5 Denmark (IK 39). 176 Figure 8.6 Zagórzyn (IK 20). 176 Figure 8.7 Gummerup (IK 66). 177 Figure 8.8 Gudme (IK 51, 3). 177 Figure 8.9 Fuglsang/Sorte Muld (IK 595). 177 Figure 8.10 Snogskilden (IK 646), drawn by the author. 177 Figure 8.11 Hvorslevgård (IK 675), drawn by the author. 177 Figure 8.12 Dalshøj (IK 685), drawn by the author. 177 Figure 9.1 The distribution of theophoric place names in Scandinavia containing the name of the god Óðinn; open circles are uncertain. Based on Brink, ‘How Uniform was the Old Norse Religion?’, p. 112, with locations of sites using salr (‘hall’) added. By permission of Stefan Brink. 205 Figure 9.2 The ‘Helping Figure’, from Greta Arwidsson, Båtgravarna i Valsgärde, p. 58. By permission of Statens Historiska Museer. 207 Figure 9.3 The ‘Torslunda Dancer’, from Knut Stjerna, Hjälmar och svärd i Beovulf, p. 103. By permission of Statens Historiska Museer. 209 Figure 13.1. The genealogy of Óðinn and his brothers according to the Prose Edda, drawn by the author. 277

Preface The articles collected together here developed out of collaborations spanning the years from 2013 to 2019. I am very grateful for the support of the departments of Celtic and Scottish Studies and of Scandinavian Studies in the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh in bringing the contributors together, and would especially like to thank Dr Neill Martin and Dr Arne Kruse. In the preparation of this volume I am much indebted to Dr Virginia Blankenhorn and Dr Triin Laidoner, and I have appreciated being able to draw on the expertise of the contributors for advice in enriching and coordinating the papers. I also wish to offer thanks to Erin Dailey for his encouragement throughout and to other members of Amsterdam University Press for their work on the volume. Emily Lyle

Introduction Emily Lyle The topic of ‘Myth and History’ sets up an opposition between the two partners, but perhaps they are not so very different after all and their juxtaposition offers interesting points of contact to explore. Both are concerned with information networks conceived in human minds and both have points of attachment within conceptions of time. The main difference is in relation to the truth claim, which is essential in History but is optional or non-existent in Myth. In the Religions of the Book there is a claim to truth which calls upon adherents to subscribe to it, but Myth, like Fiction, belongs to the conceptual world of the ‘As If’ rather than that of the ‘As Is’.1 When a truth claim is made in an ‘As If’ conceptual world, it is about the accuracy of a statement within the confines of the container of the work of fiction (e.g. ‘Prospero raised a tempest’ in Shakespeare’s The Tempest) or of the myth of a community (e.g. ‘Tane separated heaven from earth’, in a Polynesian conceptual system). This is not to say that the people who knew a particular myth did not accept it and live in a community that included specific culturally posited invisible beings. However, although their mythic system applied to the whole of their world, encounters with neighbouring peoples with different mythic systems were easily accommodated and it was understood that they had different gods and presented no challenge to the indigenous system which could remain intact or could modify to incorporate new elements. The situation was different when an ‘As If’ mythic community came into contact with a religion which was in a position to enforce its claim to universal truth both in history and in worldview, and this is the situation in the Celtic and the Scandinavian communities that were involved in the engagement with Christianity.2

1 2

Seligman et al., Ritual and its Consequences. Lyle, ‘Defining the Religion’.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_intro

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The works that were written down in manuscripts were the creations of scribes working within networks of tradition. These networks were the work of skilled practitioners in the creation of compositions in prose and verse in both cultures. We can consider them in relation to History on the one hand and Myth on the other. History attempts to discourse on chronologically ordered facts. These will not be discoverable in full, but the aim is to build a story that is true to the actual events as they unrolled in the course of time. The facts are what actually happened. The history is a necessarily selective account of the facts in order. There is a structure ‘out there’ in the real world, which is the reference point to which the narrative is attached. The chronological time of history extends from the time of the first written records and is projected forward indefinitely into the future in the sense that it is understood that history will still be made. The structure of myth is similarly ‘out there’ as a reference point to which the fictional narratives are attached, but the difference is that the myth itself is fictional. Myth is the verbal part of a socially constructed conception of the universe related to a mode of life. The direct evidence from north-west Europe, which is the result of millennia of erosion, has to be related to the scheme as envisaged and lived in the period of the common ancestry of the peoples that later spoke Indo-European languages. This is not beyond recovery since the shattered remains take a variety of forms in the various branches, allowing principled reconstruction to be undertaken.3 Since the matrix from which the known myths derive was an oral culture, its conceptual structure was constrained by the limits of biological memory extending to a period of about four generations. Its ‘history’ was a limited one and its myths were attached to this limited schema. A major difference between the Christian and the mythic conceptions is the relationship of the universe to the divine. According to the Bible, in the beginning God ‘created heaven and earth’ and went on to other creations, all of which are undertaken from the outside. In the mythic conception, there is no outside. The gods actually are heaven and earth and the other components of the universe. This cosmic dimension of the gods can be glimpsed in the context of the traditions of north-west Europe in the case of Thor, whose mother is the earth, 4 but it was not fully expressed since it was incompatible with the worldview of the Christian authors who have passed the information down to us, and so it has to be re-envisaged if elements of 3 Lyle, Ten Gods. 4 Wellendorf, Gods and Humans, p. 94, and pp. 165–166, nn. 54–56.

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the stories are to make sense. Mark Williams has commented on the various sizes of the gods in the Celtic narratives, who can be seen as either human or gigantic in scale,5 and the Old Norse gods and giants similarly display this disparity. When considering a fully mythic context, we have to take this a step further and see the large divine beings not simply as huge in relation to humans but as cosmic in scale. When gods are treated in this way, they may be indistinguishable from giants. The authors in this collection who have treated Cath Maige Tuired (‘The Battle of Mag Tuired’) are dealing, as Nagy has pointed out, with ‘the establishment of a new order’.6 The Fomoiri are defeated by the Tuatha Dé. This can be appreciated, as is done very thoroughly and skilfully by Gray and Tuomala, both in terms of the self and the other, and of the conflict and interaction between the Irish and the vikings in historical time. Carey has considered especially the Fomorian side of the equation in his authoritative survey and has concluded that it is unsatisfactory to see the Fomoiri as dark beings opposed to the Tuatha Dé as light beings. In this connection, I suggest that keeping in mind the unfolding in time as outlined by Nagy may be a useful approach. Sheerly within the text itself, Lug of the Tuatha Dé comes later than his Fomorian opponents, Balor and Bres, in terms either of descent or of succession. Lug is at the centre of the new order. Cath Maige Tuired is an amalgamation of a variety of elements, but its core is brought out in this summation by Williams: Lug, Balor’s grandson, kills the Fomorian leader with his sling, smashing his deadly eye out through the back of his head where it decimates the Fomorians. Bres is found alive in the aftermath of the battle, and is spared by Lug on the condition that he teaches the Tuatha Dé how to plough, sow, and reap.7

It is this core that I propose to explore here, both to demonstrate the possibilities opened up by considering Celtic and Scandinavian materials together and to show how both can be related to myth conceived cosmically. The core has two components: a single combat fought with a missile and its outcome. The opponents are Lug and Balor/Bres. In the earlier version of Cath Maige Tuired the combat is treated within the body of the battle but in the later version of the work it takes place as 5 Williams, Ireland’s Immortals, pp. 95–96. 6 Nagy, ‘How Time Flies’, in this volume. 7 Williams, Ireland’s Immortals, pp. 94–95.

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a preliminary encounter involving only Balar and Lugh.8 The rest of the Fomoiri, apart from Balar’s helpers, and the rest of the Tuatha Dé hide behind their shields in order to avoid being destroyed by Balar’s gaze. The situation is comparable to the single combat of David and Goliath before the engagement of the armies of the Israelites and the Philistines, as has been pointed out,9 and Lug’s use of a sling may be a borrowing from the biblical story. When the two combatants are isolated in this way, they are directly comparable to the combatants Thor and the giant Geirrod in Snorri’s Edda. Geirrod, using tongs, picks up a red-hot ingot from one of the fires in his hall and hurls it at Thor who catches it and hurls it back so that it goes through the giant and destroys part of the building.10 In the later version of Cath Maige Tuired Lugh calls on the smith, Goibhnionn, to provide him with a missile and Goibhnionn ‘grasps the sling-stone in his tongs, and, as the last covering is being removed from Balar’s eye, throws it from the doorway of the forge’. Lugh catches the missile and casts it at Balar ‘so that it pierces the head and carries the eye with it’.11 It is to be presumed that the object thrown by the smith from his forge is metal. As Bernard Sergent expresses it: ‘Goibniu envoie à Lug une pierre de fronde en metal incandescent’ (‘Goibniu throws Lug a sling-stone of glowing metal’).12 The situation is very similar to that of the Geirrod story, although in the one case the hero catches the ingot thrown by his opponent and in the other there is a third character involved and the hero catches it when it is thrown to him by an ally. Although the object hurled in the Irish context is called a ‘sling-stone’ it is not a simple stone like the one that David in the Bible has taken from a brook. The word táthluib means something glued, cemented, or welded together,13 and would be quite appropriately used of a piece of metal worked by a smith. In a short poem found in BL Egerton MS 1782, the ball which Lug throws at Balor is a composite made by Briun, son of Bethar, consisting of such things as the blood of toads and bears cemented together with sand.14 8 Ó Cuív, Cath Muighe Tuireadh, pp. 33–35. 9 1 Samuel 17; McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present, pp. 158–159. 10 Faulkes, Snorri Sturluson, Edda, pp. 81–83. For the cluster of stories including Geirrod’s, see Warmind, ‘History and Myth in Saxo’, in this volume, and Taggart, How Thor Lost his Thunder, esp. ch. 5, sections 3–4, and ch. 6, section 1. 11 Ó Cuív, Cath Muighe Tuireadh, p. 3. 12 Sergent, Celtes et Grecs, p. 227. 13 Gwynn, ‘Some Irish Words’, no. 11, pp. 64–65: táthluib ‘means originally some cohesive substance or cement, and secondarily a missile formed by means of such cement’. See eDIL s.v. táthluib, dil.ie/40228, and also eDIL, s.v. táth, dil.ie/40201 ‘joining, welding, soldering, binding’. 14 BL Egerton MS 1782, f. 41ra, lines 9–22; Meyer ‘Mitteilungen’, p. 504. See also the English translation in O’Curry, Manners and Customs, vol. 2, p. 252.

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The missile in this story complex can take different forms. In an Icelandic parallel where Thor’s human counterpart, Thorstein, encounters the giant Geruth, he kills him by throwing a stone and pointer, with which he has just produced fire, through the giant’s eyes.15 In the episode in the Welsh Culhwch and Olwen, which is a recognized parallel to the combat of Lug and Balor, when the giant’s special eye is unveiled the giant simultaneously throws a spear at Culhwch who catches it and hurls it back so that it goes into his eye and out through the nape of his neck.16 In this episode it appears that the gaze, which is not in itself harmful, is embodied in the spear. Behind the varying representations of gaze and flung object there seems to lie the idea that the missile in this encounter is the actual physical eye of the giant or cosmic god. Thor in another story hurls the eyes of a dead giant up into the sky where they become stars,17 and I have already suggested that this episode can be interpreted as a parallel to the completion of the Geirrod story at the cosmic level and that a single eye, like that of Balor, becomes a star.18 The myth can be expressed in the following way. When the blazing sky god encounters a young upstart god, he plucks out his fiery eye and throws it at him intending to destroy him. The young god catches it and throws it back so that it goes through him and continues onwards to become a star. Both the sky god and his metonymic representative, his eye, would potentially be identifiable with the star, but the eye and the god who has lost his eye might have separate representations. And there is no question about the identity of the Scandinavian supernatural being who has lost one of his eyes. He is Odin, and this feature of a lost eye is already present in material objects that predate the literary evidence, as Ruud notes in Chapter 9. It is of some interest that a linguistic parallel has recently been drawn between Balor and one of the names of Odin.19 In the Old Norse story found in Voluspa and retold by Snorri, Odin plucks out his eye in order to be allowed to obtain wisdom by drinking from a well.20 However, the connection of eye to well may be of a different kind as explored by John Carey.21 The Geirrod complex of stories suggests that, when the conflict took place at the beginning of time when nothing existed 15 Pálsson and Edwards, ‘Thorstein Mansion-Might’. 16 Davies, Mabinogion, p. 194; Sims-Williams, Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature, p. 137. 17 Larrington, Poetic Edda, p. 68. The giant is Thiazi. 18 Lyle, ‘Thor’s Return’. 19 Blažek, ‘Balor: “the Blind-Eyed”?’. 20 Faulkes, Snorri Sturluson, Edda, p. 17; Larrington, Poetic Edda, p. 7. 21 Carey, ‘Irish Parallels to the Myth of Odin’s Eye’.

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outside the gods, the only weapon available would be a detachable body part and so the sky god throws one of his eyes at his opponent. When the young god throws back the missile with such force that it goes through the giant and on into the sky where it becomes a star,22 his action apparently removes the threat of the burning up of the earth, a motif that is best caught in an Irish folktale.23 However, in the cosmogonic scheme of things, some benefit to humankind should also accrue from the god’s action, and Nagy’s stress on the ordering of time present in Cath Maige Tuired, taken together with the discussions of Bres’s ransom by Nagy, Carey, and Gray, has led me to posit the idea that the new star brought into existence in this way is the Pleiades cluster, which offered a time-signal for the seasons. In the Scandinavian context, this tightly grouped set of stars within the constellation of Taurus was known simply as the star (stjarna) when it was employed for time-keeping at night as the sun was during the day.24 The cluster was also used in this way in Ireland, as in this record from Neale, Co. Mayo: The Pleiades are frequently known as The Stróilín, and neighbours, when visiting, or on céilidhe, time their departure by the position of this constellation. If the Pleiades are setting they will say ‘It is late, the Stróilín is going down!’25

This awareness of the Pleiades in relation to diurnal time in the Scandinavian and Celtic contexts makes it a likely candidate as the ‘star’ that fixed the timing of the agricultural year for them as it has done in many other cultures worldwide. As noted by Broughton Richmond in Time Measurement and Calendar Construction (1956): Observation of the stars provides a means of indicating time within the year with great precision. Indications by seasons are not exact as the phenomena to which they are related are fluctuating. […] Counting by stars, particularly by the Pleiades, is still practised by certain primitive 22 Lyle, ‘Double Perspective’ and ‘Thor’s Return’. 23 Curtin, Hero Tales, pp. 293, 311; Lyle, ‘Double Perspective’, p. 129. 24 Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfússon, An Icelandic–English Dictionary, p. 594. 25 See dúchas.ie, 023/140; search under ‘Pleiades’ (accessed 31 July 2020). On this sense of stróilín, see: http://irisleabharnagaedhilge.fng.ie/index.php?irisleabhair_function=9 G11, 1901, Deireadh Foghmhair, 174, 133, Le haghaidh Feise Laighean agus Midhe, 295–297: ‘Uili bhodach, bhuili bhodach [the peasant’s clock] … the stróilín or | cluster of stars. (Pronounce | willy wudach)’ (accessed 29 June 2020).

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peoples. The appearance of a certain star is connected with seasonal phenomena and used for determining agricultural occupations.26

When Bres’s offer that ‘the men of Ireland shall reap a harvest in every quarter of the year’ is refused, the terms of the refusal indicate that the agricultural year was thought of as falling into halves with a period of work and growth running from the beginning of spring at Imbolc (1 February) to the beginning of autumn at Lughnasa (1 August), and then a period of rest. The year falls into two parts with transitions at Imbolc and Lughnasa and there are three necessary activities to be undertaken: ploughing and sowing in spring and reaping in autumn. Bres’s final offer, which is accepted, relates to the three activities and ties them to particular points of time: ‘“Tell [the men of Ireland]” says Bres “that their ploughing be on a Tuesday, their casting seed into the field be on a Tuesday, their reaping on a Tuesday”’.27 This could be a revision of older traditional wisdom that was cast in rather different terms. It can be suggested that it came about through a fusion of two related ideas: 1) that the times to start work at the transitions between the periods of growth and latency were indicated by temporal markers, and 2) that the important activities of ploughing, sowing, and reaping had to be undertaken with properly observed ritual or the crops would fail. These two ideas are found separately but in close proximity in Hesiod’s advice to a farmer in Works and Days (lines 383–384, 391–395): When the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, are rising, begin your harvest, and your ploughing when they are going to set. […] Strip to sow and strip to plough and strip to reap, if you wish to get in all Demeter’s fruits in due season, and that each kind may grow in its season. Else, afterwards, you may chance to be in want and go begging to other men’s houses.28

If the terms of the advice to Hesiod’s farmer and to the men of Ireland are equated, we can see a probable abandonment of the prescription to work naked in favour of a prescription to begin the work on specified days. The idea of specified times occurs in the other part of the traditional wisdom, and this would have been tied (as in Hesiod), not to an arbitrary day of the week that could only have operated magically, but to a phenomenon that has been observed worldwide as a time-signal in the agricultural year. 26 Richmond, Time Measurement, p. 159. 27 Gray, Cath Maige Tuired, p.107. 28 Evelyn-White, Hesiod. Works and Days.

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It is interesting that Mary MacLeod Banks, who demonstrated the longevity and force in Scotland of the Tuesday prescription relating to ploughing, sowing, and reaping in her study of the ‘three Tuesdays’ charm, commented in passing: Dr Maclagan, in his MS. notes bequeathed to the Folk-Lore Society, refers to a Hebridean belief that the right times for agricultural labour were indicated by the seven stars of the Pleiades (known as an t-seachd reultaich, the seven-starred).29

The use made of the Pleiades was very varied and a particular culture at a particular period would select the appearances, disappearances, and positions that suited its own agricultural needs. The constant is the use of the Pleiades as a sign from heaven that the time is ripe for some activity. If the secret of the Pleiades was the underlying meaning of the advice given by Bres it would have had a real, and not just a magical, application. The advice given by Bres is the verbal counterpart of the material result of the combat in the Old Norse case as posited here. The eye of a cosmic god becomes the star that serves to secure the proper conduct of the farming year; it is the direct outcome of the cosmic conflict. In the Celtic case, the defeated cosmic god passes on the knowledge of how the agricultural year can be organized through reference to a star. A postulation of this kind should make it abundantly clear that the stories in the literature found in historical time have a separate existence from the mythic dimension of a cosmic scheme from the prehistoric period. The mythic dimension is not being forced into the literature which has its own integrity. When Bres says Tuesday, he means Tuesday. The fact that the value of his advice has been found debateable suggests that this is what Gray speaks of as a ‘creaky joint’30. There is a question that is not resolved at the level of the literature but, if it is taken to a higher level of abstraction, it has a clear answer. The cosmological approach offers a new perspective that has not yet been explored but I anticipate that it will be rewarding for future study of the archaic elements that have been retained in the literature. However, there is much more to the literature than that. One particularly rich field in the Irish context has been that of pseudohistory, a genre that lies at the interface 29 Banks, ‘Na Tri Mairt’, p. 133. The Maclagan papers referred to are now in the Archives of the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh. 30 Gray, ‘Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri’, in this volume.

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between actual provable chronology and the fictions that draw strength from a claimed connection with it, as already seen in Cath Maige Tuired. Murray gives a fine exposition of the idea that the Irish preferred their history as fiction in exploring the legendary matter of Orgain Denna Ríg, dealing with the Laigin of Leinster. The past, real or imagined, was the subject of stories which gave the community its identity. History was strongly connected with geography in that there were places of remembrance to which historical legends were attached. Bergholm looks at the pagan/Christian interface in a case where (at least in legend and quite probably in actuality) there was a set of stones that served as a focus for worship by the pagan Irish and for condemnation by Christians. Of particular interest in regard to history and myth is the use of one of the stones as a witness; it bore a mark that was said to be that of St Patrick’s staff when he destroyed the idol in it and so people beholding it were brought into connection with the sacred past. Hagiography is a strong strand in the Celtic material, as illustrated also by Kudenko’s study of the life of St Berach which demonstrates a close interlocking of space and time. Episodes that were probably imaginary and projected into the past became charters for landholding in the author’s present. The life includes an interesting case of prophecy which takes us back in time before the events related – an elaboration of the chronological sequence. A great deal of the Irish material is anonymous but in the Old Norse case, although there are anonymous works that fill out the story, much of what we know is filtered through the minds of two major authors, the Dane, Saxo Grammaticus, and the Icelander, Snorri Sturluson. In my own chapter, I aim to show how their separate schemas of kings and gods can mesh together, but I emphasize the rather neglected contribution of Saxo, and Warmind makes a stirring appeal for greater attention to be paid to this author. Bek-Pedersen and Wellendorf, on the other hand, find that Saxo’s work has nothing of value to offer for the approaches they take in their chapters here. Bek-Pedersen surveys all the other primary sources in the literature on Baldr but her focus is on material objects, a set of bracteates with intriguing images. She argues convincingly that an earlier interpretation in terms of the Baldr myth is insupportable and goes on to suggest a more fruitful approach to the solution of the puzzle they offer. Ruud’s chapter serves as a complement, dealing as it does with artefacts potentially relating to Odin, with the exception of bracteates. He emphasizes the valuable contribution of place-name evidence. Parkhouse makes a strong case for the need to allow for bias on the part of Snorri when it comes to an assessment of the maligned god, Loki. Wellendorf confidently and persuasively takes on the formidable task of questioning previous scholarship in a way that offers new possibilities for future study.

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All in all, it is a pleasure to present this rich and diverse set of papers, and it is particularly pleasing to see studies of aspects of the two vital and imaginative cultures of the Celts and the Scandinavians brought together between the covers of a single volume.

Acknowledgements I would like to express my warm thanks to John Carey, Elizabeth Gray, and Joseph Nagy for their help with the Irish sources.

Bibliography Banks, Mary MacLeod, ‘Na Tri Mairt, The Three Marts and the Man with the Withy’, Études celtiques 3 (1938), 131–143. Blažek, Václav, ‘Balor: “the Blind-Eyed”?’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 52 (2001), 129–133. Carey, John, ‘Irish Parallels to the Myth of Odin’s Eye’, Folklore 94.2 (1983), 214–218. Cleasby, Richard and Gudbrand Vigfússon, An Icelandic–English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1874). Curtin, Jeremiah, Hero-Tales of Ireland (London: Macmillan, 1890). Davies, Seonaid, ed. and trans., The Mabinogion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). eDIL= Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, ed. by Gregory Toner, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf and Dagmar Wodtko, online at www.dil.ie. Evelyn-White, Hugh G., trans., Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann, 1914). Faulkes, Anthony, ed. and trans., Snorri Sturluson. Edda (London: J.M. Dent, 1995). Gray, Elizabeth A., ed. and trans., Cath Maige Tuired: The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, Irish Texts Society 52 (London: Irish Texts Society, 1982). Gwynn, Edward John, ‘Some Irish Words’, Hermathena vol. 24, no. 49 (1935), 56–66. Larrington, Carolyne, ed. and trans., The Poetic Edda, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Lyle, Emily, Ten Gods: A New Approach to Defining the Mythological Structures of the Indo-Europeans (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012). Lyle, Emily, ‘Defining the Religion that Lay behind the Self-Colonization of Europe’, in Critical Reflections on Indigenous Religions, ed. by James L. Cox, pp. 93–101 (Farnham, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013).

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Lyle, Emily, ‘Towards Adopting a Double Perspective on Celtic Mythology and its Prehistoric Roots’, in Celtic Myth in the 21st Century: The Gods and their Stories in a Global Perspective, ed. by Emily Lyle, New Perspectives in Religion and Mythology 2 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2018), pp. 31–42. Lyle, Emily, ‘Thor’s Return of Geirrod’s Red-hot Missile in a Cosmic Context’, Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 55.1 (2019), 121–136. McCone, Kim, Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1990). Meyer, Kuno, ‘Mitteilungen aus irischen Handschriften’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 5 (1905), 495–504. Ó Cuív, Brian, ed., Cath Muighe Tuireadh: The Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1945). O’Curry, Eugene, On the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, 3 vols. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1873). Pálsson, Hermann, ed., and Paul Edwards, trans., ‘Thorstein Mansion-Might’ [Þorsteins Þáttr Bæjarmagns], in Seven Viking Romances (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), pp. 258–275. Richmond, Broughton, Time Measurement and Calendar Construction (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1956). Seligman, Adam B., Robert P. Weller, Michael J. Puett, and Bennett Simon, Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Sergent, Bernard, Celtes et Grecs I: Le livre des héros (Paris: Payot, 1999). Sims-Williams, Patrick, Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Taggart, Declan, How Thor Lost his Thunder: The Changing Faces of an Old Norse God (London: Routledge, 2018). Wellendorf, Jonas, Gods and Humans in Medieval Scandinavia: Retying the Bonds, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 103 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). Williams, Mark, Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2016).

About the Author Emily Lyle in an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Her publications include the monograph Ten Gods (2012) and the edited collection Celtic Myth in the 21st Century (2018).

Celtic Tradition

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The Nature of the Fomoiri: The Dark Other in the Medieval Irish Imagination John Carey

Abstract Scholars undertaking to reconstruct the mythology of the ancient Celts often point to the Túatha Dé Danann and Fomoiri of Irish legend as representing earlier gods of light opposed to gods of darkness and chaos; the hostilities between them are regarded as the Irish reflex of an Indo-European ‘War of the Gods’. The prevalence of this polarized model is largely due to two influential texts, Cath Maige Tuired and Lebor Gabála Érenn: elsewhere in the tradition, in sources of all periods, the connotations of the two terms overlap repeatedly, and the nature of their relationship is profoundly ambiguous. This contribution undertakes to survey the evidence – arguing that, for the Irish, darkness was by no means incompatible with divinity. Keywords: Irish mythology, dualism, giants, Book of Invasions, Battle of Mag Tuired

In his pioneering study of the medieval Irish evidence for Celtic mythology, published in 1884, Henri d’Arbois de Jubainville wrote that ‘in the divine world of Ireland, we find two groups knit together by the closest ties of relationship, and yet at war one with the other’: these are, on the one hand, the Túatha Dé Donann (‘Tribes of the Goddess Donann’) or Túatha Dé (‘Tribes of the Gods’), the medieval reflections of the deities of the pre-Christian Irish;1 and, on the other, a race of beings called Fomoiri 1 Here and below I use the earlier form Donann in preference to the later Danann; for discussion, see my article ‘The Name “Tuatha Dé Danann”’, and cf. my Mythological Cycle, p. 7, n. 31.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch01

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(singular Fomoir),2 whom Arbois de Jubainville described as ‘a mythical group corresponding to the Indian Asura and the Greek Titans’. The latter are ‘gods of Death, of Evil, and of Night’, in contrast to the Túatha Dé, whom he called ‘gods of Day, of Righteousness, and of Life’.3 In 1940, Marie-Louise Sjoestedt reaffirmed this view, likening the Fomoiri to ‘the forces of chaos: eternally “latent”, and enemies of all Cosmos’;4 and essentially the same idea is apparent in Proinsias Mac Cana’s Celtic Mythology three decades later, where the Fomoiri are described as a ‘race of demonic beings’, and as ‘demonic powers’ who ‘wage a continual struggle against the gods’.5 Françoise Le Roux and Christian-J. Guyonvarc’h express the contrast in the starkest terms: In the Ireland of myth, in spite of archaic ‘family’ relationships which go back to the primal chaos, it is the gods who have, so to speak, marked themselves off from the ‘non-gods’; the Fomóire have been definitively plunged into the hell of physical and ‘moral’ ugliness. They have nothing more in common with the Túatha Dé Dánann. Not Rome, with the historicization of the combat between the Horatii and the Curiatii, nor Germania with the struggle of the Æsir and the Vanir, nor even Greece with the combat of the gods with the Titans, have pushed so far the consequences of the victory of the one, and the defeat of the other.6

This is not the only scholarly opinion concerning the Fomoiri; but it is the dominant one: as recently as 2016, Karin Olsen has written of them as ‘demonic’ beings,7 ‘original powers of darkness and chaos’.8 It is also a view Danann is however the form usually employed in modern scholarship and is that used by other contributors to this volume. 2 In English, the Fomoiri are often called ‘Fomorians’. I have not conclusively ascertained the origin of this form, but suspect that it is based on Fomhóraigh, a later variant of Fomoiri, with -aigh understood as an adjectival ending. ‘Fomorians’ is found already in 1834 (thus Betham, Gael and Cymbri, pp. 427–428). In fact, the -aigh ending is probably not adjectival in origin, but due to the tendency for old i-stems ending in -l or -r to adopt velar flexion: Thurneysen, Grammar of Old Irish, p. 204. 3 Arbois de Jubainville, Cycle mythologique, pp. 14–15, 32. I cite the translation by Best, Irish Mythological Cycle, pp. 8–9, 18. (Except where otherwise noted, as here, translations are my own.) 4 Sjoestedt, Dieux et héros des Celtes, p. 9. 5 Mac Cana, Celtic Mythology, pp. 54, 59. This is the American reprint of the revised edition, first published in the United Kingdom in 1983. The first edition appeared in 1970. 6 Le Roux and Guyonvarc’h, Société celtique, p. 87. 7 Olsen, Conceptualizing the Enemy, pp. 26, 75. 8 Olsen, Conceptualizing the Enemy, p. 91; cf. pp. 22, 77. I have myself characterized the Fomoiri in similar terms in ‘Native Elements’, pp. 50–51; cf. however more recently my article ‘Fomoiri’.

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which has enjoyed a broad dissemination in more popular writings on the beliefs of the ancient Celts.9 The Fomoiri are regarded as the ultimate ‘others’: in a polarized vision of Irish mythology, theirs is the pole of the negative. Two medieval texts in particular were instrumental in crystallizing this vision. Lebor Gabála Érenn is an extended account of Irish origins: it exists in several versions, all of which appear to go back to an eleventh-century exemplar. According to this work, Ireland was settled six times in the preChristian period: by Cesair and her followers before the Flood, and after the Flood by the people of Partholón, by the people of Nemed, by the Fir Bolg, by the Túatha Dé, and by the Gaels. Of these settlers, the people of Partholón fought the first battle of Ireland against an army of Fomoiri, described as ‘men with single arms and single legs’, led by one Cichol Gricenchos.10 The people of Nemed subsequently defeated the Fomoiri in several battles, and forced them to construct their fortresses, but then became subject to them in turn, and were compelled to pay them an exorbitant tribute – ‘two thirds of the children and grain and milk of the men of Ireland’ – every year. When the oppressed finally rose against their oppressors, both armies were almost entirely wiped out, the Fir Bolg and Túatha Dé being descended from some of the exiled survivors of Nemed’s folk.11 The Túatha Dé too fought against and defeated the Fomoiri in the second battle of Mag Tuired; 12 and the Fomoiri reappear from time to time as enemies of the early Gaels as well.13 The second recension of Lebor Gabála Érenn introduces the idea that the Fomoiri had actually arrived in Ireland two hundred years before Partholón, giving a total of seven ‘takings’ of the island.14 The tale Cath Maige Tuired is regarded as having been first composed in the ninth century, but extensively revised perhaps in the twelfth; it provides a more detailed account of the hostilities between the Fomoiri and the Túatha Dé. These arose because Bres, son of a Fomoiri father and a Túatha Dé mother, became king of his mother’s people but then subjected them to tyrannical misrule, being aided in his oppression by the Fomoiri themselves. 9 For instance: http://curiousireland.ie/the-fomorians/, http://earthbeforeflood.com/fomorians. html, http://www.ancientpages.com/2017/05/20/fomorians-in-irish-myths-and-legends-race-ofdemonic-giants-who-inhabited-ireland-and-scotland; all accessed 11 October 2019. 10 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, II, p. 270, § 202. 11 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, III, pp. 120–124, §§ 239, 241–242 (cf. pp. 132–134, §§ 251, 253, 255–256). 12 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, IV, p. 118, § 312 (cf. pp. 150–151, §§ 331–332, p. 180, § 364). 13 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, V, pp. 190–192, § 501, pp. 210–212, § 507, pp. 220–226, § 511, pp. 242–244, § 525, p. 248, § 531. 14 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, III, p. 10, § 213; cf. the account of the third recension, p.14, § 218.

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When he was expelled from the kingship, he raised an army of Fomoiri and attempted to reconquer Ireland but was defeated; the leader of the defenders was Lug, himself the son of a Fomoiri mother and a Túatha Dé father.15 As the Túatha Dé are recognized to derive from the gods of the pagan Irish, it is easy to see why the Fomoiri should be regarded as a kind of anti-gods, and Cath Maige Tuired itself, in the words of Tomás Ó Cathasaigh, as the Irish reflection of an Indo-European ‘myth of the War of the Gods, also known as the theomachy’.16 It is primarily on the basis of their portrayal in Cath Maige Tuired and Lebor Gabála Érenn, indeed, that Arbois de Jubainville formulated his view of the Fomoiri as gods of darkness, perpetually contending against the gods of light. Their name certainly seems to be suggestive of darkness, and of the horror of darkness. Earlier, Fomoiri was variously understood as containing the adjective mór ‘great’ (with reference to their giant size),17 or the noun muir ‘sea’ (reflecting their characterization as sea raiders, or perhaps originally underwater beings).18 But the view now generally accepted is that the name’s second syllable is a cognate of Old English mære, Old High German mara, Slavic mora, all words meaning ‘nightmare’.19 That this stem *mor- had the same or similar connotations in Celtic is suggested by Whitley Stokes’ further proposal that it is also present in Morrígain, the name of a female war spirit who embodies the horror of battle, also used to gloss the Latin word lamia in the sense ‘a monster in the shape of a woman’.20 Rudolf Thurneysen posited a similar derivation for *mordrach, ‘lunatic’ – presumably, a *mordrach was thought to owe his or her affliction to the influence of supernatural beings.21 15 Gray, Cath Maige Tuired. 16 Ó Cathasaigh, ‘Cath Maige Tuired’, p. 1. 17 This interpretation is reflected in forms such as Fomóir and Fomórach, attested from the Middle Irish period onward. That mór is in fact the basis of the name was proposed by Arbois de Jubainville, Cycle mythologique, pp. 93–94, n. 4. 18 The Fomoiri are called loingsig na fairgge ‘mariners of the sea’ (Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, III, p. 122, § 241) and muiride ‘sea-folk’ in Lebor Bretnach (Hamel, Lebor Bretnach, p. 21); cf. the derivations proposed in the Middle Irish Cóir Anmann and in Geoffrey Keating’s seventeenthcentury Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (Arbuthnot, Cóir Anmann, I, pp. 105, 178; Comyn and Dinneen, Foras Feasa, I, p. 182, § i.7). John Rhŷs took the Fomoiri to be ‘imaginary creatures originally believed to have their abodes in or beneath the lakes and the sea’ (Lectures, p. 593). Kuno Meyer proposed a different marine interpretation, regarding the Fomoiri as having originated as a historical people dwelling in a coastal territory and comparing their name with Prussian Po-morze ‘Pomerania’: ‘Zur keltischen Wortkunde V’, p. 635, § 86. 19 Stokes, ‘Linguistic Value’, p. 372; Thurneysen, Irische Helden- und Königsage, p. 64. 20 For the gloss, see Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus, I, p. 2. 21 In its unique attestation, genitive mordraige is equated with fir boīth (Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus, I, p. 164): the reference is to an anecdote concerning David in 1 Samuel 21:14–15,

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Fomoiri appear as destructive monsters in the tenth-century saga Togail Bruidne Da Derga, where three of them are held hostage lest their people ‘destroy grain or milk in Ireland beyond their proper law, for as long as Conaire may be in the kingship’. These beings are described as ‘masses of bone’, with three rows of teeth in their enormous mouths; they can swallow oxen whole, along with flitches of bacon, and when they do so the meat is visible until it has descended past their navels.22 Similarly, the annalistic work Chronicon Scotorum calls the Fomoiri ‘demons […] in the shapes of humans’.23 Upon further examination of the evidence, however, an absolute distinction – let alone an opposition – between Fomoiri and Túatha Dé proves difficult to sustain. Thus Cath Maige Tuired names two of the kings of the Fomoiri as Elatha mac Delbaíth and Tethra; but Elatha mac Delbaíth also appears as one of the chief ancestors of the Túatha Dé,24 while in Echtrae Chonnlai the inhabitants of a síd, a hollow hill or dwelling place of the Túatha Dé, are called ‘the people of Tethra’.25 Cath Maige Tuired likewise speaks of ‘the sons of Tethra in the síde’;26 and the same tale mentions ‘the strong men of the síd, i.e., the Fomoiri’.27 Some versions of Lebor Gabála Érenn speak of the invading Gaels as contending ‘against demons and Fomoiri, i.e., against the Túath Dé Donann’,28 and of the Túatha Dé as sending ‘monsters in the shapes of Fomoiri’ against the Gaels ‘through magic’.29 Even the where it corresponds to forms of the terms homo insanus and furiosus. For mental debility as the work of hostile spirits in the Germanic countries, see F. Ranke, ‘Alp’, col. 294: ‘Besonders geistige Störungen, Verblödung werden […] auf den A[lp] zurückgeführt; ein törichter, linkischer, schwachsinniger Mensch heißt daher Alp […], Alpschuß, Alpschwanz oder Elbentrötsch’ (‘In particular, mental disturbances and imbecility are […] attributed to the elf; hence a foolish, awkward, weak-minded person is called “elf” […], “elf-shot”, “elf-tail” or “elf-idiot”’). 22 Knott, Togail Bruidne Da Derga, pp. 27–28. 23 Hennessy, Chronicum Scotorum, p. 6: demna […] a ndealbhaibh daoinaibh. The same phrase is applied to the followers of Cichol in some manuscripts of Lebor Gabála Érenn (Macalister’s edition, II, p. 270, § 202, III, p. 12, § 216). 24 I have discussed this point in ‘Myth and Mythography’, p. 57. The ambiguity has understandably confused Olsen, who regards such figures as the Dagda and Ogma as having a Fomoir father (Conceptualizing the Enemy, p. 85). 25 McCone, Echtrae Chonnlai, pp. 121–122, §§ 5, 9. 26 Gray, Cath Maige Tuired, p. 48, l. 447. 27 Gray, Cath Maige Tuired, p. 34, l. 187. 28 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, V, p. 32, § 387, p. 58, § 419, p. 74, § 435. 29 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, V, p. 34, § 389, p. 74, § 437. Olsen attempts to take account of such passages while retaining an understanding of the Túatha Dé and the Fomoiri as fundamentally distinct: for her their conflicts alternate with alliances, and in the latter ‘the two groups are united by a common demonic nature’ (Conceptualizing the Enemy, pp. 79–80).

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ferocious destructiveness of the Fomoiri in Togail Bruidne Da Derga, and their diabolical nature in Chronicon Scotorum, offer points of resemblance with the Túatha Dé: these too are said in the Old Irish tale De Gabáil in t-Ṡída to have destroyed the grain and milk of the Gaels until a ‘treaty’ was made with them;30 and the idea that the Túatha Dé were really demons was repeatedly asserted throughout the Middle Ages.31 Thus a passage in the third-recension copy of Lebor Gabála Érenn in the Great Book of Lecan says of them that: Others say that the Túatha Dé Donann were demons of a special order, and that they came from heaven along with the banishment from heaven of Lucifer and his demons. They take on bodies of air, to ruin and tempt the race of Adam […]. That people, then, go into the síde; and they go beneath the seas, and they take the form of wolves, and they visit witches and those who turn against the sun. The origin of all of them is the Devil’s household. Their genealogy cannot be reckoned back, nor can the men of the world learn it; and that whole multitude was vanquished by the rightfulness of the [Gaels] and by the prophecy of the faith of Christ.32

The four fugitive Fomoiri who are described in Airne Fíngein as spreading blight in Ireland have become five of the Túatha Dé, stirring up strife in Ulster, in the later version of Mesca Ulad.33 The short version of the onomastic compilation Cóir Anmann, for which its most recent editor has proposed a date in the later twelfth century, calls the Fomoiri ‘fairies’ (daini maithi).34 As late as the nineteenth century, John Rhŷs heard of an Oxford undergraduate being warned concerning subterranean ‘Fomori or Fōwri’ in a rath or ‘fairy fort’ in Killorglin, County Kerry, leading Rhŷs to infer ‘that the modern ideas about them identify them to a certain extent with the fairies’.35 The most concise statement is that of a scribe who wrote, in a margin of the Book of Ballymote, the words ‘The Fomoiri and the Túatha Dé Donann are the same’.36 This is not to say that the name ‘Fomoiri’ is used identically with the name ‘Túatha Dé’, or with the phrase ‘people of the síde’: it specifically designates 30 Hull, ‘De Gabáil in t-Ṡída’. 31 See my discussion in Single Ray of the Sun, pp. 18–26, 36–37. 32 Carey, Single Ray of the Sun, p. 19. 33 Vendryes, Airne Fíngein, pp. 14–16; Watson, Mesca Ulad, p. 1. 34 Arbuthnot, Cóir Anmann, I, p. 178, § 2. 35 Rhŷs, Lectures, p. 596; cf. Rhŷs, Celtic Folklore, II, p. 433. 36 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, V, p. 74, n. 6: ‘Ionann Fomoire as Túatha Dé Danann’.

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the sinister or dangerous aspect of such beings – as do other words such as síabrai ‘phantoms’, arrachta ‘spectres, monsters’, and úatha ‘horrors’, all of which can also be used of the Túatha Dé.37 But these connotations do not mean that the Fomoiri are essentially different from the Túatha Dé; and they certainly do not mean that they were originally conceived of as being opposed to them.

Fomoiri as Foreigners Several years ago, I published a detailed analysis of some of the themes in Cath Maige Tuired, in which I argued that the tale’s portrayal of a great battle between the Túatha Dé and the Fomoiri is to be understood not as the reflection of an Indo-European myth of theomachy, but as a political parable concerned with contemporary issues – specifically, with the perceived challenge to the traditional structure of Irish society that was posed by Scandinavian settlement in the course of the ninth century.38 Similar arguments have been advanced by Kim McCone and Michael Chesnutt.39 The existence of two ethnically distinct populations in Ireland was a new phenomenon; symbolically projecting this situation back into the mythic past precipitated the supernatural beings of legend into two opposed groups. The view of the Fomoiri as being foreign did not originate with Cath Maige Tuired, however: with some exceptions (as in the statements quoted earlier that associate them with the síde), they tend to be portrayed as dwelling or originating outside Ireland. What appears to be the oldest attestation of the name, in an elegiac poem which may date from as early as the seventh century, speaks of ‘the valleys of the Fomoiri beneath the worlds of men’, perhaps identifying these as ‘the lands of the dead’.40 Togail Bruidne Da Derga speaks cryptically of ‘the lands of the Fomoiri’, and ‘the land of the Fomoiri’ also figures in Cath Maige Tuired; while in the later version of Tochmarc Ferbe three champions are said to come to Ulster ‘from the territories of the Fomoiri’, while other warriors are assigned to Spain, to ‘Great Asia’, 37 Thus in Togail Bruidne Da Derga the people of the síde are called síabrai ‘phantoms’ when they turn against the king (Knott’s edition, p. 8, l. 250); the Túatha Dé are described by Eochaid ua Flainn as a ‘host of síabrai’, coming to Ireland in a ‘cloud of great conflict of arrachta’ (Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, IV, p. 212); and úath ‘horror’ is used as an equivalent of gúdeman ‘lying demon’ and also of Morrígain in the glossary Sanas Cormaic (Meyer, Sanas Cormaic, § 697). 38 Carey, ‘Myth and Mythography’. 39 McCone, ‘Tale of Two Ditties’, esp. p. 136: Chesnutt, ‘Cath Maige Tuired’. 40 O’Brien, Corpus genealogiarum Hiberniae, p. 20.

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and to the Isle of Man. 41 The seventh- or eighth-century text Forfess Fer Fálgae refers to the king of the men of Fál or Fálgae as ‘king of the Fomoiri’, also identifying the men of Fálgae as the inhabitants of Man. 42 In Togail Bruidne Da Derga, besides the trio of captive Fomoiri who have already been mentioned, there is also a trio of captive men of Fálgae: although these are not identified as Fomoiri, their size, ferocity, grotesque hairiness and terrifying aspect suggest that they are beings of the same kind. 43 The Fomoiri who followed Cichol to Ireland are associated in some accounts with the east:44 with Mount Caucasus, and with the more mysterious mountain, or lands, of Amór or Emór. 45 What is this latter region? A notional etymology for Fomoiri may be implicit in the name: in fact Fomoir and Omhóir appear as variants of Amóir in one of the poems in which the name occurs, while another such poem describes Cichol as the great-greatgrandson of ‘Gumór across the sea from the east, from whom the Fomóraig are named’. 46 R.A.S. Macalister suggested that ‘[i]f it be necessary to seek any terrestrial identification for Sliab Emor […] we might perhaps suggest Mount Hermon’.47 As an alternative, I propose that this may be the territory of the Amorites, one of the peoples whom the Israelites defeated in the course of establishing themselves in the Promised Land. There are various references in scripture to the Amorites as dwelling in mountains; thus in Numbers 13:30, scouts return and tell the Israelites that, among other peoples, the Amorites live in the mountains (Amorrhaeus in montanis). Even more strikingly, the same scouts go on to say in verses 33–34 that the people of those regions ‘are of great stature […], certain monsters of the sons of Anak, of a giant race. Compared to them, we seemed like grasshoppers’; and in Amos 2:9, the Amorites are said to be as tall as cedars, and as strong as oaks. Og of Bashan, one of the kings of the Amorites, is said in Deuteronomy 3:11 to have been the only survivor of ‘the race of the giants’. 48 On the basis 41 Knott, Togail Bruidne Da Derga, p. 27, l. 918; Gray, Cath Maige Tuired, p. 36, l. 196; Windisch, ‘Tochmarc Ferbe’, pp. 474–475. 42 Thurneysen, ‘Zu irischen Handschriften’, pp. 53–58; translation of the narrative section on p. 55. Cf. the excellent discussion in Hellmuth, ‘Zu Forfess Fer Fálgae’. 43 Knott, Togail Bruidne Da Derga, pp. 38–39. 44 Cf. the reference to a troop of Fomoiri coming ‘from the east’ (anair) in the poem Tochmarc ingine Guill glais (Gwynn, Metrical Dindshenchas, III, p. 80). 45 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, III, p. 74; cf. Gwynn, Metrical Dindshenchas, III, p. 184, and Stokes, ‘Prose Tales’, pp. 431–432, § 41. In the dindṡenchas account Cichol is the enemy not of Partholón, but of the Gaelic settlers led by the sons of Míl Espáine. 46 See preceding note. 47 Lebor Gabála Érenn, II, pp. 258–259. 48 Deuteronomy 3:11: ‘Solus quippe Og rex Basan restiterat de stirpe gigantum’.

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of such references, later Jewish legend imagined the Amorites as having been eighteen cubits tall, and assigned even more extravagant dimensions to their kings Og and Sihon;49 one can see why a medieval Irish scholar, looking in the Bible for a homeland for the giant Fomoiri, might have made such an identification. The Fomoiri also came to be associated with Africa in the Middle Irish period, a localization that will be discussed below. It is Cath Maige Tuired which first links the Fomoiri specifically with Scandinavia. For the mustering of the invading army, we are told that Bres’s father sent him to Balor grandson of Nét, the king of the Islands, and to Indech mac Dé Domnann, the king of the Fomoiri; and they assembled all that there was of hosts from Lochlainn50 westwards to Ireland […] so that there was a single bridge of ships [made] by them, from the Islands of the Foreigners51 to Ireland. There had not come to Ireland any company that was greater in horror or dread than that army of the Fomoiri. The man from Scythia of Lochlainn and [the man] from the Islands of the Foreigners were competing with one another at that hosting.52

Differently conceived, the association of the Fomoiri with the Hebrides appears again in an episode added to the saga Tochmarc Emire, where three Fomoiri come to the Hebrides from a ‘distant island’ (indsi etircéin) to take the king’s daughter as tribute;53 and an interlinear gloss in one copy of the prose Banṡenchas, a catalogue of eminent women, identifies a king of the Fomoiri as having been king of Finland.54 The link with Scandinavia was taken for granted by the seventeenth-century scholar Dubhaltach Mac Firbhisigh in his Great Book of Genealogies, in which he classed the Fomoiri together with the Scandinavians in his section on ‘foreigners’ (eachtrannaigh).55 Seen from one angle, such an identification serves to 49 Ginzburg, Legends of the Jews, III, pp. 340–346, VI, p. 120. 50 The name of a Scandinavian region. 51 The Hebrides. 52 Gray, Cath Maige Tuired, pp. 36–39, ll. 222–229. 53 Hamel, Compert Con Culainn and Other Stories, p. 61. An embellished version of the same episode appears in the later tale Foglaim Con Culainn: Stokes, ‘Training of Cúchulainn’, pp. 140–143. Here the setting is the Shetlands, and the Fomoiri are identified as the three sons of Allatrom. 54 Dobbs, ‘Ban-shenchus (Suite)’, p. 175: ‘.i. ri Fomoiri .i. Finnlaindi’. 55 Ó Muraíle, Leabhar Mór na nGenealach, III, p. 44 § 768.1.

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euhemerize the lore of hostile spirits; seen from another, it demonizes the stranger. It may be noted that some modern scholars have speculated that stories of the Fomoiri were inspired by contacts with actual hostile populations, situating these events however long before the Viking invasions. I have already mentioned the conjectures of Kuno Meyer, who suggested that the Fomoiri had been an ancient people living in County Wicklow.56 T.F. O’Rahilly dismissed this view, but still held that ‘it is possible – perhaps even probable – that Fomoire was originally a name or nickname applied, not to mythical beings, but to real pirates who infested the Irish coast’.57 A rather different hypothesis was advanced by Eoin MacNeill, who proposed that the Fomoiri had been the gods of enemies of the ancient Celts on the Continent, ‘perhaps in part identical with, in part associated with, the gods of the peoples dwelling on the shores of those northern seas [i.e. the Baltic and the North Sea] before the Celtic expansion northward and north-westward’.58 But a historic, or prehistoric, scenario for the origin of the Fomoiri is no longer, to the best of my knowledge, current in mainstream scholarship.

Fomoiri as Monsters Another trait often assigned to the Fomoiri is deformity: thus Rhŷs spoke of them as ‘blighting monsters’ and ‘malevolent giants’.59 We have already seen the ghastly description of the three Fomoiri in Togail Bruidne Da Derga, and the army of men with single arms and single legs who opposed Partholón; and a reference to Partholón which may go back to the eighth century refers to his enemies as Conchinn or ‘Dog-heads’, appearing to identify them with the Cynocephali, one of the monstrous races of antiquity.60 In most of the earlier mentions of Fomoiri, however, there is nothing to indicate that their appearance is at all out of the ordinary; in Cath Maige Tuired, indeed, the only ones among the Fomoiri whose looks feature in the story are described as being irresistibly alluring: Elatha mac Delbaíth, whose matchless handsomeness effortlessly seduces the maiden Ériu; and the 56 Meyer, Über die älteste irische Dichtung, vol. 2, p. 6. 57 O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology, p. 525. 58 MacNeill, Phases of Irish History, p. 88. 59 Lectures, p. 605; and cf. p. 583: ‘not men, but demons and monsters’. 60 Thurneysen, ‘Zu irischen Handschriften’, p. 24; cf. the discussion in Bernhardt-House, Werewolves, pp. 300–307.

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daughter of Indech, whose ‘striking appearance’ has a similar effect upon the Dagda.61 In the Middle Irish period, however, we begin to encounter references to the Fomoiri in which their monstrousness appears to be intrinsic to their identity. The description of the Fomoiri who opposed Partholón as ‘men with single arms and single legs’ may mean only that they had assumed a magical posture, closely resembling a posture assumed by Lug in his role as champion of the Túatha Dé,62 or by a master poet when uttering a particularly devastating satire;63 indeed, the second and third recensions of Lebor Gabála Érenn state that nobody was killed in the conflict between Partholón and Cichol, ‘for it was a magic battle’.64 But the words were clearly taken to refer to actual deformity in a poem which not only repeats that Cichol’s men had single arms and legs, but then adds that Cichol was accompanied by his mother, who alone was as strong as the rest of his army, and who had her mouth in her chest and four eyes in her back.65 Irish accounts of the origins of the monstrous races of mankind – which, like other medieval writings on the subject, derive such beings variously from Cain and from Ham – list them as ‘the monsters of the world, i.e. Fomoiri, and leprechauns, and every monstrous misshaped form that existed among people’.66 One brief text undertakes to explain how Fomoiri and leprechauns could be descended from Cain, and still have survived the Flood, by deriving them from a daughter of Cain who had become a mermaid.67 A late, and particularly puzzling, reference to the monstrous appearance of the Fomoiri is the phrase Fuath na bhFomaraidh: this stood, as if it were its title, on the cover which the manuscript now known as Royal Irish Academy 23 N 10 had when it was still in the possession of Sir William 61 Gray, Cath Maige Tuired, p. 26, l. 47 (Elatha mac Delbaíth: ‘ba ferr delph’); p. 46, ll. 400–401 (the daughter of Indech: ‘go ndeilb nderscoighte’). The champion Balor has a deadly eye; but this is due to a childhood accident, not to his ancestry (p. 60, ll. 619–626). 62 Gray, Cath Maige Tuired, p. 58, § 129. 63 Stokes, ‘O’Davoren’s Glossary’, p. 257, § 383. 64 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, III, p. 12 § 216. 65 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, III, p. 74. 66 Ó Cróinín, Irish Sex Aetates Mundi, § 17: ‘torothuir in domuin .i. fomoraig ⁊ luchorpáin ⁊ cech n-écosc torothorda ṅdodelbda ro-buí for doínib’. Cf. § 34: ‘luchorpáin ⁊ fomoraig ⁊ goborchinn ⁊ cach écosc dodelbda archena fil for doínib’; and the poem Rédig dam, a Dé, do nim, which begins its list of Ham’s monstrous descendants with ‘goborchinn is fomoraig, / líne luchorpán lerda / is cach díne dodelbda’ (p. 100, q. 20). The sources, their background, and earlier scholarship on the subject have been excellently treated in two recent articles: Rodway, ‘Mermaids’; and Clarke, ‘Lore of the Monstrous Races’. 67 Edition and translation in Rodway, ‘Mermaids’, pp. 1–2.

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Betham in the early nineteenth century.68 Depending on how one renders the word fúath, this can be understood as ‘The Form of the Fomoiri’ or ‘The Monstrous Apparition of the Fomoiri’; whatever the reasons for the phrase having been written on the manuscript’s cover, it evidently refers to the Fomoiri’s disturbing appearance.69 The pairing of the Fomoiri in Sex Aetates Mundi with leprechauns, whose main characteristic is their diminutive size, indicates that the deformity of the former was held to consist to a great extent in their being giants, whatever other traits they may have had. This understanding of their nature was evidently widespread from at least the eleventh century onward. Thus in the Book of Leinster version of Táin Bó Cúailnge, when the hero Cú Chulainn swells up in his battle-frenzy, he is said to grow ‘as great as a Fomoir, or as a man of the sea’;70 and even the biblical giant Goliath is called a Fomoir.71 Gerald of Wales, including a précis of Lebor Gabála Érenn in his Topographia Hiberniae in the late twelfth century, spoke of the Fomoiri as pirates, but also as gigantes.72 Another and more oblique reflection of the notion of the Fomoiri as giants may be afforded by an allusion, in Lebor Gabála Érenn, to a story in which Fomoiri have the role assigned to giants in similar tales attested elsewhere, an early specimen occurring in Snorri Sturluson’s Gylfaginning.73 But, while giant size and monstrous appearance are clearly frequent characteristics of the Fomoiri, they cannot be regarded as distinguishing them from the Túatha Dé. The latter can be giants also, as in the Middle Irish anecdote in which the poet Mac Coise meets a woman from the síd who is 68 The late Richard Sharpe discussed this (now vanished) cover in his lecture ‘The Manuscript in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, contributed to the conference ‘“A little remnant of the work of the ancients”: 23 N 10 – the Book of Ballycummin’, held at the Royal Irish Academy, 7–8 March 2019. Betham himself took the phrase to be the manuscript’s title: Etruria-Celtica, I, p. 49. 69 Cichol’s mother is called a fuath (glossed arracht) in a section of the poem Sechtmad gabáil rodus gab as this was incorporated into the poem Partholón can as tánic in the Ó Cléirigh recension of Lebor Gabála Érenn: Macalister and MacNeill, p. 50. 70 O’Rahilly, Táin Bó Cualnge from the Book of Leinster, l. 3319: ‘métithir ra fomóir ná re fer mara’. 71 Meyer, ‘Mitteilungen aus irischen Handschriften’, p. 176: ‘Golias .i. in fomoir’. 72 O’Meara, ‘Giraldus Cambrensis in Topographia Hibernie’, p. 158, III. 2–3. Further support for this identification might have come to Gerald from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae: not only did Geoffrey speak of giants as having been the original inhabitants of Britain, but he also wrote of giants as having come to Ireland from Africa (home of the descendants of Ham) in ancient times (Wright, Historia Regum Britannie, pp. 13, 90–91). 73 I have noted this apparent parallel in ‘Native Elements’, p. 52. The tale-type is classified as ATU 1099 ‘The Giant as Master Builder’ in Uther, Types of International Folktales, II, pp. 37–38.

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‘huge, immeasurable, beyond the women of her time’, lamenting the death of a lover who, when his body is found, proves to be twenty-five feet tall.74 And the Túatha Dé, too, can appear in preternaturally grotesque or hideous forms.75 Among the supernatural characters in Togail Bruidne Da Derga, three red riders from the síde can be seen to be monstrous from the circumstance that not only their accoutrements, and their horses, and their hair, but even their teeth, are red.76 Although sinister, these beings are instruments of ill fortune rather than actual agents of harm. Similar but far more deadly figures appear a few centuries later in Acallam na Senórach: the three sons of Úar son of Indast, of the Túath Dé Donann, who are described as ‘three bald red rascals, and three red hounds in their hands; and they had three spears, and there was poison on their weapons, and poison on their clothing, and poison on their hands, and poison on their feet, and poison upon everything which they would touch’. Their intention is to bring desolation to all Ireland.77 In Feis Tighe Chonáin, a Fenian text of the later Middle Ages, we encounter an entity who seems obviously to be one of the Fomoiri: A crooked, tanned, jet-black, defective, horrible giant (aitheach) […], and he on one foot and one hand and one eye (ar leath-chois ⁊ ar leath-lāim ⁊ leat[h]-shūil) […] and his chest was [leaning] on the thick iron staff that he had, and there were nine ridges upon it, and each ridge of them would cut a hair, driven by a stream or by the wind.78

This stranger proves, however, to be the son of the steward of the great síd of Brug na Bóinne: one of the Túatha Dé, who has gone into this form (insna reachtuibh-si) only temporarily. Similarly, in the tale Bó Bithblicht meic Lonáin, Óengus – the lord of Brug na Bóinne himself – assumes the disguise

74 Meyer, ‘Elfenbegräbnis’. That the Túatha Dé are sometimes imagined as giants has also been discussed by Williams, Ireland’s Immortals, pp. 95–96. A further factor is the idea, by no means confined to Ireland, that the people of the past were ipso facto giants; an early Irish instance is the giant swineherd restored to life by Saint Patrick in Tírechán’s Collectanea: Bieler, Patrician Texts, p. 154. 75 There are also, of course, many monstrous beings in the literature who are not identified as belonging either to the Fomoiri or to the Túatha Dé. Two examples from among many are Fer Caille with his wife Cichuil (Knott, Togail Bruidne Da Derga, p. 11), and the two-headed marauder Garb of Glenn Rige (Stokes, ‘Violent Deaths of Goll and Garb’, pp. 422–424). 76 Knott, Togail Bruidne Da Derga, p. 9; cf. p. 40. 77 Stokes, ‘Acallamh na Senórach’, ll. 6147–6150. 78 Joynt, Feis Tighe Chonáin, p. 10.

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of a ‘great, barbarous aithech’ (giant or peasant).79 Monstrosity may be not the antithesis of the Túatha Dé, but one of their aspects.80

Fomoiri as Africans The idea that the Fomoiri were descended from Ham took on a life of its own, so that it is also found in contexts in which their monstrosity is not in question. Thus a collection of Fomoiri genealogies preserved in the manuscripts Rawlinson B 502 and the Great Book of Lecan, all of them going back to Ham, includes the ancestry of Bres, the villain of Cath Maige Tuired and a man of exceptional beauty.81 The prose version of the Banṡenchas lists the wives of Noah’s sons as Olla, Olivina, and Oliva: from Olla wife of Shem descend ‘the noble kindreds of the sons of Israel’, Olivina wife of Japhet is the ancestress of the Gaels and the other settlers of Ireland, while from Oliva wife of Ham were born ‘the Fomoiri with their subdivisions, in the islands of Africa’.82 In the Early Modern Irish version of Cath Maige Tuired, for which a date has been proposed at the end of the fourteenth century, the Fomoiri are said to come ‘from the frigid barren alien borders of Africa in the south’;83 and Geoffrey Keating, writing in the early seventeenth century, further elaborated on the idea by speaking of the Fomoiri as ‘mariners of the race of Ham who had travelled from Africa’, seeking to escape the consequences of the curse whereby Noah (in Genesis 9:27) had predestined the descendants of Ham to be in servitude to the descendants of Shem.84 This racial doctrine provided further support for the view that the Fomoiri were fundamentally distinct from the Túatha Dé, the position of Lebor Gabála Érenn being that the latter were descended from the people of Nemed, and thus ultimately from Noah’s son Japhet. Prior to the nineteenth century, the only voice raised against the doctrine of an African origin for the Fomoiri appears, so far at least as I have been able to determine, to have been that of Roderick O’Flaherty. In his Ogygia 79 Clifford, ‘Bó Bithblicht’. On the senses of aithech, see discussion below. 80 An especially striking and widely attested version of this theme, to which it is impossible to do justice here, is the capacity of supernatural women to have both beautiful and hideous aspects. For a treatment which sets the Celtic evidence in juxtaposition with instances from other traditions, see Coomaraswamy, ‘On the Loathly Bride’. 81 O’Brien, Corpus genealogiarum Hiberniae, pp. 330–332; for Bres’s good looks see Gray, Cath Maige Tuired, ll. 68–71. A related pedigree is provided for a kinswoman of the Fomoiri oppressors of the people of Nemed: Gwynn, Metrical Dindshenchas, IV, pp. 246–248. 82 Dobbs, ‘Ban-shenchus (Suite)’, p. 164. 83 Ó Cuív, Cath Muighe Tuireadh, p. 21. For the date, see Hoyne, ‘Political Context’. 84 Comyn and Dinneen, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, I, p. 178.

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of 1685, O’Flaherty pointed out that it was highly unlikely that Ireland had been repeatedly invaded from Africa, and shrewdly surmised that the Fomoiri were only said to be descended from Ham because they were regarded with hostility. Noting their close relations with the Túatha Dé, he proposed that both had originated in Scandinavia, citing in support of this scenario the gloss linking the Fomoiri with Finland which has already been mentioned.85 But it was Keating’s view, not O’Flaherty’s, that prevailed: thus Charles Vallancey, writing a hundred years after Ogygia, affirmed that ‘Fomoraigh Afrik is a general name in Irish history for the Carthaginians; the name signifies Marine Heroes or Princes’;86 and Robert Graves, in The White Goddess, identified the leprechauns and Fomoiri of Sex Aetates Mundi as ‘pigmies’ and ‘African aborigines’ respectively.87 As if to confirm that no idea can ever be declared irrevocably dead, the African homeland of the Fomoiri has reappeared in an article of 2002 in which Donald M. Schlegel not only argues that the Fomoiri were settlers from Carthage, but even provides a Punic etymology for their name.88

Fomoiri and Social Hierarchy There is another major mythological interpretation of the Fomoiri, besides the view of them as gods of darkness and death which has already been mentioned. This is that of the eminent French mythologist Georges Dumézil, who understood the pantheons of the various Indo-European peoples as reflections of the structure of Proto-Indo-European society, a society which he held to have been divided into three ‘functions’ or classes of priests, warriors, and producers of material necessities. Dumézil explained the difference between the Túatha Dé Donann and the Fomoiri accordingly: for him, the Túatha Dé correspond to the priestly and warrior classes, while the Fomoiri correspond to the producers.89 It seems to me that there are good grounds for rejecting this interpretation. The Fomoiri are repeatedly portrayed as ravagers, destroyers, and aggressors, 85 O’Flaherty, Ogygia, pp. 11–13. In the same passage, O’Flaherty notes the possibility that the Fomoiri may have been the first inhabitants of Ireland (‘Hiberniæ Aborigines’, p. 11). 86 Vallancey, Vindication, p. 102. 87 Graves, White Goddess, p. 219. In a footnote, Graves went on to state in this connection: ‘Demons or bogies are invariably the reduced gods or priests of a superseded religion’. 88 Schlegel, ‘Reweaving the Tapestry’, pp. 708–713. 89 Thus: Dumézil, Mitra-Varuna, pp. 108–110, 124–128; Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus, pp. 167–173; Servius et la fortune, pp. 230–241; Mythe et épopée, I, pp. 289–290.

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rather than as providers.90 Such indications of their mode of subsistence as there are associate them with hunting, not with the agriculture and cattlerearing that were central to the early Irish economy. The second recension of Lebor Gabála Érenn states that, before the coming of Partholón, the Fomoiri subsisted in Ireland by fishing and catching birds.91 When it is subsequently stated that after their conquest of the people of Nemed the Fomoiri made Ireland into a ‘land of sheep’, in which the populace did not dare to let the smoke of their houses be seen by day, the implication presumably is that the land was left uncultivated, not that the Fomoiri were shepherds.92 So far as I am aware, the only evidence that has been advanced in support of Dumézil’s view is a single passage in Cath Maige Tuired, in which Bres buys his life by telling the Túatha Dé the correct days on which to plough, sow, and reap.93 Whatever precisely is going on in this scene – and many efforts at interpretation have been devoted to it – I do not think that it outweighs the testimony of our other sources.94 Dumézil’s proposal is however interesting, as it suggests a further category of ‘otherness’ with which the Fomoiri can potentially be associated: that of social difference from the literate elite and their aristocratic patrons. In fact, lower social class was linked with the monstrous, and even with the supernatural, in various medieval literatures: outside Ireland, examples of such a linkage are afforded by some of the grotesque churls of Old French romance. Thus, in the Chevalier au Lion of Chrétien de Troyes, Calogrenant has an encounter in a forest with ‘a vileins who resembled Death […], so excessively ugly a creature that a mouth cannot utter it.’ Shaggy, twisted, and more than seventeen feet tall, this being is said to have the ears of an elephant, the eyes of an owl, the nose of a cat, the mouth of a wolf, and the tusks of a boar; he leans upon a massive club, and is dressed only in the freshly flayed hides of two bulls or oxen.95 Intriguingly, the Welsh rendering of the same story turns this character into a figure with a distinctly ‘Fomorian’ flavour: ‘a great swarthy man […] who is not less than two men of the men of this 90 To the references to oppressive tribute noted above may be added the statement in Tochmarc Emire that, before their defeat in the battle of Mag Tuired, the Fomoiri demanded two thirds of the grain, milk, and children of the Túatha Dé: Hamel, Compert Con Culainn and Other Stories, p. 36. 91 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, III, p. 10, § 213, p. 14, § 218. 92 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, III, p. 138, § 255. 93 Gray, Cath Maige Tuired, pp. 66–68. 94 Cf. the sceptical observations in Williams, Ireland’s Immortals, pp. 108–110. 95 Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au Lion, ll. 286–320. Compare Suchier, Aucassin et Nicolette, p. 28; Hill, La Mule sanz Frain, p. 33.

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world; and he has one foot, and one eye in the centre of his forehead, and he has an iron staff in his hand, and you may be sure that there are no two men in the world who would not find their burden in the staff’.96 Ideas of the same kind can be detected considerably earlier in Ireland. Here the word aithech, the original meaning of which is ‘commoner’ or ‘peasant’, is already applied to a hostile spectre (scál) in the tenth-century tale Fled Bricrenn;97 and aithech is likewise presumably intended to connote monstrosity when it is used to designate the three captive men of Fálgae in Togail Bruidne Da Derga.98 In the Middle Irish version of the Ulysses story the giant corresponding to Polyphemus is an aithech also,99 and the sixteenth-century Irish rendering of Visio Tnugdali has athaig for gigantes in the original.100 Aithech is used for ‘giant’ in William Bedell’s seventeenthcentury translation of the Old Testament;101 and fathach, another form of the same word, is the standard term for ‘giant’ in Modern Irish and Scots Gaelic. Gradually these gigantic and monstrous commoners, and the gigantic and monstrous Fomoiri, were assimilated to one another by a process of mutual attraction: in such Early Modern Irish texts as Feis Tighe Chonáin and Stair Ercuil, the words aithech/fathach and Fomoir are used as synonyms.102 Later still, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the savage social satire Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis portrays the peasantry as being descended from demons, and gives some of them names that seem to be borrowed or imitated from those of Fomoiri in the Early Modern Irish Cath Maige Tuired.103 The Fomoiri have acquired yet another negative projection: besides being foreign, demonic, monstrous, and racially inferior, they are lower-class. All of these elements converge in the Early Modern Irish tale Tóruigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne, in a figure who is however not said to be one of the Fomoiri, but who is rather described as belonging to the Túatha Dé.104 96 Thomson, Owein, p. 5, ll. 108–111. 97 Henderson, Fled Bricrend, p. 48, ll. 4, 19. 98 Knott, Togail Bruidne Da Derga, p. 39, l. 1287. 99 Meyer, Merugud Uilix maic Leirtis, ll. 51, 66. 100 Wagner, Visio Tnugdali, p. 17, l. 13; Friedel and Meyer, Vision de Tondale, pp. 98–99. 101 For example, Genesis 6:4: ‘Do bhádar aithithe ar an ttalamh ann sna laethibh sin’. 102 In the former tale, an ogre is called a fathach and a fomoir in consecutive sentences: Joynt, Feis Tighe Chonáin, ll. 883–884. For instances of the same being or beings referred to by both terms, see e.g. Quin, Stair Ercuil, ll. 267, 1660–1661, 1875–1881, 2290–2292. 103 See the discussion by Williams, Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis, pp. 117–118. Williams’s view that the derivation may have been in the other direction appears to be ruled out by the most recent arguments for the date of the Early Modern Irish Cath Maige Tuired (see note 83 above). 104 This is to be inferred from the statement that he is ‘a guard of their own’ (‘coimhéad uatha féin’).

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This is the Searbhán Lochlannach: the epithet Lochlannach associates him with Scandinavia, and with the Vikings, while the text assigns him also to ‘the progeny of the sinful Ham son of Noah’. He is called an aithech, whether this word is to be translated as ‘churl’ or ‘giant’ or both; and he has only one eye, set high up in his forehead.105 The Searbhán is a prototypical Fomoir – except that he belongs to the people of the síde.106 I find it interesting that, so far as we can tell, the earliest Irish belief was not in a bipolar supernatural realm but in a single one, whose inhabitants could be both benevolent and hostile, both beautiful and monstrous. It should be noted that, despite the general acceptance of Arbois de Jubainville’s model of Celtic gods of light vs. gods of darkness, this more holistic view was already affirmed by John Rhŷs, as early as 1892: The classification, frequently made by writers on classical mythology, into light and dark divinities, fails entirely to meet the case before us, even if it does any other on a large scale, which may be doubted. For the Tuatha Dé Danann contain among them light and dark divinities, and those standing sometimes in the relation of parents and offspring to one another. Some members of the Irish pantheon are cruel and repellent characters, but on occasion they may prove friendly.107

It is intriguing to see that Rhŷs was sceptical of a mythological ‘classification […] into light and dark divinities’ in general, not just in the Celtic case. The notion that forces of supernatural good are opposed by powers of darkness and destruction was not, so far as the available evidence indicates, a part of the world-view of the pre-Christian Irish; and even after certain influential texts had portrayed the Fomoiri as the foes of the Túatha Dé, and this view had been further elaborated in some later writings, it was a construct that never prevailed in the tradition as a whole. People always knew that there was as much danger as there was benevolence in the people of the síde: the expression ‘the good people’ was always understood to be an apotropaic euphemism. In fact, the dualistic schema of contrary pantheons 105 Ní Shéaghdha, Tóruigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne, p. 52. 106 Such beings are also not assigned to the Fomoiri in later sources. An instance is the ‘monster’ (arrachtaidhe) with a single eye, arm, and leg in the version of the tale Eachtra Iollainn Airmdheirg ed. by Ó Neachtain and Mac Piarais, ‘Tóraidheacht Fhiacail Ríogh Gréag’, 29 October 1904, p. 4, § 40; for a closely similar account of a fachan (a term presumably derived from a diminutive form of fathach), see Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, IV, pp. 297–298. 107 Lectures, pp. 603–604.

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appears to reflect not the concerns of the earliest Irish, but our own. Why this schema was articulated with such insistence in the nineteenth century, and why it has continued to exercise such persuasion into our own time, are fascinating questions. Such questions would be rewarding subjects for another study – a study very different in kind from the present one.108

Bibliography Arbois de Jubainville, Henri d’, Le Cycle mythologique irlandais et la mythologie celtique (Paris: Ernest Thorin, 1884). Arbois de Jubainville, Henri d’, The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology, trans. by R.I. Best (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., 1903). Arbuthnot, Sharon, ed. and trans., Cóir Anmann: A Late Middle Irish Treatise on Personal Names, Irish Texts Society 59–60, 2 vols. (London: Irish Texts Society, 2005–2007). ATU = Uther, Hans-Jörg, The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Folklore Fellows Communications 284–286 (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004). Bernhardt-House, Phillip, Werewolves, Magical Hounds, and Dog-headed Men in Celtic Literature: A Typological Study of Shape-shifting (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010). Betham, William, The Gael and Cymbri (Dublin: William Curry, 1834). Betham, William, Etruria-Celtica: Etruscan Literature and Antiquities Investigated; or, The Language of that Ancient and Illustrious People Compared and Identified with the Iberno-Celtic, and Both Shown to be Phœnician, 2 vols. (Dublin: Philip Dixon Hardy and Sons, 1842). Bieler, Ludwig, ed. and trans. The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 10 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1979; reprint 2004). Campbell, J.F., ed. and trans., Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 4 vols., 2nd ed. (Paisley and London: Alexander Gardner, 1893). Carey, John, ‘The Name “Tuatha Dé Danann”’, Éigse 18.2 (1981), 291–294. 108 One may think here of the words of Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, p. 103: ‘It seems as if the development of the feeling function in Western man forced a choice on him which led to the moral splitting of the divinity into two halves.’ Compare Jung, Aion, p. 42: ‘In the empirical self, light and shadow form a paradoxical unity. In the Christian concept, on the other hand, the archetype is hopelessly split into two irreconcilable halves, leading ultimately to a metaphysical dualism – the final separation of the kingdom of heaven from the fiery world of the damned.’

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Carey, John, ‘Myth and Mythography in Cath Maige Tuired’, Studia Celtica 24–25 (1989–1990), 53–69. Carey, John, ‘Native Elements in Irish Pseudohistory’, in Cultural Identity and Cultural Integration: Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Doris Edel (Blackrock: Four Courts Press, 1995), pp. 45–60. Carey, John, ‘Fomoiri’, in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. by John T. Koch (general editor), 5 vols. (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2006), II, p. 762. Carey, John, A Single Ray of the Sun: Religious Speculation in Early Ireland, 2nd ed. (Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 2011). Carey, John, The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature, Cork Studies in Celtic Literature 3 (Cork: Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures, 2018). Chesnutt, Michael, ‘Cath Maige Tuired: A Parable of the Battle of Clontarf’, in Northern Lights: Following Folklore in North-western Europe. Essays in Honour of Bo Almqvist, ed. by Séamas Ó Catháin and Patricia Lysaght (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2001), pp. 22–33. Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain), ed. by Mario Roques (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1963). Clarke, Michael, ‘The Lore of the Monstrous Races in the Developing Text of the Irish Sex Aetates Mundi’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 63 (Summer 2012), 15–49. Clifford, Diarmuid, ed. and trans., ‘Bó Bithblicht meic Lonán: Eagrán de sceal faoi Flann mac Lonán’, Celtica 25 (2007), 9–39. Comyn, David, and Patrick S. Dinneen, ed. and trans., Foras Feasa ar Éirinn: The History of Ireland by Geoffrey Keating D.D., Irish Texts Society 4, 8, 9, 15, 4 vols. (London: Irish Texts Society, 1902–1914). Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., ‘On the Loathly Bride’, Speculum 20 (1945), 391–404. Dobbs, Margaret Emmeline Conway, ed. and trans., ‘The Ban-shenchus (Suite)’, Revue celtique 48 (1931), 163–234. Dumézil, Georges, Mitra-Varuna: Essai sur deux représentations indo-européennes de la souveraineté (Paris: Leroux, 1940). Dumézil, Georges, Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus: Essai sur la conception indo-européenne de la société et sur les origines de Rome (Paris: Gallimard, 1941). Dumézil, Georges, Servius et la fortune: Essai sur la fonction sociale de Louange et de Blâme et sur les éléments indo-européens du cens romain (Paris: Gallimard, 1943). Dumézil, Georges, Mythe et épopée: L’idéologie des trois fonctions dans les épopées des peuples indo-européens, 3 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1968–1973). Friedel, Victor-Henri, and Kuno Meyer, ed. and trans., La vision de Tondale (Tnudgal): Textes français, anglo-normand et irlandais (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1907). Ginzburg, Louis, The Legends of the Jews, trans. H. Szold, 7 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1900).

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Graves, Robert, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, rev. ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 1961). Gray, Elizabeth A., ed. and trans., Cath Maige Tuired: The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, Irish Texts Society 52 (London: Irish Texts Society, 1982). Gwynn, Edward John, ed. and trans., The Metrical Dindshenchas, Parts I–V, Todd Lecture Series 8–12 (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1903–1935). Hamel, A.G. van, ed., Lebor Bretnach: The Irish Version of the Historia Britonum Ascribed to Nennius (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1932). Hamel, A.G. van, ed., Compert Con Culainn and Other Stories, Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 3 (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1933). Hellmuth, Petra S., ‘Zu Forfess Fer Fálgae’, in Keltologie heute: Themen und Fragestellungen. Akten des 3. Deutschen Keltologensymposiums, Marburg, März 2001, ed. by Erich Poppe, Studien und Texte zur Keltologie 6 (Münster: Nodus, 2004), pp. 195–210. Henderson, George, ed. and trans., Fled Bricrend: The Feast of Bricriu, Irish Texts Society 2 (London: Irish Texts Society, 1899). Hennessy, William M., ed. and trans., Chronicum Scotorum: A Chronicle of Irish Affairs from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1135 (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1866). Hill, Raymond Thompson, ed., La Mule sanz Frain: An Arthurian Romance by Paiens de Maisieres (Baltimore: J.H. Furst, 1911). Hoyne, Mícheál, ‘The Political Context of Cath Muighe Tuireadh, the Early Modern Irish Version of the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh’, Ériu 63 (2013), 91–116. Hull, Vernam, ed. and trans., ‘De Gabáil in t-Ṡída (Concerning the Seizure of the Fairy Mound)’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 19 (1931), 53–58. Joynt, Maude, ed., Feis Tighe Chonáin, Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 7 (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1936). Jung, C.G., The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, trans. by R.F.C. Hull, 2nd ed., Collected Works of C.G. Jung 9.1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968). Jung, C.G., Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, trans. by R.F.C. Hull, 2nd ed., Collected Works of C. G. Jung 9.2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968). Knott, Eleanor, ed., Togail Bruidne Da Derga, Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 8 (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1936). Le Roux, Françoise, and Christian-Joseph Guyonvarc’h, La Société celtique dans l’idéologie trifonctionelle et la tradition religieuse indo-européennes (Rennes: Éditions Ouest-France, 1991). Macalister, Robert A. Stewart, ed. and trans., Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Parts I–V, Irish Texts Society 34, 35, 39, 41, 44, 5 vols. (London: Irish Texts Society, 1938–1956).

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Macalister, Robert A. Stewart, and John MacNeill, ed. and trans., Leabhar Gabhála – The Book of Conquests of Ireland: The Recension of Micheál Ó Cléirigh, I (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co., [1916]). Mac Cana, Proinsias, Celtic Mythology (New York: Peter Bedrick, 1985). MacNeill, Eoin, Phases of Irish History (Dublin: M.H. Gill, 1919). McCone, Kim, ‘A Tale of Two Ditties: Poet and Satirist in Cath Maige Tuired’, in Sages, Saints and Storytellers: Celtic Studies in Honour of Professor James Carney, ed. by Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Liam Breatnach, and Kim McCone (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1989), pp. 122–143. McCone, Kim, ed. and trans., Echtrae Chonnlai and the Beginnings of Vernacular Narrative Writing in Ireland: A Critical Edition with Introduction, Notes, Bibliography and Vocabulary, Maynooth Medieval Irish Texts 1 (Maynooth: Department of Old and Middle Irish, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2000). Meyer, Kuno, ed., Sanas Cormaic: An Old-Irish Glossary […] Edited from the Copy in the Yellow Book of Lecan, Anecdota from Irish Manuscripts 4 (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1912). Meyer, Kuno, ed., ‘Elfenbegräbnis’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 8 (1912), 559–560. Meyer, Kuno, ed., ‘Mitteilungen aus irischen Handschriften’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 9 (1913), 166–177. Meyer, Kuno, ed. and trans., Über die älteste irische Dichtung, 2 vols., Aus den Abhandlungen der Königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist Classe 6, 10 (Berlin, 1913–1914). Meyer, Kuno, ‘Zur keltischen Wortkunde V’, Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wisenschaften, Phil.-hist. Classe, 1914, pp. 630–642. Meyer, Robert T., ed., Merugud Uilix maic Leirtis, Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 17 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1977). Ní Shéaghdha, Nessa, ed. and trans., Tóruigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne: The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne, Irish Texts Society 48 (Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1967). O’Brien, M.A., ed., Corpus genealogiarum Hiberniae (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1962). Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás, ‘Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth’, in Folia Gadelica: Essays Presented by Former Students to R. A. Breatnach, ed. by Pádraig de Brún, Seán Ó Coileáin, and Pádraig Ó Riain (Cork: Cork University Press, 1983), pp. 1–19. Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí, ed. and trans., The Irish Sex Aetates Mundi (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983). Ó Cuív, Brian, ed., Cath Muighe Tuireadh: The Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1945). O’Flaherty, Roderick, Ogygia: seu, rerum hibernicarum chronologia (London: R. Everingham, 1685).

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O’Meara, John J., ed., ‘Giraldus Cambrensis in Topographia Hibernie: Text of the First Recension’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 52C (1948–1950), 113–178. Ó Muraíle, Nollaig, ed. and trans., Leabhar Mór na nGenealach: The Great Book of Irish Genealogies, 5 vols. (Dublin: De Búrca, 2003). Ó Neachtain, Eoghan and Pádraig Mac Piarais, ed., ‘Tóraidheacht Fhiacail Ríogh Gréag’, An Claidheamh Soluis, 9 July–3 December 1904. O’Rahilly, Cecile, ed. and trans., Táin Bó Cualnge from the Book of Leinster (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1970). O’Rahilly, Thomas Francis, Early Irish History and Mythology (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946). Olsen, Karin E., Conceptualizing the Enemy in Early Northwest Europe: Metaphors of Conflict and Alterity in Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Early Irish Poetry, Medieval Identities: Socio-Cultural Spaces 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016). Quin, Gordon, ed. and trans., Stair Ercuil ocus a Bás: The Life and Death of Hercules, Irish Texts Society 38 (Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1939). Ranke, F., ‘Alp’, in Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, ed. by H. BächtoldStäubli, 10 vols. (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1927–1942), I, pp. 281–305. Rhŷs, John, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Celtic Heathendom, 2nd ed. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1892). Rhŷs, John, Celtic Folklore Welsh and Manx, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901). Rodway, Simon, ‘Mermaids, Leprechauns, and Fomorians: A Middle Irish Account of the Descendants of Cain’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 59 (Summer 2010), 1–17. Schlegel, Donald M., ‘Reweaving the Tapestry of Ancient Ulster’, Clogher Record 17.3 (2002), 689–750. Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise, Dieux et héros des Celtes (Paris: Leroux, 1940). Stokes, Whitley, ‘On the Linguistic Value of the Irish Annals’, Transactions of the Philological Society, 1890, 365–433. Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans., ‘The Violent Deaths of Goll and Garb’, Revue celtique 14 (1893), 396–449. Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans., ‘The Prose Tales in the Rennes Dindṡenchas’, Revue celtique 15 (1894), 272–336, 418–484. Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans., ‘Acallamh na Senórach’, in Irische Texte, ed. by Whitley Stokes and Ernst Windisch, 4.1 (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1900). Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans., ‘O’Davoren’s Glossary’, Archiv für celtische Lexikographie 2 (1904), 197–504. Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans., ‘The Training of Cúchulainn’, Revue celtique 29 (1908), 109–152. Stokes, Whitley, and John Strachan, ed. and trans., Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: A Collection of Old-Irish Glosses, Scholia, Prose and Verse, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1901–1903).

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Suchier, Hermann, ed., Aucassin et Nicolette (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1909). Thomson, R.L., ed., Owein or Chwedyl Iarlles y Ffynnawn, Mediaeval and Modern Welsh Series 4 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1968). Thurneysen, Rudolf, ‘Zu irischen Handschriften und Litteraturdenkmälern’, Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (1912), Philologisch-historische Klasse, neue Folge 14.2. Thurneysen, Rudolf, Die irische Helden- und Königsage bis zum siebzehnten Jahrhundert (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1921). Thurneysen, Rudolf, A Grammar of Old Irish, trans. by Daniel A. Binchy and O. Bergin (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946). Uther, Hans-Jörg, The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Folklore Fellows Communications 284–286, 3 vols. (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004). Vallancey, Charles, A Vindication of the Ancient History of Ireland (Dublin: Luke White, 1786). Vendryes, Joseph, ed., Airne Fíngein, Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 15 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1953). Wagner, Albrecht, ed., Visio Tnugdali: lateinisch und altdeutsch (Erlangen: Andreas Deichert, 1882). Watson, James Carmichael, ed., Mesca Ulad, Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 13 (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1941). Williams, Mark, Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016). Williams, N.J.A., ed. and trans., Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1981). Windisch, Ernst, ed., ‘Tochmarc Ferbe’, in Irische Texte, ed. by Whitley Stokes and Ernst Windisch, 3.2 (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1897), pp. 445–556. Wright, Neil, ed., The Historia Regum Britannie of Geoffrey of Monmouth I: A Singlemanuscript Edition from Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS. 568 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1985).

About the Author John Carey is Professor of Early and Medieval Irish at University College Cork. He has written extensively on such subjects as Celtic divinities and the Irish Otherworld; his recent publications include The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature (2018).

2

Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri in Cath Maige Tuired Elizabeth A. Gray

Abstract In Cath Maige Tuired the Tuatha Dé (‘the peoples of the gods’) gain lasting peace in defeating an invasion by the Fomoiri, partly characterized by Ireland’s viking experiences. The enemies are, however, relatives. This study examines the tale’s portrayal of relationships of kinship and hostility that link Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri, selectively noting cultural contrasts between the two societies. Special attention is paid to apparent contradictions or disjunctions in the unfolding narrative, particularly in regard to the characterization of Elatha, king of the Fomoiri, father of the major Tuatha Dé leaders the Dagda and Ogma as well as of the half-Fomorian Bres, whose deposition from the Tuatha Dé kingship brings about the conflict. Keywords: Lug, Bríg, keening, satire, poet, hostage

In Cath Maige Tuired (‘The [Second] Battle of Mag Tuired’), the Tuatha Dé Danann (‘the peoples of the gods’ or ‘peoples of the goddess Danu’) defeat the vast invading army of a people known as Fomoiri at Mag Tuired (‘The Plain of the Pillars’) in Sligo.1 The Tuatha Dé victory rests upon the collaboration of 1 Unless otherwise specified, references to ‘The Second Battle’ or Cath Maige Tuired in the present article refer to the Harleian 5280 version of the tale edited by Gray in CMT. For the dating of the tale and the pseudohistorical tradition of two battles of Mag Tuired, the first fought between the Tuatha Dé and the Fir Bolg, the second between the Tuatha Dé and the Fomoiri, see Murphy, ‘Notes on Cath Maige Tuired’, CMT, pp. 1–22, esp. p. 11, and Breatnach, ‘The Lord’s Share’, p. 4. Regarding the development of the pseudohistorical approach to Irish prehistory that by the twelfth century had produced Lebor Gabála Érenn (‘The Book of Invasions of Ireland’), see the articles on this text by Scowcroft, and also Carey, A New Introduction, and Carey, ed., Lebor Gabála Érenn: Textual History and Pseudohistory. For the text itself, see Macalister.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch02

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an entire society – from smiths and physicians to poets and druids – as well as martial prowess, and heralds an enduring time of peace and prosperity for an Ireland untroubled by further Fomorian incursion. Set within an imagined pseudohistorical past that places Ireland within the larger literary context of biblical and classical history, Cath Maige Tuired operates as a multifaceted and paradigmatic theomachy illustrating the resilience of a well governed and well organized society against hostile external forces as well as the complex effects of non-martial relationships – kinship, alliance, marriage ties between potentially competitive peoples – on that society, whether understood as mortal or immortal. Within this literary construct, the victories of the Tuatha Dé occur inside a Christian temporal framework, their exemplary function existing and having value under Judgement. The tale ends with paired prophecies by the war goddess, the Morrígan: the first describes the fruits of peace that have been won, while the second envisions a darker time of social and natural disaster, silently prefiguring Christian eschatology and signifying Ireland’s eventual conversion, as well as reflecting Ireland’s experience with the Norse invasions. The characterization of the opposing forces and the nature of their interrelationships is far from uniform in medieval Irish literature, and narratorial perspective on the matter is not always provided. The Tuatha Dé may appear as gods of pre-Christian Ireland or as magically powerful mortals who descend from Noah, as demons, or even as semi-fallen angels.2 By the twelfth century, the evolving scheme of Irish pseudohistory had established the Tuatha Dé as early settlers of Ireland and distant relatives of the Irish themselves without fully resolving the question. Whatever their ontological status, the Tuatha Dé appear throughout medieval Irish literature as skilled practitioners of the arts and sciences whose expertise shaped later Irish professional practice; they are paradigmatic origin figures in narratives that record ‘first instances’ of Irish cultural practices that range from satire to lamenting the dead.3 The Fomoiri are similarly complex and ambiguous figures. Repeated invaders of Ireland arriving by sea, they are sometimes identified as belonging to the monstrous races descended from Cain or from Noah’s unfilial son Ham (or Cham).4 In Cath Maige Tuired, where the Fomoiri are aristocratic figures linked with the Tuatha Dé by marriage, they are also 2 Carey, ‘The Baptism of the Gods’. See also Williams, Ireland’s Immortals, pp. 3–276. 3 Within Cath Maige Tuired, the Tuatha Dé poet Coirpre composes Ireland’s first satire and Bríg invents keening when she grieves over her slain son (CMT, pp. 34–35, 56–57). 4 See Clarke, ‘The Lore of the Monstrous Races’; Rodway, ‘Mermaids, Leprachauns, and Fomorians’.

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depicted as harshly oppressive invaders – enemies whose portrayal, as has long been noted, was strongly influenced by the viking/Norse invasions.5 The conflict between Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri at Mag Tuired was a subject of interest and innovation in Irish literature from the ninth century to the seventeenth. Regarding the earliest evidence, Gerard Murphy concludes that ‘already in the ninth and tenth centuries there was widely-spread varied tradition in story-telling circles concerning the battle against the Fomoiri’.6 Only two narrative accounts of the battle survive. The earlier version of the tale appears in the sixteenth-century MS. Harleian 5280. The consensus of editors and commentators has been that the language of Cath Maige Tuired reflects ninth-century materials that were reworked around the eleventh or twelfth century, with the addition at some point of material from Lebor Gabála Érenn (‘The Book of Invasions of Ireland’) that anchors the conflict within the framework of successive pseudohistorical conquests. The later version of the tale is a seventeenth-century account in Early Modern Irish whose editor, Brian O Cuív, concludes that it is a composite tale, largely but not entirely independent of the Harleian 5280 version, and suggests that ‘there were probably several MS. versions in vogue between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries’.7 Beyond the two versions of the battle tale itself, the conflict at Mag Tuired was a productive reference point for imaginative literary elaboration regarding the adventures of the Tuatha Dé.8 Given the social and political changes taking place in Ireland from the ninth to twelfth centuries, we may well ask in what ways this cultural transformation shaped the portrayal of Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri in Cath Maige Tuired..9 While viking attacks had barely begun in 800, the ninth century saw not only devastating raids but also the foundation of permanent Norse settlements, including Dublin.10 Cultural assimilation accompanied this increasing stabilization, and political and marital alliances became commonplace. Regarding this process, Donnchadh Ó Corráin concludes: From the middle of the ninth century, intermarriage became common. Olaf, king of Dublin, for example, was married to the daughter of Áed 5 See Mac Cana, ‘The Influence of the Vikings’, pp. 78–118, esp. pp. 94–97. 6 Murphy, ‘Notes’, p. 196. See also Mac Cana, The Learned Tales of Medieval Ireland. 7 See Ó Cuív’s introduction to Cath Muighe Tuireadh, pp. 1–17, esp. 1–2, and the discussion of language and date, pp. 13–17. 8 See Carey, The Mythological Cycle, pp. 38–48. 9 On the cultural transformation, see Ó Corráin, Ireland Before the Normans, esp. pp. 80–110. 10 Ó Corráin, Ireland Before the Normans. On the development of towns, especially Dublin, see also Bhreathnach, Ireland in the Medieval World, pp. 30–37.

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Finnliath, king of the Northern Uí Néill and, if we may trust the Norse sagas, more than six Norse families were connected by marriage to Cerball, king of Osraige. By the middle of the ninth century, a whole generation of mixed Norse-Irish had grown up and Irishmen for two generations had been in close contact with the Norse on Irish soil.11

What follows will examine how Cath Maige Tuired operates as an unfolding narrative portraying relationships of kinship and alliance that link the Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri as well as the circumstances that bring them to armed combat, selectively noting the depiction of similarities and differences in culture between the two societies, and paying special attention to points of apparent narrative contradiction or disjunction.12 Cath Maige Tuired has ‘creaky joints’ – places where narrative expectations are undermined without comment, or where contradictory ‘facts’ are tacitly ignored, possible evidence that several strands of narrative were not completely harmonized. The Irish title that immediately precedes the tale is tripartite: ‘this tale below is the battle of mag tuired and the birth of bres son of elatha and his reign’.13 Given native Irish narrative genres whose subjects are births and battles, as well as purportedly historical tales of the lives of kings, the full title raises the possibility that once-separate elements from different genres have been assembled to create a single narrative. As with so many medieval Irish texts, it is difficult if not impossible to identify linguistic strata and their approximate dates of composition. Often what remains is a final version, possibly composite, that is sometimes contradictory or redundant in plot development and whose language is not all of a single period. Whatever the process of narrative formation, the final hand to shape Cath Maige Tuired was highly tolerant of ambiguity as well as implicit or explicit contradictions. 11 Ó Corráin, Ireland Before the Normans, p. 96, where he also comments on the conversion of the Norse to Christianity, noting that the annals mention the death of Ivar in 872 with the comment that ‘he rested in Christ’ and that between 860 and the early tenth century, the vikings are no longer referred to as pagans, while in the early tenth century, ‘pagan Vikings reappear in Ireland’. See, however, Jaski, ‘The Vikings and the Kingship of Tara’, esp. p. 320, n. 40. 12 For comments on aspects of redundancy in medieval Irish narrative, as illustrated by the story of Bres, see Ó Cathasaigh, ‘Cath Maige Tuired’, pp. 1–19, esp. pp. 2–6 and 14. On the operation of the principle of redundancy he notes, ‘This principle can operate within texts or among them, can be intratextual or intertextual’ (p. 14). Whether resulting from a deliberate compositional strategy or simply a failure to harmonize distinct components brought together in a single text for particular authorial purposes, narrative contradictions and redundancies create disjunctions that silently challenge the reader to interpret them. 13 CMT, pp. 24–25.

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Kinship and Alliance Kinship ties between the Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri are established early in the tale. Two short ‘prequels’ recount the circumstances of the birth of Lug and that of Bres, protagonists who model good leadership and failed kingship respectively, and who eventually face each other on the battlefield.14 Each is the child of a union between the two peoples. The reference to the birth of Lug, an event that occurs before the Tuatha Dé reach Ireland, is brief: ‘The Tuatha Dé then made an alliance with the Fomoiri, and Balor grandson of Nét gave his daughter Ethne to Cían the son of Dían Cécht’.15 Their son is Lug, whose eventual destruction of Balor’s evil eye will turn the tide of battle against Bres and his Fomorian supporters. In later folk material the motif of ‘the king and his prophesied death’ at the hands of a daughter’s son is firmly attached to Balor, who is understandably a most unwilling grandfather.16 In Cath Maige Tuired, on the other hand, the couple’s marriage is not only endorsed by the bride’s father, but creates an alliance of friendship/intermarriage (caratrad) between the two peoples, a bond to be reinforced over time by the birth of children and the ongoing formation of new families.17 The second prequel, a detailed account of the conception of Bres, has supernatural overtones.18 In a meeting between strangers by the seashore, Ériu, a woman of the Tuatha Dé and daughter of Delbaeth, first sees a mysterious silver vessel moving toward her over a calm sea.19 ‘Then she saw that it was a man of fairest appearance’, a well-dressed and well-armed stranger who invites her to make love.20 Language is apparently no barrier, and Ériu’s coy but careful answer, that she has made no assignation with him, indirectly addresses possible legal obligations arising from their union, since under Irish law a woman in such circumstances would not be legally responsible for a child born to the couple.21 The stranger is undeterred, and 14 For the birth of Lug, see CMT, § 8, pp. 24–25, and for the birth of Bres, §§ 14–23, pp. 26–29. 15 CMT, § 8, p. 25. 16 See Ó Súilleabháin and Christiansen, The Types of the Irish Folktale, p. 185, Type 934 C* ‘Man will Die if he ever Sees his Daughter’s Son’. For an early comparative study of the Irish folk tale, see also Krappe, Balor with the Evil Eye. For folk traditions regarding Lug, see O’Cuív, Cath Muighe Tuireadh, p. 8, n. 4; MacNeill, The Festival of Lughnasa. 17 eDIL s.v. caratrad or dil.ie/8219 18 CMT, §§ 15–23, pp. 26–29. 19 CMT, § 16, pp. 26–27. 20 CMT, §§ 16–22, pp. 26–29. 21 See Gray, ‘Cath Maige Tuired: Myth and Structure (1–24)’, for a discussion of the conception of Bres that assumed the existence of a separate birth tale subsequently incorporated into a

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when they are about to part, identifies himself as Elatha, son of Delbaeth, king of the Fomoiri, giving her his ring, physical evidence that could (and in the event does) support a future claim of paternity. He prophesies that she will have a son who will be Ireland’s paradigm of beauty for objects as well as living beings, and bestows on him a fitting name, Eochaid Bres ‘Eochaid the beautiful’.22 In terms of genre, the conception of Bres is the birth tale of a deity or a hero, inviting comparison with Immram Brain, ‘The Voyage of Bran’, and the birth of the royal hero Mongán predicted by his father, the sea-god Manannan, who appears in his chariot riding over the sea.23 For Elatha the meeting is purposeful. He apparently knows where and how to find Ériu, and shares with her his foreknowledge that their union will produce a son who will be the byword for all that is beautiful in Ireland. This union of a king from the sea and a Tuatha Dé woman whose name is given to the land of Ireland produces a child who is the touchstone of all that is beautiful.24 By the literary conventions associated with Irish ‘women of sovereignty’, the choice of a sexual partner by a ‘woman of sovereignty’ transforms a suitor into a legitimate ruler.25 That Ériu/Ireland finds Elatha a suitable, if unavailable, mate is indicated by her grief when separating from him: she laments their parting and states that that she had not accepted any suitor from the Tuatha Dé before their meeting.26 Her subsequent failure to find anyone equal to Elatha is indicated symbolically when Ériu gives Bres his father’s ring and the narrator states: ‘She had not given it up for anyone, either by sale or gift. Until that day, there was none of them whom larger whole. On a woman’s responsibility for her child, see Mulchrone, ‘The Rights and Duties of Women’. 22 Regarding medieval Irish views of the relationship between a name and the being or object that possesses it, see Arbuthnot, Cóir Anmann. 23 Mac Mathúna, ed. and trans., Immram Brain’ and Chesnutt, ‘The Fatherless Hero in the Playgound: Irish Perspectives on the Norse Legend of Sigurd’, pp. 33–65. 24 Carey, ‘Myth and Mythography’ discusses the characterizations of Bres in other Irish texts, ‘a figure differing considerably from the familiar villain of the saga’ (p. 56). He concludes ‘In other sources Bres appears not as a matrilineal interloper but as a legitimate member of the Tuatha Dé, closely associated with the dramatis personae of poetic lore: Brigit, Ogmae, the ‘three gods of skill’, and presumably Elatha’ (p. 57). In n. 44, p. 57, he adds, ‘The notion of a “Fomorian Elatha” is due to the reinterpretation of Bres in [Cath Maige Tuired]’. Carey’s emphasis on the existence of Bres and Elatha outside Cath Maige Tuired as f igures associated with the ‘elaborate repertoire of imagery employed by the professional poets’ (p. 56), is an important reminder that many strands of multi-purposed source material may be intertwined in a single text. 25 For references, see Jaski, Early Irish Kingship, esp. pp. 66–72, 162–169. 26 CMT, § 18, pp. 26–27.

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it would f it’.27 Insofar as Ériu may be considered a symbolic ‘woman of sovereignty’ in the tale, her reactions suggest that Elatha may have a legitimate claim to sovereignty in Ireland, somewhat blurring the sharply negative aspects of his image as an extortionate Fomorian king established later in the tale. Both Ériu and Elatha are children of Delbaeth – no further particulars are given. Genealogies of the Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri exist in more than a single version, and the learned reader of an earlier period would face the challenge shared by a reader today: what conclusions to draw from the couple’s patronymics. Setting aside the question of what information from other sources medieval readers of any particular period might have applied to interpreting the tale, the possibility of close kinship between Bres’s parents, a woman of Ireland and an apparent stranger from the sea, remains embedded as narrative background, unresolved.28 John Carey, in his ground-breaking work on the historical context for Cath Maige Tuired, ‘Myth and Mythography in Cath Maige Tuired’, gives full weight to its ninth-century linguistic material, emphasizing the negative political implications of the union of Elatha and Ériu: In the Viking period, an account of the deflowering by a foreigner of a woman named ‘Ireland’ would have a clear significance: [Cath Maige Tuired]’s original audience would indeed have been unable to read the tale of Bres’s conception without associating it with the raids and settlements of their own times.29

More specifically, he suggests, The saga was written in reaction to developments of the mid-ninth century, associated specifically with the reigns of Mael Sechnaill mac Maile Ruanaid (846–862) and Aed Findliath mac Néill (862–879). It is to this period that I would therefore tentatively assign our text; its emphasis on centralized cooperation, explicitly connected with the royal site at Tara, inclines me to think that it was written for the edification of an Uí Néill king.30 27 CMT, § 42, pp. 34–35. 28 Other major figures in Cath Maige Tuired identified directly or indirectly as sons of Elatha include Ogma and the Dagda. Ogma’s patronymic makes him a son of Elatha in § 138, while Ogma and the Dagda are brothers in § 75. 29 Carey, ‘Myth and Mythography’, p. 56. 30 Carey, ‘Myth and Mythography’, p. 60.

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By the second half of the ninth century, however, the interrelationships of Irish and Norse may already have been such that Elatha’s union with Ériu, to which she remains committed, could have nuanced and possibly contradictory interpretations, while the opposition between Tuatha Dé and the Fomorians-as-vikings might be more complex than it first appears.

Kinship and Kingship The final element of the tale’s compound title, ‘this tale below is the battle of mag tuired and the birth of bres son of elatha and his reign’, is an account of the kingship of Bres. After defeating Ireland’s previous inhabitants, the Fir Bolg, the Tuatha Dé must find a new king as they settle the new land, since their previous ruler, Nuadu, has lost an arm in combat and no longer meets the requirement that a king must be physically unblemished.31 The women of the Tuatha Dé urge the selection of Bres in order to strengthen the prior alliance with the Fomoiri, that is, to advance a possible social and/ or political advantage arising from a relationship between peoples, rather than to focus on the relationship between the king and his own people.32 The Tuatha Dé elect Bres, but do not profit from their choice. Bres proves to be a disastrous ruler. He is harsh and greedy, and his inhospitality to a travelling poet triggers the first satire made in Ireland, opening the way for his deposition.33 Moreover, Bres apparently makes no defence against subsequent demands for tribute from his Fomorian kin, although as Francis John Byrne points out: The dominant tribe or dynasty of a province was normally itself split into several kingdoms. Under the developed dynastic polity of the Old Irish period kings who belonged to the same dynasty as the high king of a province acknowledged his suzerainty indeed by accepting rath or tuarastal, but paid no tribute.34 31 CMT, §§ 10–11, 14, pp. 24–27. Jaski, Early Irish Kingship, pp. 82–87. 32 In medieval Irish literature, the advice of women is frequently portrayed as bad advice. See Cross, Motif-Index, C 195* ‘Tabu: taking the advice of a woman’ as well as the extended account of female folly in ‘The Instructions of King Cormac mac Airt’, ed. and trans. Kuno Meyer, pp. 28–37. 33 CMT, §§ 24–32, 36–40, pp. 28–31, 32–35. Jaski, Early Irish Kingship, esp. pp. 85–87, and Kelly, Guide, pp. 137–139. 34 CMT, § 25, pp. 28–29. Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings, p. 45. Is there an implication that Fomorian (viking) customs in this regard were different from those of the Irish, and less favourable to sub-kingdoms ruled by sons?

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Medieval Ireland’s extensive literature of kingship includes narrative accounts of rulers who demonstrate how to be – or not be – successful kings, alongside more overtly didactic ‘Mirrors for Princes’.35 By any standard, Bres does everything wrong. When his subjects eventually push back against his many depredations, Bres flees with his mother to seek help from his father, intending to regain power with the aid of fighters whom the narrator identifies as ‘warriors of the síd’, that is, warriors of a supernatural otherworld.36 Those warriors ultimately set forth, however, from regions that were under viking control in the ninth and tenth centuries.37 Arriving at the shore where Elatha had once appeared to her, Ériu gives Bres his father’s ring, which fits perfectly, and they ‘went forward until they reached the land of the Fomoiri’ – presumably by ship, accompanied by a suitable retinue.38 [They reached] a great plain with many assemblies upon it, and they reached the finest of these assemblies. Inside, people sought information from them. They answered that they were of the men of Ireland. Then they were asked whether they had dogs, for at that time it was the custom, when a group of men visited another assembly, to challenge them to a friendly contest. ‘We have dogs’, said Bres. Then the dogs raced, and those of the Túatha Dé were faster than those of the Fomoiri. Then they were asked whether they had horses to race. They answered, ‘We have’, and they were faster than the horses of the Fomoiri. Then they were asked whether they had anyone who was good at sword-play, and no one was found among them except Bres. But when he lifted the hand with the sword, his father recognized the ring on his finger and asked who the warrior was. His mother answered on his behalf and told the king that Bres was his son. She related to him the whole story as we have recounted it.39

Before ‘the men of Ireland’ engage with their hosts in friendly contests of dogs, horses, and arms, the narrator indicates that such challenges are customarily offered to strangers whoever they might be, suggesting that such visitors were frequent enough to allow the development of customary practice. 35 Jaski, Early Irish Kingship, esp. pp. 72–81. 36 CMT, § 41, pp. 34–35. 37 Ó Corráin, ‘The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the Ninth Century’, pp. 296, 313, 315. 38 CMT, §§ 42–43, pp. 34–37. The land of the Fomoiri in which Elatha is king is not described as otherworldly but remains unnamed. 39 CMT, § 43, pp. 36–37.

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Recognizing his own ring, Elatha acknowledges Bres as his son, the incident reflecting folklore motifs and story patterns with numerous parallels elsewhere. Bo Alqvist, in considering Gaelic/Norse folklore contacts, points to ‘a well-known story pattern’ that he summarizes as follows: A promising youth goes abroad where he begets a son on a noble woman; she later sends the son to the father, the whole affair eventually resulting in misfortune. 40

Although Bres is welcomed as a son by his father, Elatha is saddened by what Ériu has recounted. He asks Bres, ‘What force brought you out of the land you ruled?’41 His son replies: ‘Nothing brought me except my own injustice and arrogance. I deprived them of their valuables and possessions and their own food’. 42 His father answers, ‘That is bad’, and continues, ‘Better their prosperity than their kingship. Better their requests than their curses’. 43 When Bres asks for warriors to take the land by force, his father continues: ‘You ought not to gain it by injustice if you do not gain it by justice’.44 Bres replies: ‘I have a question, then: what advice do you have for me?’45 The action shifts abruptly and without explanatory comment. At this point, thematic attention to the misdeeds of Bres as a king who ignores the legally defined code of mutual obligation binding him to his people gives way to a sharpened focus on the Fomoiri as foreign invaders who seek to assert (or reassert) their sovereignty and right to tribute. The narrator informs us without comment that Elatha sent him to Balor, ‘king of the Hebrides, and to Indech mac Dé Domnann, the king of the Fomoiri; and these gathered all the forces from Lochlainn westwards to Ireland, to impose their tribute and their rule upon them by force’.46 It is an overwhelming array: the Fomorian fleet creates ‘a single bridge of ships from the Hebrides to Ireland’. 47 Bres’s admission of his unkingly behaviour and Elatha’s classically correct perspective on righteous kingship followed by his sending Bres to Balor and 40 Almqvist, ‘Gaelic/Norse Folklore Contacts’, p. 166, further notes (pp. 139–172) that the misfortune in question could be the circumstance that father kills son, or son his father, without mutual recognition. 41 CMT, § 45, pp. 36–37. 42 CMT, § 45, pp. 36–37. 43 CMT, § 46, pp. 36–37. 44 CMT, § 48, pp. 36–37. 45 CMT, § 49, pp. 36–37. 46 CMT, § 50, pp. 36–37. 47 See note 38 above.

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Indech, are elements in one of the tale’s ‘creaky joints’. Narrative expectations regarding Bres and the Fomoiri are first challenged by the indication that after Bres became king, Fomorians (identified as Indech mac Dé Domnann, Elatha mac Delbaíth, and Tethra, three Fomorian kings) ‘imposed their tribute upon Ireland – and there was not a smoke from a house in Ireland that was not under their tribute’ – belying the supposition that the choice of Bres would advance the Fomorian alliance. 48 Elatha’s inclusion among those tribute-seekers is unexpected, since by Irish custom the son of an overking did not pay his father tribute. The reader is left with questions. Could Elatha have been unaware that the king of Ireland was the son whose birth he had prophesied and whom he himself had named? Such arguably inconsistent details could be signs of a missing ‘back story’, but without more knowledge it is difficult to consider the birth tale and its prophecy as of a piece, in narrative terms, with the imposition of tribute introduced in § 25. 49 Elatha’s role in imposing that tribute also seems at odds with his apparently surprised response to his son’s depredations later in the tale, admonishing Bres with a potent articulation of the mutual responsibilities of a king and his people. Elatha’s demand for tribute in § 25, on the other hand, seems consonant with his direction of Bres to Indech and Balor (§§ 45–50). Bres’s characterization and motives are straightforward, but Elatha’s are less so, and are left to the reader to interpret. Does Bres draw his father into a plausible, if ultimately ill-advised, foreign adventure, testimony to Elatha’s willingness to support the son whose birth he had earlier foretold, to recover a kingship that both agree has been an unjust failure? Does Elatha support what, from a Fomorian point of view, could be considered just claims for tribute by overlords who have the strength to enforce them, as contrasted with the greedy consumption of his people’s goods by a subordinate king who happens to be his son?50 If Bres’s flight is a harbinger of interrupted tribute payments, is Elatha considering his own economic interests along with those of his fellow tribute seekers?51 Or does Elatha regard the Fomorian forces 48 CMT, § 25, pp. 28–29. 49 O’Cathasaigh, ‘Cath Maige Tuired, p. 2, sees § 36 as reflecting the beginning of a second telling of the story of Bres’s failed kingship, while McCone, ‘A Tale of Two Ditties’, p. 126, takes § 36 as ‘no more than a narrative cue echoing §§ 24–25’. Both writers recognize a narrative disjunction. At issue may be whether the Fomorian imposition of tribute is an intrusive element in the narrative where it is placed. 50 In the later version of the tale, O’Cuív, Cath Muighe Tuireadh, pp. 3 and 28–29, esp. ll. 377–397, a differently characterized Elatha addresses his forces, reminding them that the Fomoiri had once defeated the people of Nemed, and urging them to regain their former territory. 51 After § 25, Tethra disappears as a character, and is not listed among the ‘kings and leaders who were encouraging the Fomorian host’ (§ 128), although his sword is mentioned as having

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as so overwhelming that no battle will actually occur, the fleet’s presence a feint guaranteeing that Fomorian claims to sovereignty will be accepted and Bres restored? Even when the two sides are drawn up for battle, Bres himself is unsure whether conflict will actually occur, asking Indech ‘Do the men of Ireland undertake to give battle to us’? and Indech replies grimly that ‘their bones will be small if they do not pay their tribute’.52 Are we seeing the survival of more than one writer’s characterization of Elatha, or remnants of different plot lines? Have distinct strands of narrative been woven together here, one strand focused on Bres’s effort to reclaim his failed kingship with aid from his otherwise-wise and just father, whose other sons include major members of the Tuatha Dé, another strand emphasizing Fomorian claims for tribute and the depiction of the Tuatha Dé’s Fomorian opponents as analogous to the vikings?53

Cultural Similarities In the third segment of the tale’s compound title, the ‘Battle of Mag Tuired’, the action advances toward open conflict. The concept of a formal battle, as opposed to preliminary skirmishes by bold warriors, is evidently shared by both sides, as is a process for designating the day of battle, allowing the Tuatha Dé to gain a hidden advantage by establishing a truce until a time that favours them. Shared expectations also appear in the role played by poetic satire, a verbal attack that can be directed against either individuals or groups. Lug sends the Dagda to the Fomoiri to obtain an armistice until the Tuatha Dé gather their forces on the day before Samain.54 Both sides agree to the ‘truce of battle’ and both apparently regard the security of a messenger between warring groups as inviolable. The Fomorians, however, do not negotiate in good faith. To prevent the Dagda from completing his mission, they impose an apparently impossible task, challenging him to eat a giant pitful of porridge, lest he satirize them for inhospitality; they threaten his life if he fails.55 The narrator indicates that the Dagda, whose daughter Bríg been found in the battle by Ogma (§ 162). Ogma, despite his earlier death in single combat with Indech (§ 138), accompanies Lug and the Dagda to regain the Dagda’s harp and harper (§ 163). 52 CMT, § 94, pp. 50–51. 53 That the narrative does not specify Elatha’s reasons for sending Bres to Balor and Indech in § 50 indirectly draws attention to contrasting elements in the depiction of Elatha’s character. 54 CMT, §§ 88–93, pp. 46–51. 55 CMT, §§ 89–92, pp. 46–47. Under Irish law, an individual’s failure to mount a defence in response to satire could lead to loss of honour and legal standing. See Kelly, Guide, pp. 43–51, 137–139.

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is married to Bres, was well-known to his hosts with the comment: ‘The Fomoire made porridge for him to mock him, because his love of porridge was great’.56 The Fomorians imply that they would be justified in killing a guest, even a messenger who has come to negotiate terms of battle, as a matter of pre-emptive self-defence against possible satire. The grounds would be inadequate hospitality, demonstrated by their guest’s rejection of the food they offer. The Fomoiri assume that no one could consume ‘four score gallons of new milk and the same quantity of meal and fat’ along with ‘goats and sheep and swine’ all boiled together, but the Dagda does so, even scraping up the mud in the bottom of the pit.57 Although their approach to hospitality is disingenuous and unsuccessful – the truce stands – the Fomoiri are vulnerable to satire, as both they and the Tuatha Dé recognize. In Lug’s muster of his forces preceding the battle, the poet Coirpre promises to use his art against the enemy so successfully that ‘they will offer no resistance to warriors’.58 For both societies, satire is a powerful and dangerous verbal weapon, affecting groups as well as individuals.

Weaponry Lug’s pre-battle muster identifies the expertise of leading members of the Tuatha Dé, each promising a specific contribution to the war effort.59 In addition to many forms of spellcraft, their specializations include arms manufacture and battlefield medicine. The smith Goibniu, for example, pledges to provide new weapons overnight, including lethal spear points that will not ‘make a missing cast’ adding that no skin which one of those points pierces ‘will taste life afterward’.60 Goibniu’s comment, ‘Dolb, the Fomorian smith, cannot do that’, indicates that in the realm of smithcraft at the highest level, a professional world of expertise that links the two societies, the Tuatha Dé practitioner not only knows the identity of his Fomorian counterpart

56 CMT, §§ 124–125, pp. 56–57, for Bríg as the wife of Bres; CMT, §§ 89–92, pp. 46–47, for the Dagda’s love of porridge. 57 CMT, §§ 89–91, pp. 46–47. 58 CMT, §§ 114–115, pp. 52–53. 59 CMT, §§ 96–120, pp. 50–55. On the contribution of the deogbaire, ‘cupbearer’, see McLeod, ‘Irish Law’, esp. pp. 93–94. 60 CMT, § 97, pp. 50–51.

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but also the limits of his skill.61 No specific comparisons are drawn with Fomorian practitioners of other professional areas of expertise where the Tuatha Dé claim proficiency, including sorcery, cupbearing, druidry, and witchcraft. In regard to poetry, the Tuatha Dé poet Coirpre vows, as noted above, ‘to satirize them [the Fomorians] and shame them so that through the spell of my art they will offer no resistance to warriors’, while the Fomorian poet Lóch is active on the battlefield, offering a prophetic poetic challenge in response to Lug.62 The Tuatha Dé also excel their opponents in medical practice. Once the battle is under way, the Fomoiri are astounded by their opponents’ resilience and send Ruadán, the son of Bres and Bríg, daughter of the Dagda, to spy out the enemy’s resources. Learning that the Tuatha Dé have a healing well that cures wounded warriors overnight and a weapons assembly line that operates night and day, the Fomoiri send Ruadán to eliminate one or another of these advantages. Welcomed in the Tuatha Dé camp as a ‘son and grandson of the Tuatha Dé’, Ruadán craftily obtains a spear and attempts to kill Goibniu – who returns the cast and survives through the power of the healing well. Ruadán, however, goes back to the Fomorian camp mortally wounded and dies in his father’s presence. His mother Bríg comes to lament him in the first keen made in Ireland, her outpouring of grief originating the deeply rooted Irish funerary custom of keening. As a wife and mother related to both Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri, Bríg loses her son to their rivalry, family ties proving no barrier to treachery and violence. And although the assembly line for weaponry continues, the Fomoiri realize that with their vast numbers, if each of them brings a stone, they can fill the healing well, eliminating the medical marvel they cannot equal.63 The action turns to the battlef ield, the strength and overwhelming numbers of the Fomorian forces contrasted with the multifaceted leadership of Lug, who urges the Tuatha Dé to fight fiercely, so that they will no longer be ‘in bondage and under tribute as they had been’.64 Lug helps turn the 61 CMT, § 97, pp. 50–51. On the complex literary treatment of smiths and smithcraft in association with magic, healing, and specific levels of technical accomplishment, see Carey, Magic, Metallurgy and Imagination. 62 CMT, §§ 115, 136, pp. 52–53; 62–63. 63 See Chesnutt, ‘An Unsolved Problem’, pp. 125–139, and Chesnutt, ‘Cath Maige Tuired’, pp. 24–25, for narrative motif parallels between Cath Maige Tuired and the Old Norse–Icelandic tradition of the battle of Hjađningar including the folklore incident known as ‘The Everlasting Fight’. This motif, in which slain warriors are resuscitated every night to fight again on the morrow, is A162.1.0.1 Recurrent battle (everlasting fight) (cf. A165.7). 64 CMT, §§ 127, 129, pp. 56–57, 58–59.

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tide of battle, using a sling-stone like a latter-day David to destroy Balor’s evil eye, which had the destructive property of causing warriors who saw it to give up all resistance.65 Indech, the Fomorian king and battle leader, is struck by Balor’s falling body and asks his poet, Lóch, to identify the warrior who has cast the stone.66 Lóch and Lug then exchange competing prophetic exhortations to battle.67 Apart from his stunning cast against Balor, Lug’s role in combat is primarily that of a poet, travelling around the battlefield with words that strengthen his troops, a verbal expert whose skill Lóch cannot match.68

How to Conclude a Battle: Poetry and Negotiation After the loss of Balor and the death of Indech, the Fomoiri are routed and driven to the sea.69 The poet Lóch again steps forward, opening negotiations by asking for quarter and offering to grant Lug three requests.70 Lóch acts as a mediator between the two peoples, apparently with full power to establish a lasting peace.71 Lóch not only pledges to ‘remove the need to guard against the Fomoire from Ireland forever’ but also offers a prophetic confirmation of Lug’s enduring wisdom as a judge: ‘Whatever judgment your tongue will deliver in any difficult case, it will resolve the matter until the end of life’.72 The Fomorian poet continues with an obscure poetic statement entitled ‘The Decree of Fastening’ addressed to the Gaels – with the Tuatha Dé anachronistically characterized as ‘the Gaels’ – that underscores what 65 CMT, § 133, pp. 60–61. 66 CMT, § 136, pp. 62–63. Although injured by Balor’s fall, Indech survives to be slain by Ogma, both falling in single combat (§ 138). In the later version of the tale, Balor is slain by his grandson Lug at Carn Ui Néit, see CMT, note to §§ 133–135, p.107. For the deaths of Indech and Ogma, see CMT note to § 138, p. 109. 67 CMT, § 136, pp. 62–63. 68 Lug’s use of a sling stone recalls the victory of David over Goliath. In CMT, § 4 Lug is credited with a powerful spear: ‘No battle was ever sustained against it, or against the man who held it in his hand’. For the sling stone, see CMT note to § 135, p. 108. 69 Traditionally Irish battles ended upon the death of the king; see Binchy, ‘The Passing of the Old Order’, p. 128. Nuadu’s death, however, does not end the battle, and Lug, who as sage in all the arts had for thirteen days sat in the king’s seat while the king rose before him (§§ 68, 74), may have been symbolically qualified to rule by that temporary exchange of roles and by Nuadu’s acknowledgement of Lug’s exalted status. Indech’s death, on the other hand, combined with the Fomorian rout, definitely ends the contention. 70 CMT, §§ 139–148, pp. 64–67. 71 CMT, §§ 140–141, pp. 64–65. 72 CMT, § 140, pp. 64–65.

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the newly contracted peace will bring.73 Lóch’s verbal actions, like his position as the king’s poet, recall the elevated role of Irish poets in confirming kingship through the power of the word, poetry spoken in praise or blame (satire), as well as by participating in royal inaugurations, and by prophecy, articulating the sympathetic and beneficial influence on the natural order that will follow the renewal of social order through the establishment of just sovereignty.74 Lóch’s ability as a prophetic poet is also indicated by his subsequent bestowal of names on Lug’s nine chariots and charioteers and horse goads and horses.75 The recognition of appropriate names, cóir anmann (‘the fitness of names’), also the title of a medieval Irish work on the subject, was at once an exercise in Isidorian etymology and a verbal expression of the innate nature of things.76 Lóch’s verbal actions connect him with the professional practice of poetry as described in Irish law and medieval Irish literature. At this point in the tale, Lóch and Lug (and the Fomoiri and Tuatha Dé generally) are operating within an imagined social landscape where Irish customs and values are dominant, and powerfully expressed through the example of poetry and the activities of poetic professionals. Let us now consider another of the tale’s ‘creaky joints’. Lug has led the Tuatha Dé to victory and gained an assurance of lasting peace from the poet of the fallen Fomorian king. Other negotiations follow. Found alive on the battlefield, Bres claims that it will be more advantageous to spare him than to kill him.77 When Lug asks what the result would be, Bres makes two proposals that Lug appropriately refers to the Tuatha Dé legal experts, who indicate that both suggested ransoms are only superficially attractive. Bres first offers that Ireland’s cattle will always be in milk, but is refused, since the cows would neither live forever nor bear new offspring.78 He offers a harvest of grain in every quarter, but that prospect would entail four times as much work for the labouring Tuatha Dé, leaving them no time for consumption and rest.79 Finally Lug steps in himself to resolve the situation. For better or worse, he leaves no opportunity for further criticism from his quick-witted lawyers: 73 CMT, § 141, pp. 64–65. 74 See Nagy, ‘Are Myths Inside the Text or Outside the Box?’, pp. 3–4, for comments on this passage, including how the Fomorian king’s poet resembles a medieval Irish poet. 75 CMT, §§ 142–145, pp. 66–67. 76 Arbuthnot, Cóir Anmann. 77 CMT, § 149, pp. 66–67. 78 CMT, §§ 150–154, pp. 66–69. 79 CMT, §§ 155–158), pp. 66–69.

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‘Less rescues you’, said Lug. ‘What’? asked Bres. ‘How shall the men of Ireland plow? How shall they sow? How shall they reap? If you make known these things, you will be saved’. ‘Say to them, on Tuesday their plowing, on Tuesday their sowing seed in the field; on Tuesday their reaping’.80

So it was through that device or stratagem (celg, which can also mean ‘trick’) that Bres was saved.81 Bres’s identification of the best days to undertake farming activities may or may not have been regarded as sound advice.82 The notion that certain days were lucky for particular activities is documented in historical Ireland and Scotland, and Bres’s words in response to Lug have been attested as folk belief among farmers in Gaelic Scotland.83 If the choice of Tuesdays for ploughing, sowing, and reaping was already common custom, Bres has gained his life without any real exchange, that is, by a trick. If not, he has made a useful and enduring contribution to the store of farming knowledge, unless the recommendation simply lacked merit. If Bres’s response offered nothing of value, Lug, who to this point has been characterized as a master of strategic leadership, has indeed been tricked as far as content is concerned – and may have been unwise in dispensing with the Tuatha Dé lawyers.84 But there is another possibility: that Lug takes the initiative away from Bres precisely to give Bres an easy escape (‘Less rescues you’), and that Lug’s actual goal is a negotiated outcome that both sides could regard as a victory. Bres is after all the husband of Bríg and the Dagda’s son-in-law, while Elatha is the patronymic of the Dagda and Ogma 80 CMT, §§ 159–160, pp. 68–69. Punctuation of the quotation has been altered. 81 CMT, § 161, pp. 68–69. eDIL s.v. celg or dil.ie/8555. 82 Sayers, ‘Bargaining for the Life of Bres’, pp. 26–40. 83 Banks, ‘Na Tri Mairt’. 84 Lug is master of multiple chess strategies, playing and winning simultaneous games on all the chess boards of Tara. He has led his people in preparing for battle, defeated Balor, and brought the Tuatha Dé to victory. Given Lug’s role in the narrative, the reader will expect him to get the better of any situation. In the absence of specif ic narrative detail to the contrary, there is no reason to think that Lug is making a strategic error. Sayers, ‘Bargaining for the Life of Bres’, pp. 26–40, suggests that Bres may have outwitted Lug in their exchange. Sayers proposes emendations of the text so that the words can be understood as curses Bres places upon the agricultural efforts of the Tuatha Dé. Many readers will not f ind the proposal to emend the text persuasive, but the notion of an unrepentant Bres is certainly a plausible reading of the character. See also Breatnach, ‘The Lord’s Share’, for consistency in the characterization of Bres.

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as well as of Bres himself. 85 The Fomorians are withdrawing in defeat, none too pleased, but they are still a force to be reckoned with, whether considered as hostile relatives (from over or under seas) or as anachronistic ‘vikings’ with whom a new treaty has been made. The Fomorian poet has promised Lug ‘I will remove the need to guard against the Fomoire from Ireland forever’.86 But the Fomoiri may not all be going home, if home is taken to be Lochlainn, the Hebrides, perhaps Orkney – and they still have the cattle taken from the Tuatha Dé as tribute.87

The Question of Hostages The Tuatha Dé face a hostage crisis. The retreating Fomoiri have taken the Dagda’s harp and harper with them. Lug, the Dagda, and Ogma (who reappears here despite his earlier death in single combat with Indech) pursue them to an unidentified site, ‘the banqueting hall where Bres mac Elathan and Elatha mac Delbaith were’.88 The harp hanging on the wall came to the Dagda, killing nine men in the process, and the Dagda used its music to quiet the banqueters and send them to sleep. ‘So the three of them escaped from them unharmed – although they wanted to kill them’.89 The hall is in Ireland, not Scandinavia or otherwise over or under seas, since we next learn that the Dagda also brings away with him all the cattle taken by the Fomoiri as tribute. He had earlier chosen a single, black-maned heifer as his own reward for building a fortress for Bres, and ‘when she called her calf, all the cattle of Ireland which the Fomoire had taken as their tribute began to graze’.90 Unresolved ill feeling still requires deft management, in which quick thinking and the ability to use unlikely tools – in this case music and prophetic foresight regarding the properties of heifers – may well be decisive. In short, peace treaties do not necessarily change feelings, even – or perhaps especially – within politically divided families. They do however restore balance after violent confrontation and shape new alignments of power – as the Irish knew well from their immediate political landscape, one that by the second half of the ninth century already included intricate familial and political relationships with the Norse settled in Ireland. 85 86 87 88 89 90

See note 32 above for Elatha as patronymic of the Dagda and Ogma. CMT, § 140, pp. 64–65. For Orkney, see Chesnutt, ‘Cath Maige Tuired’, pp. 24, 28–29. CMT, §§ 138, 163–165, pp. 64–65, 70–71. CMT, §§ 163–165, esp. 164, pp. 70–71. CMT, § 165, pp. 70–71.

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Concluding Thoughts Cath Maige Tuired, whatever its compositional history, presents itself in literary terms as a combination of disparate elements that offer a multifaceted and shifting picture of the Fomoiri as ‘Other’ in relation to the Tuatha Dé. The Fomoiri are – A people strongly associated with the sea – A supernatural people who like the Tuatha Dé are identified as people of the síd (‘a supernatural but often localized Otherworld’), rarely with marine associations – A people or peoples settled in lands overseas, some living in specific areas associated with viking lordships – Hostile and negatively portrayed invaders from overseas demanding heavy tribute – A society similar to the Tuatha Dé in organization and cultural practices, but less skilled in the arts and legal negotiation – A people closely related to the Tuatha Dé by intermarriage with whom political and familial bonds are created, broken, and recreated. Cath Maige Tuired amply illustrates how such bonds can be undermined and fractured – in this case by royal incompetence that leads to open warfare – but the tale ends with a focus on how they can be created anew, in a delicate balance between political and familial forces that remains dangerously precarious but offers the promise of peace.

Bibliography Almqvist, Bo, ‘Gaelic/Norse Folklore Contacts. Some Reflections on their Scope and Character’, in Irland und Europe im früheren Mittelalter Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages, Bildung und Literatur Learning and Literature, ed. by Próinséas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1996), pp. 139–172. Arbuthnot, Sharon, ed. and trans., Cóir Anmann: A Late Middle Irish Treatise on Personal Names, 2 vols. (London: Irish Texts Society, 2005–2007). Banks, Mary MacLeod, ‘Na Tri Mairt, the Three Marts and the Man with the Withy’, Études celtiques 3 (1938), 131–143. Bhreathnach, Edel, Ireland in the Medieval World AD 400–1000: Landscape, Kingship and Religion (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2014).

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Binchy, Daniel A., ‘The Passing of the Old Order’, in The Impact of the Scandinavian Invasions on the Celtic-speaking Peoples c. 800–1100 A.D., Introductory Papers read at Plenary Sessions of the International Congress of Celtic Studies Held in Dublin 6–10 July, 1959, ed. by Brian Ó Cuív (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975), pp.119–132. Breatnach, Liam, ‘The Lord’s Share in the Profits of Justice and a Passage in Cath Maige Tuired’, Celtica 27 (2013), 1–17. Byrne, Francis John, Irish Kings and High-Kings (London: Batsford, 1973). Carey, John, ‘Myth and Mythography in Cath Maige Tuired’, Studia Celtica 24–25 (1989–90), 53–69. Carey, John, A New Introduction to Lebor Gabála Érenn, The Book of the Taking of Ireland, edited and translated by R. A. Stewart Macalister, D.Litt. (London: Irish Texts Society, 1993). Carey, John, ‘The Baptism of the Gods’, in his A Single Ray of the Sun: Religious Speculation in Early Ireland. (Andover and Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 1999), pp. 1–38. Carey, John, ed., Lebor Gabála Érenn: Textual History and Pseudohistory (London: Irish Texts Society, 2009). Carey, John, The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature, Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures 3 (Cork: Cork University Press, 2018). Carey, John, Magic, Metallurgy and Imagination in Medieval Ireland (Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 2019). Chesnutt, Michael, ‘An Unsolved Problem in Old Norse-Icelandic Literary History’, Medieval Scandinavia 1 (1968), 125–139. Chesnutt, Michael ‘The Fatherless Hero in the Playground: Irish Perspectives on the Norse Legend of Sigurd’, Béaloideas 68 (2000), 33–65. Chesnutt, Michael, ‘Cath Maige Tuired: A Parable of the Battle of Clontarf’, in Northern Lights: Following Folklore in North-Western Europe. Essays in Honour of Bo Almqvist, ed. by Séamas Ó Catháin and Patrician Lysaght (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2001), pp. 22–33. Clarke, Michael, ‘The Lore of the Monstrous Races in the Developing Text of the Irish Sex Aetates Mundi’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 63 (Summer, 2012), 15–30. CMT = Cath Maige Tuired: The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, ed. and trans. Elizabeth Gray, Irish Texts Society 52 (Kildare: Irish Texts Society, 1982). Cross, Tom Peete, Motif-Index of Early Irish Literature, Folklore Series 7 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1952). eDIL = Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, ed. by Gregory Toner, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, and Dagmar Wodtko, online at www.dil.ie.

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Gray, Elizabeth. A. ‘Cath Maige Tuired: Myth and Structure (1–24)’, Éigse 18 (1980–1981), 183–209. Jaski, Bart, ‘The Vikings and the Kingship of Tara’, Peritia 9 (1995), 310–351. Jaski, Bart, Early Irish Kingship and Succession (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000). Kelly, Fergus, A Guide to Early Irish Law, Early Irish Law Series 3 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1988). Krappe, Alexander Haggerty, Balor with the Evil Eye: Studies in Celtic and French Literature (New York: Columbia University, 1927). Macalister, Robert A. Stewart, ed. and trans., Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Parts I–V, Irish Texts Society 34, 35, 39, 41, 44 (London: Irish Texts Society, 1938–1956). Mac Cana, Proinsias, ‘The Influence of the Vikings on Celtic Literature’, in The Impact of the Scandinavian Invasions on the Celtic-speaking Peoples c. 800–1100 A.D., Introductory Papers read at Plenary Sessions of the International Congress of Celtic Studies Held in Dublin 6–10 July, 1959, ed.by Brian Ó Cuív (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975), pp. 78–118. Mac Cana, Proinsias, The Learned Tales of Medieval Ireland (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1980). Mac Mathúna, Séamus, ed. and trans., Immram Brain: Bran’s Journey to the Land of the Women (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1985). MacNeill, Máire, The Festival of Lughnasa: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Feast of the Beginning of Harvest (London: Oxford University Press, 1962). McCone, Kim, ‘A Tale of Two Ditties’, in Sages, Saints and Storytellers: Celtic Studies in Honour of Professor James Carney, ed. by Liam Breatnach, Kim McCone, and Donnchadh Ó Corráin (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1989), pp. 122–143. McLeod, Neil, ‘Irish Law and the Wars of the Túatha Dé Danann’, in An XIV Comhdháil Idirnáisiúnta sa Léann Ceilteach, Maigh Nuad 2011: Imeachtaí. Proceedings of the XIV International Congress of Celtic Studies, held in Maynooth University, 1–5 August 2011, ed. by Liam Breatnach, Ruairí Ó hUiginn, Damian McManus, and Katharine Simms (Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2015), pp. 75–94. Meyer, Kuno, ed. and trans., ‘The Instructions of King Cormac mac Airt’, Royal Irish Academy Todd Lecture Series 15 (1909), pp. 28–37. Mulchrone, Kathleen, ‘The Rights and Duties of Women with regard to the Education of Their Children’, in Studies in Early Irish Law, ed. by Daniel A. Binchy (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, and Co.,1936), pp. 187–205. Murphy, Gerard, ‘Notes on Cath Maige Tuired’, Éigse 7 (1953–1955), 191–198, 204. Nagy, Joseph Falaky, ‘Are Myths in the Text or Outside the Box?’, in Writing Down the Myths, ed. Joseph Falaky Nagy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 1–17.

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Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás, ‘Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth’, in Folia Gadelica: Essays Presented by Former Students to R. A. Breatnach, ed. by Pádraig de Brún, Seán Ó Coileáin, and Pádraig Ó Riain (Cork: Cork University Press, 1983), pp. 1–19. Ó Corráin, Donncha, Ireland Before the Normans (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972). Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, ‘The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the Ninth Century’, Peritia 12 (1998), 296–339. Ó Cuív, Brian, ed., Cath Muighe Tuireadh: The Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1945). Ó Súilleabháin, Seán, and Reidar Christiansen, The Types of the Irish Folktale, Folklore Fellows Communications 188 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1963). Rodway, Simon, ‘Mermaids, Leprechauns, and Fomorians’: A Middle Irish Account of the Descendants of Cain’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 59 (Summer 2010), 1–17. Sayers, William, ‘Bargaining for the Life of Bres in Cath Maige Tuired’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 34 (1987), 26–40. Williams, Mark, Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016).

About the Author Elizabeth A. Gray, Harvard University, served as Assistant and Associate Professor in the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures. She is an Associate of the Department with research interests in mythology and medieval Irish cultural transitions as reflected in literature.

3 Exploring Cath Maige Tuired through the Concept of Hybridity Ina Tuomala

Abstract This chapter examines the contemporary Irish identity and social reactions to the process of cultural hybridization, as they are depicted in the late Viking-Age narrative Cath Maige Tuired. The tale is a product of a transitional era whose preoccupations and prejudices are reflected in the narrative representations of the Fomoiri and the Tuatha Dé Danann. This chapter considers Cath Maige Tuired within its historical context as a narrative of hybridity in which the pivotal cultural identities are built on an ongoing comparison between the tale’s representations of the Self and the Other. At the same time the narrative illustrates a number of other cultural concerns at the forefront of the collective intellectual consciousness. Keywords: pseudo-history, literary theory, medieval Irish literature, postcolonialism, identity, hybridity theory

The cultural context of late Viking-Age Ireland, to which the tale Cath Maige Tuired (The Second Battle of Mag Tuired) belongs, is one of interaction and integration. This creates an environment in which cultural hybridity becomes paramount. Examining premodern texts in the light of postmodern hybridity theory is relatively rare at present; this chapter makes a case for using hybridity theory in analysing premodern literatures in situations where ample parallels can be drawn between the cultural dynamics of the medieval context and the postcolonial experience.1 Cath Maige Tuired presents us 1 Reading premodern texts in terms of postcolonial theory in situations where there are substantial political and cultural resonances between the contexts has been discussed previously outside of the Irish context; see for example Boyarin and Burrus, ‘Hybridity as Subversion’, pp. 431–441.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch03

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with the ideal literary platform for considering cultural identity and hybridity since the tale is a product of a transitional era whose preoccupations and prejudices are clearly reflected in the narrative representations of the Fomoiri and the Tuatha Dé Danann. Cath Maige Tuired has been repeatedly identified as one of the key narratives of Irish pseudo-history. The term ‘pseudo-history’ refers to accounts of history which distort the commonly accepted facts by, for example, accepting legends and myths as reality. Through intricate intertextual referencing pseudo-history has the potential to become accepted as fact; especially as it instinctively avoids questioning its sources of history. The sense of reliability is increased by plotting the pseudo-historic accounts on commonly known and accepted classical works in order to achieve literary coherence. In the Irish context, the term pseudo-history refers to a corpus of literary material which outlines a fictional origin story of Ireland and its peoples. Thus, pseudo-history is used to create, reflect upon, and project a sense of unity. In its oldest form Cath Maige Tuired is contained only in the sixteenthcentury vellum manuscript British Library Harleian 5280. Clare Downham recently stated that Cath Maige Tuired ‘survives as an eleventh- or twelfthcentury reworking of an earlier original’.2 This statement covers the whole range of current opinions regarding the text’s dating.3 In its surviving linguistic format this version of the tale is unlikely to be older than the eleventh century. However, the exact age still raises some debate, the more so since episodes and motifs depicted in the tale can be assumed to be older than the narrative itself, which can be seen to reflect the socio-political context of the late Viking Age due to the social frameworks portrayed within it. We can see the formation of thematic parallels between the narrative of Cath Maige Tuired and periods of significant cultural interaction and integration throughout Irish history, which has led to renewed interest in the tale during these periods.

Hybridity theory The overarching themes of identity, interaction, and integration are a fundamental part of how we as humans experience a sense of belonging and 2 Downham, Medieval Ireland, p. 163. 3 This dating is traditionally credited to Murphy (see Murphy, ‘Notes’, p. 195), and consolidated by many since then, such as Ó Cathasaigh, ‘Exemplary Myth’, p. 1.

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navigate the surrounding society. Despite there being marked differences in how we experience culture, ethnicity, and the nation-state between the premodern and postmodern eras, the basic need for identity and identity groups remains. Hybridity arises as a central concept within the ideological landscape of Cath Maige Tuired, but it is apparent that the preoccupation with cultural change has its roots deeper in the contemporary consciousness of the late Viking Age. The aim here is to advance from considering separate cultures and identities which come into contact with each other and begin to interact on social, political, and economic levels, to examining the hybridity which results from migration, colonization, or cultural integration. Hybridity in its simplest form means mixing – the ‘disruption and forcing together’ of any unlike unities. 4 It first emerged in academic consciousness as a term of biology. However, the hybridity theory of literary and anthropological disciplines has deeper connotations regarding the discourses of race, culture, and identity. The rhetoric of hybridity, as it can be understood in modern scholarship, emerged in conjunction with postcolonial theory and the study of imperialism through writers such as Homi K. Bhabha, Mikhail Bakhtin and Robert Young. Hybridity appears most openly as a state of identity in moments of cultural transition, just as the ‘[f]ixity of identity is only sought in situations of instability and disruption’.5 The search for fixity itself implies a state of multiplicity, which only exists in comparison to a notion of singularity. A condition of hybridity, therefore, is the ‘preservation of a degree of cultural and ethnic difference’.6 Identity can be seen as a product of culture and discourse and, in order to use hybridity theory, we must accept that identity itself is flexible and moulded through cultural discourses. In line with the theories of Foucault, it is often thought that the construction of identities is ‘the focal point in the complex relationship between subjects (individuals and groups) and dominant discursive practices’.7 The processes of individual and collective identification have their roots in structures of inclusion versus exclusion, which are central for periods of social formation.8 As an emerging term the definitions of hybridity remain malleable; it is frequently seen as a way out of binary thinking and, by extension, as a way 4 Young, Colonial Desire, p. 26. 5 Young, Colonial Desire, p. 4. 6 Young, Colonial Desire, p. 27. 7 Benveniste and Gaganakis, ‘Heterodoxies’, p. 8. 8 Benveniste and Gaganakis, ‘Heterodoxies’, p. 8.

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to destabilize the dominant power discourses. Moreover, hybridity is also a logical continuation within the development of identities in the context of globalization, and thus a paradox within the parameters of conservative patterns of identity. For Bakhtin, who was primarily a linguist, hybridity represented the mixture of two languages, separated by identity or consciousness, within a ‘single utterance’.9 He also made the important distinction between conscious hybridity and unconscious, ‘organic’, hybridity, and he saw unconscious hybridization as the most important mode in the development of all languages.10 This dualistic mode of hybridity has been seen as an especially important dialectic mode in cultural interaction, as organic hybridity is inclined towards fusion, whereas, conscious hybridity is confrontational and juxtaposing.11 However, it was Bhabha who cemented hybridity as one of the key concepts of postcolonial studies. Bhabha’s hybridity is subversive as it undermines the colonial hegemony by opening up the dominant discourse to influences from the other culture. Furthermore, as it becomes doublevoiced; hybridity destroys the illusion of purity and superiority.12 Due to the prominence of postcolonial thought in the development of hybridity theory, it is intrinsically connected to contemporary ideas of race and racism. In the nineteenth-century imperialist discussion of hybridity, the focus was almost solely on sexuality and sexual unions between races.13 The Western stereotype of the promiscuous, exotic, and tempting Other is widespread in descriptions of colonialized people, especially from what was referred to as the Orient.14 This image is connected to a description of the Other as savage and monstrous. Therefore, the same character is simultaneously both tempting and dangerous.15 Hybrid forms, whether they were produced by language or sex, were ‘seen to embody threatening forms of perversion and degeneration’.16 In Cath Maige Tuired the conscious representations of hybridity are also born from interaction and sexual unions between the identity groups, and thus are most clearly represented through the tale’s characters. As a primary example we can use the conception of Bres. In the narrative the strange Other 9 Bakhtin, Dialogic, p. 358. 10 Bakhtin, Dialogic, pp. 358–359. 11 Young, Colonial Desire, p. 22. 12 Young, Colonial Desire, p. 23. 13 Young, Colonial Desire, p. 9. 14 Said, Orientalism, p. 188. 15 Said, Orientalism, p. 188. 16 Young, Colonial Desire, p. 5.

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arrives over the sea and appears as beautiful and tempting. He immediately seduces the native woman in one of the most straightforward episodes of medieval pair-forming found within Gaelic literature.17 It becomes apparent that the woman has remained virtuous before this tryst and it is only the arrival of the stranger which makes her change her behaviour, and she ends up lamenting that ‘[t]he young men of the Túatha Dé Danann have been entreating me in vain – and you possess me as you do’.18 There are several details of interest which we gain from this short scene. First, the Other is undeniably sexually promiscuous and tempting. However, both the hybrid progeny and the Other himself prove dangerous for the prosperity of Ireland in the course of the narrative. Furthermore, the gender dynamic of the above interaction, where a foreign man seduces the native woman, is not very common in the Irish literary context, although it is apparent that it echoes concerns commonly present in more modern postcolonial material. From the annalistic evidence in particular, it seems that cross-cultural unions with this dynamic were either more common, or more commonly remarked upon. This may not be surprising if our understanding of viking bands is correct; it is commonly considered that these groups consisted primarily of young men. The scene also suggests that the arrival of the Other is a threat to the virtue of the women.19 This anxiety is reflected in the closing verse of the narrative in which one of the signs for social collapse is that women will be ‘without modesty’.20 That a narrative should present a society where hybridity, which is seen as dangerous and perverse, becomes common and prominent, and closes with an apocalyptic prophecy which describes the failure of Christian morals and the collapse of organized society, is hardly a coincidence. Liminality and the third space are Bhabha’s contributions to hybridity theory. He described liminality as an ‘interstitial passage between fixed identifications [which] opens up the possibility of a cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy’.21 Thus, liminality is an in-between space within fixed identities.22 This space 17 Gray, CMT, pp. 26–27; for further discussion regarding this passage, see Ó Cathasaigh, ‘On the Early-Irish Prepositional’. 18 Gray, CMT, pp. 26–27. 19 Dumville noted that, although it is rarely observed directly, the vikings were a threat to women and there are records of them, for example, wintering in nunneries, see Dumville, ‘The Churches of North Britain’, pp. 9–10. 20 Gray, CMT, pp. 72–73; mna can feli; eDIL s.v. féle, dil.ie/21543, ‘modesty, sense of decorum or propriety’, other readings are possible. 21 Bhabha, Location of Culture, p. 5. 22 Liminality was introduced to the criticism of medieval Irish literature by Nagy; see Nagy, ‘Liminality’.

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has also been described as the third space, as it exists outside the defined Self and the Other. Young, regarding this theory, noted that: ‘Hybridity here becomes a third term which can never in fact be third because, as a monstrous inversion, a miscreated perversion of its progenitors, it exhausts the differences between them’.23 In other words, there is the Self and the Other, and while hybridity manifests as the third space between them, it cannot actually be a third separate unity because it exhausts, that is, breaks down, the borders separating the two primary modes. Therefore, at a point where hybridity truly exists, the Self and the Other have ceased to exist. Bhabha noted that this is what makes hybridity subversive, specifically as it ‘breaks down the symmetry and duality of self/other, inside/outside’.24 These contrasts hold the entire meaning value of cultural interaction, especially as identity itself is defined through comparison of one with the other.

Construction of Irish identity Through the use of landscape, location, and geographic boundaries, Cath Maige Tuired sets up contrasting group identities which allow us to explore the defining features of contemporary Irish identity. The narrative confronts multiple notions relating to society and societal order and in exploring these themes utilizes various narrative dynamics demonstrating how the insider is treated by individuals, and by the society at large, as compared to the outsider. The construction of identity has long been defined by two differing schools of thought – either as a natural innate quality or as a social and cultural construct. Regardless of approach, one of the most fundamental questions of identity is whether it appears as static or changeable. Furthermore, if identity is changeable, can that change be achieved through conscious effort? In modern literary theory, due to the influence of poststructuralist theorists such as Derrida, Foucault, and Althusser, identity is most often seen as a product of discourse and culture. On the other hand, historians have seen the construction of premodern identities as heavily reliant on the process of identification to ‘certain common features that bind together individuals and groups’ and to the creation of a collective memory.25 In this way identity is reliant on the active invention of tradition, such as a shared past or heritage, 23 Young, Colonial Desire, p. 23. 24 Bhabha, Location of Culture, p. 116. 25 Benveniste and Gaganakis, ‘Heterodoxies’, p. 8.

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but not on the tradition itself.26 This is actualized in the creation of pseudohistory or, as Michael Clarke called it, ‘pseudohistorical self-invention’.27 A process which itself can be seen as a part of ethnogenesis – the effort to create a stable social identity through the invention of its history.28 In the context of this discussion, we need to acknowledge the complications of trying to recreate a medieval sense of identity or ethnicity from our modern perspective, which relies strongly on a framework of ideologies and cultural constructs based on the modern nation-state.29 Furthermore, an ethnic consciousness, which is at the centre of our understanding of identity today, was not a relevant definer in the early Middle Ages. In fact, the primary boundaries of identity during the medieval period were not so much geographical as political, economic, or social.30 Therefore, Patrick Wadden has suggested that what can be identified as Irish national identity was initially created during the seventh and eighth centuries ‘as part of a campaign to assert the joint authority of the Uí Néill kings of Tara and their ecclesiastical allies in Armagh’.31 This has also been seen as a key motivation for the composition of Cath Maige Tuired.32 It has been repeatedly suggested that a sense of social identity often focuses on ‘who one wants to exclude’, as opposed to who belongs.33 Therefore, nascent identities are often worked out in comparison between social groups, the Self and the Other, which makes periods of cultural conflict and invasion apt for the creation of identities. Throughout the Middle Ages, Ireland came under a prolonged threat to its identity and independence, first by the Scandinavians and then by the Cambro-Normans. David Dumville suggested that the ‘foreign invasion and settlement in the Viking-Age created an heightened sense of Irishness in face of the intrusive Scandinavians’.34 D.A. Binchy, on the other hand, noted that while it would be ‘an anachronism to say that the Norse invasions created a common sentiment of Irish nationality’, they contributed to evoking a sense of ‘otherness’ which lies in the heart of nationalism.35 In the light of modern terminology, we 26 Benveniste and Gaganakis, ‘Heterodoxies’, p. 9. 27 Clarke, ‘Carolingian Origin Legends’, p. 474. 28 Geary, Myth, pp. 9 and 37. 29 Dumville, ‘Did Ireland Exist’, p. 126. 30 Geary, Myth, p. 38. 31 Wadden, ‘Theories of National Identity’, p. 4. 32 McCone, ‘A Tale’, p. 136. 33 Mallory, Origins, p. 291. 34 Dumville, ‘Did Ireland Exist’, p. 122. 35 Binchy, ‘The Passing of the Old Order’, p. 129.

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may be more inclined to use the word identity, instead of nationality, in this context. However, the notion of Otherness as a driving force behind nationalism is interesting and, without question, prolific. The Viking Age also led to attempts to contextualize Ireland within the wider intellectual circles. Clarke argued that Irish pseudo-history, and especially Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland; Macalister 1938–56) ‘shows Irish identity being worked out among the nascent ethnographies of Carolingian Europe’.36 Dumville saw this imagined national community, depicted in texts like Lebor Gabála, Dinnshenchas Érenn, and Cogadh Gaedel re Gallaib, as a key component in the emergence of the Irish identity.37 Therefore, there is little doubt that a concept of unified Irish identity already existed, at least in the literary imagination if not as a political construct, by the late Viking Age. Furthermore, all indicators suggest that the disruptive circumstances of the Viking era strengthened the existing concepts of identity and unity. Despite its mythological guise, it is important to remember that Cath Maige Tuired outlines a geographical milieu, which is detailed and defined by the real world. The narrative uses an extensive array of both real and fictional geographical features and place-names, which were indexed by Elizabeth Gray, largely on the basis of Hogan’s Onomasticon.38 This supports the examination of contrasting group identities within its geopolitical framework. Throughout the narrative, a contrast is created between the geographical milieu of Ireland and the lands ruled by the Fomoiri. This ongoing juxtaposition culminates when the Fomoirian rulers gather their forces and travel west from Lochlann to reach Ireland, which also defines the geographical positioning between these locations. Furthermore, the travel is done by forming ‘a single bridge of ships from the Hebrides (ó Indsib Gallad) to Ireland’, which indicates that the imagined distance between these locations is relatively short.39 It should also be noted that the Insi Gall here appears separate from Lochlann, although both of them come under the jurisdiction of the Fomoiri. The way in which Cath Maige Tuired employs this realistic geographical milieu as its setting provides credibility for using it to examine the contemporary sense of identity. Furthermore, Cath Maige Tuired itself includes commentary regarding the roles of the characters within it, as can be seen in the quote: ‘So Lóch was spared. Then he chanted “The Decree of 36 Clarke, ‘Carolingian Origin Legends’, p. 458. 37 Dumville, ‘Did Ireland Exist’, p. 123. 38 Gray, CMT, pp. 138–141; Hogan, Onomasticon. 39 Gray, CMT, pp. 36–37.

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Fastening” to the Gaels (do Gaídelaib)’.40 This is the only occasion on which the narrative refers to the Tuatha Dé as Gaels, but it functions as a further justification for treating them as such and discussing the narrative as a literary reflection of the society and its values. The Fomoiri who hail from the islands across the sea appear clearly as the narrative Other and are often directly relatable to the Scandinavian incomers. Likewise, the involvement between the Fomoiri and the Tuatha Dé closely reflects the realities of late Viking-Age interactions between the Irish and the Scandinavians in the Irish-sea zone. However, on one occasion the Fomoiri are described in a distinctly different manner: ‘This is why they were asked for the delay: that he might gather the warriors of the síd (sídho), the Fomoire’. 41 This is the only occasion on which the role of the Fomoiri, for an unknown reason, slips from being considered as the historical Other to being a mythological Other. Altogether, the Irish literary class had a highly developed sense of Irish identity based on language and culture and consolidated through genealogy and origin myths. Therefore, the Scandinavian identity was so strongly cast as the Other compared to the Irish, that especially in the literary sphere, the Scandinavians were destined to remain Gaill, foreigners. 42

Interaction between the Irish and the Scandinavians The Viking Age can be defined as the active period of the Scandinavian diaspora. 43 In Ireland this began by the very end of the eighth century in the form of raids conducted primarily on wealthy ecclesiastical centres. 44 The end of the era is often pinpointed to the Norman conquest of England in 1066. However, Scandinavian influence continued for at least another century in Ireland and the Western Isles. Therefore, a perhaps more prudent date in the Irish context would be the year 1169 when Cambro-Norman mercenaries, invited by Diarmait Mac Murchada, landed in Ireland. Cultural interaction 40 Gray, CMT, pp. 64–65. 41 Gray, CMT, pp. 34–35. 42 Mac Cana has suggested that due to the ‘rigidity’ of the Irish literary tradition the Scandinavians were not incorporated into the major Irish literary cycles before the twelfth century. Even then the literary representation remained that of raiders and invaders; Mac Cana, ‘The Influence of the Vikings’, pp. 96–98. 43 The suitability of the term diaspora in the Scandinavian context has been examined by Abrams, who concluded that for a time the widespread Scandinavian activity retained a strong group identity and acted like a genuine diaspora, Abrams, ‘Diaspora and Identity’, pp. 17–38. 44 Ó Corráin, ‘The Vikings’, p. 323.

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between the Irish and Scandinavian groups was the major event shaping the Irish culture and identity since the introduction of Christianity in late antiquity. 45 The political landscape of Ireland, on the other hand, was in a constant state of flux. At the beginning of the Viking Age, the political powerhouses of the Uí Néill and the Éoganachta had ensured a relative political stability.46 However, the unexpected largescale appearance of foreigners in Ireland disrupted the existing power dynamics. The scope of this chapter does not allow us to fully explore the complexities of the situation in Ireland during this era, however, it can be stated that in many ways the political situation towards the end of the Viking Age presented a field of newly realized possibilities. 47 This was strongly influenced by the reigns of Brian Bóruma and Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill, and it has been suggested that their campaigns solidified the idea of pan-Irish overkingship.48 Be this as it may, the system of kingship in medieval Ireland was multi-layered and power generally remained localized. For this reason, historians such as Downham have recommended the use of a provincial approach when discussing the political developments of this era. 49 The power dynamics were further complicated by the existence of several key ecclesiastical locations with considerable influence in addition to the power centres held by the secular kings. The question of religion itself, which may have represented the final major hurdle on the way to cultural integration, was solved by the early eleventh century at the latest. By the year 1028, when Sitric of Dublin visited Rome, the Scandinavians of Ireland were openly Christian.50 Despite this Lesley Abrams has noted that a degree of religious separatism between the Scandinavian and Irish Christians remained.51 Over time, as the Scandinavian incomers started to settle in Ireland and be more involved in social and economic contexts; the Irish kings began forming alliances with the settlers who were frequently hired as mercenaries, and by the eleventh and twelfth centuries the primary role of the Scandinavians had transformed to that of traders.52 In addition to political 45 Woolf, ‘The Scandinavian Intervention’, p. 107. 46 Woolf, ‘The Scandinavian Intervention’, p. 118. 47 For a more detailed discussion, see Tuomala, ‘The Perfect Hybrid’, Chapter 2.3. 48 Dumville, ‘Did Ireland Exist’, p. 124. 49 Downham, Medieval Ireland, p. 81. 50 Dates between the ninth and eleventh centuries have been suggested; Abrams, ‘Conversion’, p. 2. 51 Abrams, ‘Conversion’, p. 8. 52 Duffy, Ireland, p. 30.

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or economic transactions, intermarriages provided another important way of forming ties between the cultural groups.53 During the early period of the cultural contact, the Irish were clearly distinguishable and separate from the Scandinavians; however, this distinction was to grow less clear over time.54 Scandinavian identity itself was complex by the late Viking Age and influenced, socially and culturally, by the areas into which the Scandinavian diaspora had spread. Nonetheless, a distinctively Scandinavian identity was maintained which has been attributed to the importance of language and shared oral culture at the core of the Scandinavian identity in the early Middle Ages.55 While it is likely that the Irish and the Scandinavians developed a linguistic understanding of each other relatively early in their interaction, both the Irish and Norse languages persisted in Ireland; a fact which may have assisted in the creation of what Alex Woolf called a ‘distinct Hiberno-Norse identity’.56 Abrams concluded, on this matter, that despite the lengthy period of close cultural interaction during the Viking Age the ‘religious separatism, the absence of a unitary state, and in particular the cellular nature of the Irish political and ecclesiastical institutions may have combined to keep Irish and Scandinavians apart’.57 Irish pseudo-historical literature presents a much simpler picture of the distribution of power and influence in which the focal point is Tara. The ancient site was the symbolic base of Uí Néill overkingship and the dynasty has been held responsible for creating the legend that Tara had once been the seat of mythical kingship over all of Ireland.58 This is also the case in Cath Maige Tuired, which depicts Tara as the court of the Tuatha Dé, although only when Núadu is the king; the name Tara does not appear in connection with Bres.59 The crucial role of Tara in Irish tradition can be explained by what Proinsias Mac Cana called ‘the cult of the centre’. According to this idea the existence of a significant centre itself creates a unity, which becomes enclosed around the central point.60 Cath Maige Tuired depicts the Tuatha Dé as such a unity and, furthermore, as the only meaningful social unit within Ireland, which emphasizes the potential of pseudo-history to be used as political propaganda. It is typical for pseudo-history to present Ireland 53 Abrams, ‘Conversion’, p. 3. 54 Woolf, ‘The Scandinavian Intervention’, p. 123. 55 Woolf, ‘The Scandinavian Intervention’, p. 110. 56 Woolf, ‘The Scandinavian Intervention’, p. 109. 57 Abrams, ‘Conversion’, p. 8. 58 Downham, Medieval Ireland, p. 82. 59 Gray, CMT, pp. 38–39. 60 Mac Cana, ‘Early Irish Ideology’, p. 67.

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as primarily occupied by only one race or group at a time. For example, in Lebor Gabála Érenn the settling of Ireland occurs by waves of migration in which one group eventually gives way to the next. Presenting Ireland in these terms can be seen to have two intersecting purposes. First, it creates a literary illusion of an Ireland which is under one ruler. Secondly, it implies that this single political unit, which also reigned over Tara, was the sole rightful group to hold power in Ireland, which emphasized their power through precedence. However, the depiction of Ireland being settled by waves of migrations can also be seen as a source of anxiety in the face of an invader as strong as the Scandinavians proved to be, as there was clear literary precedent for the conquest of the island. The fact that the Tuatha Dé fight against a distinctly outsider force invading Ireland illustrates the potential of the narrative to be seen as a political allegory, and shows that the power dynamics are ultimately a more nuanced form of cultural interaction than the ‘inter-tribal’ relationship the narrative has traditionally been seen to depict. Ultimately, if we consider the dynamics of power depicted in Cath Maige Tuired against the historical layout, the simple dichotomy between the Irish versus the incoming foreigner remains at the forefront.

Social dynamics in Cath Maige Tuired Cath Maige Tuired portrays a physical and symbolical power struggle between the Tuatha Dé, who are the men of Ireland, and the Fomoiri, who in this case hail from Lochlann and the Hebrides. In her edition, Gray introduces Cath Maige Tuired as a timeless ‘paradigmatic illustration of principles fundamental to the ordering and maintenance of human society’.61 This is demonstrated by the way that the narrative depicts not only socio-political power structures, but also the roles, and associated expectations, which the tale’s characters hold within the society. The character at the heart of the tale is Bres. He is named in the beginning of what can be regarded as the body of the text, in § 15: ‘Now the conception of Bres came about in this way…’.62 The quoted passage has also led to some speculation that this portion of the tale is actually a birth-tale (compert) of Bres.63 He is the son of a Fomoirian king Elatha mac Delbáeth and Ériu the daughter of Delbáeth, a woman of the Tuatha Dé. It is said that, walking by 61 Gray, CMT, p. 1. 62 Gray, CMT, pp. 26–27. 63 Chesnutt, ‘A Parable’, p. 27.

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the sea, Ériu saw a silver vessel and then an amazingly handsome stranger with golden-yellow hair and a number of ornaments of gold and silver with precious stones on them.64 This description sets Elatha up as the foreigner, as compared to Ériu, and is emphasized by his arrival over the sea. John Carey has analysed the function of this sequence, and stated that: The woman’s name is Ériu – she is ‘Ireland’ in person. One of the oldest and most widespread of Celtic narrative themes is the idea that a king’s gaining the sovereignty is symbolised, or actualised, by his union with a female figure who represents the land – and this episode in our tale is obviously a story of that kind. But in this case it is not the rightful ruler to whom Ireland gives herself, but a foreigner; and the fruit of their passion is a half-breed usurper with no understanding of his land’s traditions.65

The union between a king and a sovereignty goddess, or a female embodiment of land, can be seen as a deeply embedded notion in Celtic traditions. However, it has been noted that this sequence might be the only one of a ‘king from outside Ireland seducing a land-goddess in the medieval literature’ concerning Ireland.66 Bres the half-foreigner is the quintessential embodiment of hybridity within the tale. He becomes the king of Ireland but proves to be a poor choice for the role, ultimately reducing the Tuatha Dé to a state where they have to pay tribute to the Fomoiri. From a literary point of view, it is interesting that the Tuatha Dé and the Fomoiri, the Self and the Other of the narrative, are presented with very similar physical attributes. This is rarely the case for narratives which are deemed to be postcolonial, as Otherness is frequently emphasized through physical appearance.67 In terms of the narrative this similarity is emphasized by, and possibly becomes necessary due to, the mirroring sequences between Bres and Lug. Cath Maige Tuired itself states that the battle was fought between ‘the race of the Fomoire and the men of Ireland’.68 64 Gray, CMT, pp. 26–27. 65 Carey, ‘A London Library, An Irish Manuscript’, p. 15. 66 Carey, ‘Myth and Mythography’, p. 55; Mallory, Origins, p. 208. 67 Depictions of the Fomoiri moved closer to this norm in later traditions in which they are often monstrous or deformed. Both the Túatha Dé and the Fomoiri are occasionally perceived as giants but Mark Williams saw this as inconsequential for a narrative like Cath Maige Tuired because ‘it was a common belief among medieval scholars that ancient people had been bigger than themselves’, Williams, Ireland’s Immortals, pp. 94–95. 68 Gray, CMT, pp. 58–59; fine Fomra ⁊ firu Érenn; eDIL s.v. 1 fine, dil.ie/22114, ‘a group of persons of the same family or kindred, or in wider sense, progeny, descendants, a clan, tribe, race’.

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Thus, the narrative identifies the Fomoiri as distinct from the Tuatha Dé. However, the somewhat ambiguous term fine (translated as ‘race’ above) has left some uncertainty regarding their precise relationship and has partially facilitated the numerous different interpretations of the narrative in scholarship. Ultimately, the Fomoiri are represented as the foreign invader, a common character-type in medieval Irish literature. It is also this literary intruder, which Máire Ní Mhaonaigh has seen as the personification of an archetypal viking-as-oppressor character, that is often utilized in historical narratives.69 She has argued that in literature the vikings were depicted as an apocalyptic threat, which was biding its time to overthrow the Irish society if it succumbed to social and moral ills.70 This sense of morbid expectation for the world’s end is echoed in the final poem of Cath Maige Tuired, which prophesies the failing of society and social order.71 In many ways, the involvement of the Fomoiri in the society of the Tuatha Dé threatens to fulfil this apocalyptic warning, as is indicated in the following passage: There was great murmuring against him [Bres] among his maternal kinsmen the Túatha Dé, for their knives were not greased by him. However frequently they might come, their breaths did not smell of ale; and they did not see their poets nor their bards nor their satirists nor their harpers nor their pipers nor their horn-blowers nor their jugglers nor their fools entertaining them in the household. They did not go to contests of those pre-eminent in the arts, nor did they see their warriors proving their skill at arms before the king.72

This episode lists the social expectations, which Bres as a king eventually fails to fulfil. A king’s success, furthermore, is crucial for the well-being of the society as a whole. Following the example of Bres, the Fomoiri oppress 69 Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘The Vikings’, p. 101; Ní Mhaonaigh has discussed the literary representations of the vikings and the role of Lochlann in Medieval Irish literature on several occasions; see Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘The Vikings’ and ‘Literary Lochlann’. 70 Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘The Vikings’, p. 101; despite the possibilities of reading Cath Maige Tuired as a political allegory of the late Viking Age, it needs to be questioned to what extent the literary inhabitants of Lochlann were perceived as the predecessors of the Hiberno-Scandinavians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. There are no indications that Lochlann, or its associated regions, in Cath Maige Tuired represent a mythical or an Otherworldly location, although it had been imbued with such associations within the shared literary imagination by the end of the twelfth century; Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘The Vikings’, p. 104. 71 Gray, CMT, pp. 72–73; Mac Cana also commented on the (Scandinavian) invaders being perceived as primary agents for social and moral decay; Mac Cana, ‘The Influence of the Vikings’, p. 110. 72 Gray, CMT, pp. 32–33.

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the Tuatha Dé, destroy the prosperity of their community, and leave social obligations unfulfilled. These narrative depictions echo the concerns of a society undergoing a period of significant social transition. The wealth of literary material surviving from medieval Ireland allows us to compare and contrast literary motifs between different types of material. Despite this, all literature was produced by the same learned classes, and so manifests a common intellectual formation, shared prejudices, and political motivations. Therefore, it is not a surprise that the description of the Fomoiri in Cath Maige Tuired is in many ways parallel to that of the invaders in the Irish annals. We may consider the moment of invasion as it is described in Cath Maige Tuired: After that he [Elatha] sent him [Bres] to the champion Balor, grandson of Nét, the king of the Hebrides, and to Indech mac Dé Domnann, the king of the Fomoire; and these gathered all the forces from Lochlainn westwards to Ireland, to impose their tribute and their rule upon them by force, and they made a single bridge of ships from the Hebrides to Ireland.73

In this scenario the Fomoirian ruler of Ireland is losing his position and requests help from his kin overseas. The request is granted, resulting in an alliance and the Fomoiri come into Ireland to impose rule and tribute on them. Reading a sequence like this, it is easy to see the allegorical connotations of such a situation when it is contextualized through the power structures of the late Viking Age. In fact, there is evidence of very similar occasions within the annals. In AU 853.2 it is stated that: ‘Amlaíb, son of the king of Lochlann, came to Ireland, and the foreigners of Ireland submitted to him, and he took tribute from the Irish’. Another occasion is envisioned in entry AU 849.6: ‘A naval expedition of seven score ships of adherents of the king of the foreigners came to exact obedience from the foreigners who were in Ireland before them, and afterwards they caused confusion in the whole country’. These entries provide a direct historical parallel to the narrative extract described above, which in turn reinforces the possibilities of reading the narrative as a reflection of the historical situation. This scenario of a Scandinavian fleet arriving in Ireland to reinforce the power of the already settled incomers has been described as facilitating ‘conquest, control of the Vikings already settled in Ireland, and the imposition of taxes on Irish kingdoms’.74 This brings us briefly to one of the major motifs shared 73 Gray, CMT, pp. 36–37. 74 Ó Corráin, ‘The Vikings’, p. 302.

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between the historical evidence for the period and Cath Maige Tuired – that is the concept of tribute.75 The symbolic and practical role of tribute in the power discourse is obvious, and the parallel to annalistic evidence of tribute extracted by the Scandinavians during the Viking Age cannot be overlooked in this context. Cath Maige Tuired describes tribute as bondage and a destiny worse than death; therefore, it comes to represent the ultimate loss of independence and communal honour. In this sense the battle of Mag Tuired becomes a nationalistic struggle for independence and identity, as can be seen here: Lug was urging the men of Ireland to fight the battle fiercely so they should not be in bondage any longer, because it was better for them to find death while protecting their fatherland (a n-athardho) than to be in bondage ( fo doíri) and under tribute ( fou cís) as they had been.76

It is in these three concepts – the fatherland, bondage, and tribute – that the sense of identity, or the impending loss of it, culminate.77 Atharda represents the ancestral land, which appears as the physical manifestation of belonging-through-descent, more than the geographical location. It signifies the land with its customs, traditions, and social history. Doíre and cís, on the other hand, signify two different sides of lost independence. Doíre is the loss of one’s freedom and social status, whereas cís concerns economic freedom. Taking control over the social and economic condition of people is a way of establishing cultural or political power over them. Therefore, the narrative conflict of Cath Maige Tuired facilitates exploration of several aspects and tangible pressure points of social and cultural transition.

Hybrid characters in Cath Maige Tuired As was discussed earlier, the concept of hybridity in Cath Maige Tuired appears most explicitly through its characters and their cultural identities. This can be 75 For a more detailed discussion regarding the annalistic evidence and the role of kingship and tribute in Cath Maige Tuired, see Tuomala, ‘The Perfect Hybrid’, Chapter 2.3. 76 Gray, CMT, pp. 58–59; there are also indications that cattle-tribute is an aspect of Cath Maige Tuired; see § 165 in Gray, CMT, pp. 70–71; the word for tribute cí(o)s in Cath Maige Tuired (see Gray, CMT, pp. 28–29, 36–37 and 58–59) is also used in AU 853.2; however, AT 980.4 and AFM2 979.6 use the word cáin. 77 eDIL s.v. atharda, dil.ie/4648, ‘fatherland, patrimony, native land’; eDIL s.v. doíre, dil.ie/17939, ‘captivity, bondage, slavery’; eDIL s.v. cís, dil.ie/9231, ‘tax, tribute, cess, rent’.

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contrasted to existing theories of liminality within the Celtic context. Joseph Nagy described liminal characters in medieval Irish literature as being between separate categories of space, time, or identity and suggested that liminality in Irish literary tradition is primarily embodied by the poet-seer who, as a member of the áes dána, could transcend the normal social divisions.78 This immediately identifies Lug, the Samildánach, as a liminal character. He is both a poet-seer who has ‘access to realities beyond the experience of most other members of society’, and a master of all arts.79 This is emphasized throughout the long episode in which Lug proves his right to enter Tara and is allowed to sit ‘in the seat of the sage, because he was a sage in every art’.80 Nagy noted that the liminal characters in medieval Irish literature can either have extraordinary powers that benefit the society or can pose a threat to social order by transcending social divisions; Bres and Lug represent these two possibilities.81 The deliberate comparisons and elegant parallelism show that the narrative explores hybridity intentionally. Out of these two characters Lug is introduced first in § 8, where it is stated that: ‘The Túatha Dé then made an alliance with the Fomoire, and Balor the grandson of Nét gave his daughter Ethne to Cían the son of Dían Cécht. And she bore the glorious child, Lug’.82 He is introduced for the second time in § 55, where it is added that: ‘He is the foster son of Tailtiu the daughter of Magmór, the king of Spain, and of Eochaid Garb mac Dúach’.83 It is important to note that Lug appears as the product of a deliberate union, which is made to consolidate an alliance. It becomes apparent that Lug is dual in both birth and upbringing, as the son of a Fomoirian mother and Tuatha Dé father, and as a foster-child of a Tuatha Dé warrior and his wife who is a Fir Bolg queen. Despite the emphasized duality, Lug consistently identifies himself as a Tuatha Dé throughout the narrative, which is one of the key differences when compared to Bres. It could also be noted that, in the case of Lug, the Tuatha Dé are his father’s kin, whereas the opposite is true for Bres; this might be significant in the patriarchal context of medieval Ireland. Bres is also introduced twice in the narrative, first in § 14, when the wives of the Tuatha Dé recommend him for the kingship: They said that it would be appropriate for them to give the kingship to Bres the son of Elatha, to their own adopted son, and that giving him the 78 Nagy, ‘Liminality’, pp. 135 and 143. 79 Nagy, ‘Liminality’, p. 135. 80 Gray, CMT, pp. 38–43. 81 Nagy, ‘Liminality’, p. 135. 82 Gray, CMT, pp. 24–25. 83 Gray, CMT, pp. 38–39.

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kingship would knit the Fomorians’ alliance with them, since his father Elatha mac Delbaith was king of the Fomoire.84

This is followed immediately by the second introduction within the previously discussed birth-tale of Bres. These occasions reveal notable differences between the situations of Lug and Bres. Primarily, Bres is born as a result of a sexual tryst, rather than a political alliance. He is hybrid by birth but belongs to the Tuatha Dé by upbringing. Furthermore, Bres moves between the fixed identities of a member of the Tuatha Dé and a Fomoir in the course of the narrative. This movement signifies liminality, and it is his refusal to settle into one identity that ultimately threatens the social order. Therefore, the character who denies his inherent hybridity in favour of a singular identity is strengthened by it and becomes invaluable for the society. Whereas, the character who embraces his liminality threatens the social order and almost causes the loss of cultural independence and identity. This interpretation sees hybridity accepted as a phenomenon of the time and a natural consequence of cultural interaction, and identity as a conscious choice between the different groups. Therefore, it is not the dual identity which threatens the society, but the active choice given to the hybrid characters. Furthermore, the reactions of the surrounding society prove decisive in showing how the hybrid characters appear within the wider narrative context. Hybridity traditionally results in a degree of separation and experiences of being an outsider, not the Other, but truly outside the defined identities. In many ways this lack of belonging does not manifest itself in Cath Maige Tuired. Instead, the hybrid characters can move fluidly between the defined identity groups. This is a historically plausible representation of hybridity and reminds us that in Cath Maige Tuired hybridity is not abstract, rather it is closely tied to the contemporary experiences and expectations. This pattern of hybridity is repeated in a lesser known and often ignored sequence in § 124, which introduces a third person who represents the hybrid identities within Cath Maige Tuired.85 Despite appearing as a separate short episode, the included interaction is complicated and approaches hybridity, interaction, and prejudices from several different levels. At the centre of the sequence is Rúadán the son of Bres and Bríg who is the daughter of the Dagda. He is both the son and a grandson of the Tuatha 84 Gray, CMT, pp. 26–27. 85 Gray, CMT, pp. 56–57.

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Dé. Despite this he belongs to the Fomoiri, his father’s paternal kin. He gets sent to the Tuatha Dé to learn about their customs of war and is gifted a spear by his maternal kin. He betrays their trust and turns the spear on one of the Tuatha Dé, with the result that he himself gets killed by the same weapon. He subsequently dies in the presence of Bres and the Fomoiri. This sequence appears to express similar ideologies and concepts of identity to those of the more intricate plot regarding Bres and Lug. Rúadán moves fluidly between the fixed identities due to his mixed heritage. He is welcomed to the Tuatha Dé but betrays their trust by failing to adhere to a single identity group. He is killed as a result of his betrayal. Therefore, this sequence appears as a warning on the part of the tale’s authors. The hybrid character is acknowledged and accepted until he uses his mixed heritage against the Irish.

Conclusion This chapter explores the concepts of identity and hybridity in Cath Maige Tuired and concludes that the narrative is a study of the possible consequences of the destabilisation of a fixed Irish identity through the emergence of openly hybrid characters holding prominent roles in the society. This discussion highlights how contextualizing a narrative through the historical backdrop of its composition can increase our understanding of the text and its functions as a whole. Furthermore, this chapter demonstrates how postmodern literary theory can be applied to premodern material with good results, and therefore how hybridity theory emerges as a suitable tool for analysing the textual products of the Middle Ages. This is the case especially in the Irish context due to the prolonged state of cultural interaction and conflict following the arrival of the Scandinavians in the eighth century. Hybridity stands alone at the breaking point of the Self and the Other, as the sole survivor of cultural assimilation. Within the theoretical parameters, cultural interaction leads to either the assimilation of the submissive discourse into the dominant culture, or to a state of hybridity where neither culture remains fixed. The late Viking Age seems to present us with the latter scenario. In the literary depictions of the period, the social groups remained within their fixed identities despite their prolonged cultural interaction. This is also reflected in Cath Maige Tuired, which presents a situation where the Self and the Other retain their cultural roles leading to the formation of new hybrid identities. These characters have the potential to benefit the society, but only if the hybrid rejects its inherent liminality

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in favour of a singular identity, which is a paradox in terms of the nature of hybridity. Therefore, Cath Maige Tuired presents an intriguing insight into the self-perceived cultural change happening in medieval Ireland and how it was seen to affect the society. We can end this discussion on the note of Carey’s provocative statement: ‘Ireland appears, again and again, not merely as earth and stone but as the Other, a mysterious being rooted in timelessness and challenging the limits of our own mortality’.86 If we look at this statement in the light of Ériu being the physical embodiment of Ireland itself in Cath Maige Tuired, we can immediately see that Ireland is also the Self to be seduced by the Other, which emphasizes its liminal quality. The Irish pseudo-historical project provided ample opportunities for the creation of identity, which strove for a sense of timelessness and longevity in the face of the tumultuous period of the late Viking Age. The Other will always remain separate from the Self because the very concepts are defined by their contrasting natures. The hybrid, on the other hand, can choose whether it appears as perfect or destructive, whether it strengthens the society or threatens it. Carey’s Bakhtinian suggestion that: ‘The power of language enables us to build in our minds an image of the earth in which we dwell: outside is taken inside, and the Other becomes a portion of ourselves’, comes very close to the base value of hybridity.87 Literary representation has the power to change profound ideologies; the Self and the Other no longer exist, but identity remains and is continuously reassessed and reworked within the framework of cultural discourses.

Acknowledgement This chapter includes a shorter version of the discussion found in a dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Research in Celtic Studies at the University of Glasgow titled ‘The Perfect Hybrid: Interaction and Integration in Cath Maige Tuired’ (2018). I am very grateful for the support and advice provided by Thomas Clancy and Geraldine Parsons during the writing of this dissertation. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Gray and Emily Lyle for their kind contribution of insight and guidance during the process of writing the chapter as it is published here. 86 Carey, ‘Native Elements’, p. 60. 87 Carey, ‘Native Elements’, p. 60.

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Bibliography AFM2 = Annals of the Four Masters, vol. 2., ed. and trans. by John O’Donovan, online at https://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100005B/index.html (accessed 10 June 2020). AT = Annals of Tigernach, ed. and trans. by Gearóid Mac Niocaill, online at https:// celt.ucc.ie/published/T100002A/index.html (accessed 10 June 2020). AU = Annals of Ulster (to AD 1131), ed. and trans. by Seán Mac Airt and Gearóid Mac Niocaill, online at https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T100001A/ (accessed 10 June 2020). Abrams, Lesley, ‘Conversion and the Church in Viking-Age Ireland’, in The Viking Age: Ireland and the West, ed. by John Sheehan and Donnchadh Ó Corráin (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), pp. 1–10. Abrams, Lesley, ‘Diaspora and Identity in the Viking Age’, Early Medieval Europe 20.1 (2012), 17–38. Bakhtin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981). Benveniste, Henrietta and Costas Gaganakis, ‘Heterodoxies: Construction of Identities and Otherness in Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, Historein 2 (2000), 7–12. Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994). Binchy, D.A., ‘The Passing of the Old Order’, in The Impact of the Scandinavian Invasions on the Celtic-speaking Peoples c. 800–1100 A.D., Introductory Papers read at Plenary Sessions of the International Congress of Celtic Studies Held in Dublin 6–10 July, 1959, ed. by Brian Ó Cuív (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975), pp. 119–132. Boyarin, Daniel and Virginia Burrus, ‘Hybridity as Subversion of Orthodoxy? Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity’, Social Compass 52 (2005), 431–441. Carey, John, ‘Myth and Mythography in Cath Maige Tuired’, Studia Celtica 24–25 (1989–1990), 53–69. Carey, John, ‘Native Elements in Irish Pseudohistory’, in Cultural Identity and Cultural Integration: Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Doris Edel (Blackrock: Four Courts Press, 1995), pp. 45–60. Carey, John, ‘A London Library, An Irish Manuscript, A British Myth? The Wanderings of “The Battle of Moytirra”’, Irish Texts Society: Occasional Lecture Series 1 (London, 2014). Chesnutt, Michael, ‘Cath Maige Tuired: A Parable of the Battle of Clontarf’, in Northern Lights: Following Folklore in North-Western Europe. Essays in Honour of Bo Almqvist, ed. by Séamas Ó Catháin and Patricia Lysaght (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2001), pp. 22–33. Clarke, Michael, ‘The Leabhar Gabhála and Carolingian Origin Legends’, in Early Medieval Ireland and Europe: Chronology, Contact, Scholarship, ed. by Pádraic Moran and Immo Warntjes (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), pp. 441–479.

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Downham, Clare, Medieval Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). Duffy, Seán, Ireland in the Middle Ages (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1997). Dumville, David, ‘The Churches of North Britain in the First Viking Age’, Fifth Whithorn Lecture, 1996 (Whithorn, 1997). Dumville, David, ‘Did Ireland Exist in the Twelfth Century?’, in Clerics, Kings and Vikings: Essays on Medieval Ireland, ed. by E. Purcell, P. MacCotter, J. Nyhan, and J. Sheehan (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2015), pp. 115–126. eDIL = Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, ed. by Gregory Toner, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, and Dagmar Wodtko, online at www.dil.ie (accessed 5 January 2021). Geary, Patrick, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002). Gray, Elizabeth, ed. and trans., Cath Maige Tuired: The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, Irish Texts Society 52 (Kildare: Irish Texts Society, 1982). Hogan, Edmund, Onomasticon Goedelicum Locorum et Tribuum Hiberniae et Scotiae (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1910). Macalister, Robert A. Stewart, ed. and trans., Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Parts I–V, Irish Texts Society 34, 35, 39, 41, 44 (London: Irish Texts Society, 1938–1956). Mac Cana, Proinsias, ‘The Influence of the Vikings on Celtic Literature’, in The Impact of the Scandinavian Invasions on the Celtic-speaking Peoples c. 800–1100 A.D., ed. by Brian Ó Cuív (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1962), pp. 78–118. Mac Cana, Proinsias, ‘Early Irish Ideology and the Concept of Unity’, in The Irish Mind: Exploring Intellectual Traditions, ed. by Richard Kearney (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1984), pp. 56–78. Mallory, J.P., The Origins of the Irish (London: Thames and Hudson, 2013). McCone, Kim, ‘A Tale of Two Ditties: Poet and Satirist in Cath Maige Tuired’, in Sages, Saints and Storytellers: Celtic Studies in Honour of Professor James Carney, ed. by Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Liam Breatnach, and Kim McCone (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1989), pp. 122–143. Murphy, Gerard, ‘Notes on Cath Maige Tuired’, Éigse 7 (1953–1955), 191–198. Nagy, Joseph Falaky, ‘Liminality and Knowledge in Irish Tradition’, Studia Celtica 16 (1981), 135–143. Ní Mhaonaigh, Máire, ‘The Vikings in Medieval Irish Literature’, in The Vikings in Ireland, ed. by A.-C. Larsen (Roskilde: Viking Ship Museum, 2001), pp. 99–106. Ní Mhaonaigh, Máire, ‘Literary Lochlann’, in Cànan & Cultar: Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 3, ed. by Wilson McLeod, James Fraser, and Anja Gunderloch (Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press, 2006), pp. 25–37.

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Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás, ‘Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth’, in Folia Gadelica: Essays Presented by Former Students to R.A. Breatnach, ed. by Pádraig de Brún, Seán Ó Coileáin, and Pádraig Ó Riain (Cork: Cork University Press, 1983), pp. 1–19. Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás, ‘On the Early-Irish Prepositional Relative without Antecedent’, Celtica 21 (1990), 418–427. Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, ‘The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the Ninth Century’, Peritia 12 (1998), 296–339. Said, Edward, Orientalism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978). Tuomala, Ina, ‘The Perfect Hybrid: Interaction and Integration in Cath Maige Tuired’ (MRes Dissertation, University of Glasgow, 2018). Wadden, Patrick, ‘Theories of National Identity in Early Medieval Ireland’ (DPhil Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011). Williams, Mark, Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods in Irish Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). Woolf, Alex, ‘The Scandinavian Intervention’, in The Cambridge History of Ireland, Part 1, ed. by Thomas Bartlett and Brendan Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 107–130. Young, Robert, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (New York and London: Routledge, 1995).

About the Author Ina Tuomala holds an MA and an MRes from the University of Glasgow. Her research concentrates on bringing advanced literary theories into the study of medieval literatures, with a focus on advancing our understanding of Irish pseudo-historical material.

4

How Time Flies in the Cath Maige Tuired Joseph Falaky Nagy

Abstract The Túatha Dé Danann are seemingly a pre-Christian survival in early medieval Irish literature, where they are portrayed as magicians, druids, or powerfully knowledgeable artisans. Traditionally slotted into the ‘pseudohistorical’ scheme, thus constituting one of the primeval waves of invaders who shaped the land and institutions of Ireland, the Túatha Dé Danann (and their opponents, the Fomoiri) have a narrative space to themselves in the text known as the Cath Maige Tuired ‘(Second) Battle of Mag Tuired’. The characters Lug and the Dagda, ‘Good God’, represent contrasting perspectives on the struggle taking place, which I argue is primarily concerned with the question of whether, after the Battle, the Túatha Dé Danann will continue resisting time and death, or will embrace these quotidian realities. Keywords: Túatha Dé Danann, the Dagda, Lug, time, death

Elizabeth A. Gray, the editor/translator of the Cath Maige Tuired (‘The Battle of Mag Tuired’), a medieval Irish saga that will be the focus of this study, formulated in an article on this text an eloquently compact functional definition of the kind of narrative that concerns us in this essay.1 ‘In structural 1 Gray’s edition/translation will be cited throughout, with reference to the individual sections (§ ). Her series of articles interpreting the text, ‘Cath Maige Tuired: Myth and Structure’, has provided readers (including the author of this piece) with indispensable guidance. Supplementing this hermeneutical path through the complexities of Cath Maige Tuired is Gray’s contribution to the present volume. There is an Early Modern Irish telling of the story, Cath Muighe Tuireadh, which was edited by Brian Ó Cuív. The observations in this article are made in regard to the earlier telling. Caoimhín Breatnach’s examination of the possible historical context(s) behind Cath Maige Tuired and the overlapping narrative told in Oidhe Chloinne Tuireann (see below) sheds light on the tensions shaping the literary treatments of these stories.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch04

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terms, the function of a myth is to present issues and problems raised by conceptual categories in order to clarify – if not necessarily to resolve – the tensions inherent in any ordered perception of human experience.’2 From the perspective provided here by Gray, ‘myth’ and ‘history’ are not at all incompatible or mutually exclusive genres of storytelling. A ‘myth’, fulfilling the function described above, might be presented by a storyteller (oral or literary) and received by the teller’s audience as a striving-to-be-faithful or approximate account of the events of the past. Or a story fitting Gray’s description may be presented as an account of events that preceded the past of living memory or that takes place outside a temporal framework. As different as their orientation and points of reference might be, both types of narrative can persist in and pervade a culture because they serve to express key ‘issues and problems’ with which it is important for the people in that culture to be familiar. Hence, stories, whether historically grounded or not, can count as ‘myths’, if we are applying the term according to what the story does within the culture, whatever its contents. The latter include the chosen time-frame or the lack of one, plot types, dramatis personae, and motifs, from which the storyteller constructs the tale. If, however, in a particular cultural context, or in regard to a particular set of texts, we want to see whether a content-based distinction can be made between the myths that reflect history, whether accurately or in the way what some folklorists call ‘legend’ reflects it, and those that reflect a world before or remote from that more accessible temporal framework, a useful criterion may be to measure the way in which a story and the actors in it deal with time. Does the narrative operate according to a serial, sequential sense of time, or does it feature a more flexible concept of time as reversible, looping, or even irrelevant to the proceedings? For example, to what extent do incidents related in the stories in question have to occur in a certain order, and under what circumstances is our expectation of that order resisted or rendered invalid and irrelevant in those stories? In some narrative worlds, a sequence of events that unfolds a certain way in life as experienced by the storyteller and the audience may be turned back on itself, accelerated, slowed down, repeated, or jumbled in some other way – so that the characters appear free from the tyranny of irreversible time as it appears to operate in both life and more ‘historical’ story. Even amidst this flexibility, however, it is possible for this atemporality to play itself out, when the permutations of its motifs and patterns give way to a gradual entropy. In particular, it is the introduction of the fact of 2

Gray, ‘Myth and Structure (84–93, 120–167)’, p. 261.

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irreversible death that makes it possible for a historical time to emerge out of what in comparison had seemed a timelessness. Mortality is a pivot from which there is no turning back, but history can still revert to, experience an irruption of, or even co-exist with, this primeval defiance of time and its fixed sequences, which by definition can never die out completely, being under no obligation to respect boundaries such as what we might try to construct between ‘myth’ and ‘history’. In the Irish storytelling tradition, from medieval to modern, the outstanding examples of this free-form time are to be found in the many tales having to do with the denizens of the síde (a network of mostly subterranean dwellings that constitute the otherworld), especially in those narratives that centre on human encounters with these supernatural beings. Medieval stories having to do with the primeval origins of Irish society and culture usually name these otherworldly beings, not yet forced underground, the Túatha Dé Danann, an obscure designation that (it has been convincingly argued) originally meant ‘the People of the God of the Nobles/Upper Classes’.3 This is a community of individuals outstanding in knowledge, status, and power who, according to the widely attested medieval literary formulation of the past (often called ‘pseudo-historical’), settled in a pre-human Ireland, succeeding their predecessors, the Fir Bolg. Later, The Túatha Dé, in turn, were expelled from the ‘surface’ of Ireland and confined to the síde by the sons of Míl, who became the ancestors of the Irish human community. Despite their exile, the members of the Túatha Dé live on, becoming what the title of a recent work on their continuing presence in Irish literature and culture designates Ireland’s Immortals. 4 The Túatha Dé as a race of beings are shown in the stories told about them in medieval Irish literature to be free of the limits of time and mortality, unlike the other races that occupied Ireland before and after them. Yet, I will argue, there is a tension expressed in these narratives about some of their leading figures in regard to whether they should stay free of those 3 Hamp, ‘The Dag(h)d(h)ae and his Relatives’, p. 168. 4 By Mark Williams (2016). The ‘immortality’ of the book’s title perhaps consists more of never being totally forgotten rather than of living forever. The monograph takes account of how at least in some strands of medieval Irish tradition the Túatha Dé are shown slouching toward mortality, especially with the coming of Christianity, or they are perceived to have already become ‘dead gods’ and given way to a new generation arising from their midst (pp. 182–223). William Sayers in ‘Netherworld and Otherworld’ notes the connection between death as part of the human condition and the transition from the Túatha Dé to the next wave of invaders (p. 209). A useful survey of references to the Túatha Dé in the extant literature is now available in John Carey, The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature.

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defining restraints or move forward into a more historical time, where they can be acknowledged as a foundational past by a posterity that can only emerge with a fully embraced sense of ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’. The price to be paid by the forward-looking members of the Túatha Dé for this acknowledgement by latter-day generations is their subjection, like all the other inhabitants of Ireland, to death and the ‘normal’ course of time. The figure in this conflict who is the mascot for that original freedom enjoyed by the Túatha Dé is the Dagda (‘Good God’), also known as Eochaid Ollathir (‘Eochaid Great-Father’). That this progenitor figure represents the ‘good old days’ of the Túatha Dé is especially appropriate given that his title, like the designation of his people as descended from or belonging to a divinity, constitutes a major argument for seeing behind the Túatha Dé an erstwhile pantheon.5 As re-conceptualized and re-introduced in the Christian milieu that generated the literary tradition, the Túatha Dé are more ‘magical’ or ‘druidic’ than ‘divine’, but they are still allowed to bear some of the seeming traces of their previously godly status, especially the Dagda. His supernaturally charged importance is particularly on display in Cath Maige Tuired, which tells of the coming to Ireland of the Túatha Dé and their struggle to achieve dominion over it.

Multi-Tasking Lug, another leading figure of the Túatha Dé in Cath Maige Tuired, fights alongside the Dagda in resistance to Ireland’s would-be conquerors in the battle that forms the narrative’s centrepiece, but there are hints of rivalry between the two characters. It is important to note that the Dagda is presented as a charter member of the Túatha Dé, who was with them even before the beginning of their possession of Ireland. Lug, on the other hand, though descended from Túatha Dé stock (his father Cían is the son of the Túatha Dé healer Dían Cécht), enters the story in medias res, nearly supersedes the original cast of characters and, as if his arrival had been anticipated like that of a saviour, immediately assumes a leadership role among the Túatha Dé in their moment of grave crisis. Coming to the hall in Tara where they have gathered, Lug is deemed worthy of the designation Samildánach (‘Possessing All the Arts’, along with all the knowledge and competencies that go with them). This acknowledgement comes after he 5 In fact, Hamp suggests that the tutelary divinity evoked in Túatha Dé Danann is the Dagda himself (‘The Dag(h)d(h)ae and his Relatives’, p. 168).

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forcefully claims that he is master of each of the crafts and specializations that the various members of the Túatha Dé individually represent (§§ 54–68). Lug by himself can do everything they can do, and so, the question could be asked, does he thereby render all of them redundant and obsolete?6 The Dagda describes himself in strikingly similar terms in a later scene, one that anticipates Lug’s more detailed marshalling of the various specialists among the Túatha Dé and asking each of them what they will contribute to the war effort (§§ 77–80; §§ 95–120). In the earlier scene, it would appear to be Lug again who is asking a much shorter list of functionaries (a sorcerer, a cupbearer, and a druid) what harm they will bring upon the enemy in battle. The concluding words, however, are exchanged between the Dagda and the assembly, which, we are told, also includes physicians, charioteers, smiths, husbandmen, and jurists: ‘The Dagda said, “The power which you boast, I will wield it all myself.” “You are the Dagda [‘the Good God’]!” said everyone; and “Dagda” stuck to him from that time on’ (‘Atbert an Daogdae, “An cumang arbágaid-si, dogén-sou ule am áonur.” “Is tusai an Dagdae!” or cách; gonad de rot-lil “Dagdae” ó sin é’, § 81). Lug Samildánach, a new, more polished actor in the mythic drama, has his salvific value to the Túatha Dé described in terms of dána (‘arts’), which connote inspiration, learning, and art, and which in their individual characteristics and as the basis of distinct guilds or schools survive into and thrive in the world of the audience of Cath Maige Tuired. Contrasting with the complexity and rich historical background of the multi-faceted heritage to which Lug lays claim is the undifferentiated rawness of the Dagda’s claim to have universal ‘power’ (cumang), a rawness that extends to the attribution of ‘goodness’ and ‘god-ness’ that he elicits from the other members of the Túatha Dé.7 A notable aspect of Cath Maige Tuired, the most extensive narrative that has come down to us about the Túatha Dé, is that it mentions another primeval tribe that occupied Ireland, the Fir Bolg, and the Túatha Dé’s struggle with these predecessors for control of Ireland, while the ‘battle’ of which it primarily tells is with the Fomoiri, a people eager to wrest that control from the Túatha Dé. Nevertheless, Cath Maige Tuired avoids 6 On the impressive, almost overwhelming qualities of leadership and knowledge that Lug brings to the Túatha Dé in their hour of need, see Ó Cathasaigh, ‘Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth’, pp. 143–145. 7 In his article ‘Irish Law and the Wars of the Túatha Dé Danann’, Neil McLeod characterizes the sorcerer, cupbearer, and druid who in this scene are asked to describe their destructive powers as ‘three men who are magically in command of three of the elements of creation: earth, water, fire’ (p. 93). ‘The Dagda’, he comments, ‘announces that he is in command of all three, for which reason he is dubbed Dagda “the good God”’ (p. 93, n. 1).

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mentioning any of the other primeval settlers of the island, including the sons of Míl, who came to Ireland last of all and ended the Túatha Dé’s dominance.8 In other words, with its narrative focus on their arrival, victory, crisis, and climactic triumph over their adversaries, Cath Maige Tuired sets the Túatha Dé apart from the multi-stage sequence of serial invasions that underlies the medieval Irish literary tradition’s ‘pseudo-historical’ formulation of Ireland’s ancient past, especially as represented in the collection of texts known as the Lebor Gabála Érenn.9 Given their own space in which to act out the larger story arc that encompasses the entire series of primeval conquests of Ireland, the Túatha Dé in Cath Maige Tuired precipitate and participate in a wondrously reversible ‘narrative present’. Gradually, however, it gives way to a vision of an irreversible future. The resistance to that direction, I submit, is epitomized by the Dagda, while the shift toward a more familiar world is associated with, perhaps we can say even facilitated by, the other most prominent figure in the story, Lug, the battle-leader of the Túatha Dé.

Restoring Life, Undoing Death The Dagda as described in Cath Maige Tuired and various other texts stands out as larger than life, on account of not just his predilection for over-the-top behaviour but also the freedom from human limitations that he and his adventures exemplify – as if, indeed, he were a ‘god’. In more than one source he is noted for having a staff, cudgel, or club (lorg) with which he can kill (using the rough end) his victims as well as revive them (by using the other, smooth end). This instrument, running along a continuum from ‘deadly’ to ‘revivifying’, aptly symbolizes the Dagda’s control extending over the entire range of life, the events of which in his hands can be turned around as easily as the lorg itself. 8 A seeming exception is § 141, where a poet addresses a poem ‘to the Gaels’ (do Gaidelaib), who should be the (descendants of) the sons of Mil. On this address to those who are outside the ‘box’ that Cath Maige Tuired constructs, see Gray, ‘Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri’, in this volume, and Nagy, ‘Are Myths in the Text or Outside the Box?’, p. 4. 9 Cf. Gray’s observation: ‘Although its place within the scheme of pseudo-history represented by Lebor Gabála Érenn “Book of the Taking of Ireland” is carefully defined as following the invasion of the Fir Bolg and preceding that of the sons of Míl, the occupation and defence of Ireland by the Túatha Dé Danann is mythologically timeless. It is fundamentally a myth of creation, dealing not with the origin of the natural universe but with the establishment and necessary periodic regeneration of human society in all its complexity’ (‘Cath Maige Tuired: Myth and Structure [1–24]’, p. 184).

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A personal motive for wishing to reverse the one-way passage from life to death figures centrally in the story of the Dagda’s acquisition of the club, which takes place while in his paternal grief he is searching for a way to bring his tragically killed son Cermait back to life. It figures in our examination of the contrast between the Dagda and Lug in Cath Maige Tuired that Cermait’s slayer is said to have been Lug, a jealous husband taking revenge for the seduction of his wife. Carrying the corpse of Cermait, the Dagda runs into three strangers, siblings who are arguing over how to distribute three objects that constitute their patrimony. He tricks them into letting him inspect one of the three, a lorg whose magical properties they describe, and promptly slays them with the rough end of the staff. He then applies the other end to his son’s corpse, and it works: Cermait is brought back to life. Arguing for mercy, the latter convinces his father to undo the killing of the three brothers, whom the Dagda advises to share the remaining items of the patrimony, and who then grant him the loan of the lorg.10 The Dagda’s behaviour in this story forms a striking contrast with that of Lug in the account of his dealings with the three sons of Tuirill or Tuirenn, who are probably the same figures as the ‘three gods of Danu’ in Cath Maige Tuired, from whom Lug receives the battle-gear that they had been preparing for seven years in anticipation of the encounter with the Fomoiri (§ 83).11 The tale as told in sources other than Cath Maige Tuired, which offers no further details, configures the delivery of the special objects as the attempt on the part of the three young heroes to give Lug what he demands in compensation for their having slain his father. Lug, however, is unforgiving, and the quest on which he has sent the sons of Tuirill, while successful, results in their being mortally wounded. When he is importuned first by their father and then one of the dying brothers to bring them back to life with one of the magical objects they have given Lug as instructed (a reviving pigskin), he refuses the request, and the sons of Tuirill are no more. The Dagda takes the death of his son very seriously, searching the world until he finds a miraculous means of restoring him to life. Because father and son are so close, and the Dagda listens to Cermait, no one has to ‘stay dead’ for the Dagda to gain this very special device that both heals and kills. Lug also possesses a means of reversing death, but he refuses to use it, on account of the close father–son bond in which he is involved, and so his possession of the reviving pigskin ironically remains predicated on his determination to achieve deadly revenge. The 10 Bergin, ‘How the Dagda Got his Magic Staff’, pp. 402–404. 11 On these mysterious figures, see O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology, pp. 308–317.

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contrast between the two stories is striking, and it points to the difference in the Dagda and Lug’s attitudes toward death – whether it is a temporary state or a necessary and permanent condition.12 In an episode of the Ulster-cycle saga Mesca Ulad (‘Confusion of the Ulstermen’), the Dagda’s playful application of both ends of his lorg makes the losing and regaining of life into a pastime for him and his companions.13 Significantly, the tableau presented in this text, of the Dagda slaying his companions and bringing them back to life repeatedly, is visible only to a druid who describes a cast of supernatural characters enacting a scene others present cannot see. But it is set in a time – the Ulster-cycle epoch – that would have most likely been viewed as real, historical time by the teller and audience of the story – an era viewed as unfolding long after the coming of the ancestors of humans to Ireland (that is, the sons of Míl) and after the end of the domination of the Túatha Dé over the island. So the reversibility of death persists well beyond the era when the Túatha Dé reigned supreme, but it is only to be found in the pockets of the narrative world (and, in this particular case, remains invisible to most human eyes), where certain members of the Túatha Dé, particularly the Dagda, are to be found, exultantly defeating time.

Day and Night Perhaps the most extraordinary demonstration of the Dagda’s control of time and his manipulation of its perception by others comes in the early medieval text Tochmarc Étaíne (‘Wooing of Étaín’), in which the Dagda is presented as the high-king of the Túatha Dé.14 The opening episode tells of his successful attempt to gain sexual access to a woman that he desires by getting rid of the presence of her husband Elcmar. The Dagda sends him on an errand that extends to nine months, even though upon his return, the latter, who had been kept in daylight and protected from hunger and thirst by the Dagda’s magic, thinks that he has been gone for only a day. During Elcmar’s absence, not only does the Dagda have intercourse with the 12 Thurneysen, ‘Turill Bicrenn und seine Kinder’, pp. 244–246; O’Duffy, Oidhe Chloinne Tuireann (‘Death of the Children of Tuireann’), pp. 62–64. 13 Mesca Ulad, ed. Watson, p. 28. 14 See Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees, Celtic Heritage, pp. 88–89, 91, on the theme of time as it pertains to this section of the Tochmarc Étaíne. John Carey has written extensively on the flexibility of time among the Túatha Dé, in the síd, and specifically in this particular text: see, for example, ‘Time, Space, and the Otherworld’, and ‘Time, Memory, and the Boyne Necropolis’.

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woman (named Eithne or Bóand) but, during this extended period of time, she bears a child as a result of their union. The offspring, the Dagda’s most famous son, who in the text is originally named Óengus, receives the name or epithet In Mac Óc (‘The Young Lad [or ‘Son’]’), for, his mother explains, ‘the lad [or son] is young who was produced at the beginning of the day and born between it and its end’ (‘is óc an mac dorónad i tosach lai ⁊ ro geinir etir ⁊ fescur’, Tochmarc Étaíne, ed. by R. I. Best and Osborn Bergin, p. 142). This name serves as an expression of an ability to render time flexible, which is generally characteristic of the Túatha Dé but is embodied in particular in the person and power of the Mac Óc’s father. It is this same temporal control that receives expression in the Dagda’s own name or epithet, ‘The Good God’, as this text had earlier explained: ‘For it was he who would perform miracles and control the weather and the harvests for [his people, the Túatha Dé]’ (‘ar ba hé dogníth na ferta ⁊ conmidhedh na sina ⁊ na toirthe doib’, Tochmarc Étaíne, p. 142). That his epithet has to do with the Dagda’s ability to make time (or our perception of it) stand still, speed up, reverse its course, or produce the best results is likely, since weather and harvests are seasonal functions of time. The playing with time reflected in the Dagda’s divine use of his lorg manifests itself yet again in the Tochmarc Étaine, in the plan he concocts for his son the Mac Óc to dispossess his stepfather Elcmar. To win control over the Brug na Bóinne, the Boyne Valley home and surrounding territory where Elcmar dwells, the Dagda advises the Mac Óc to break the time-honoured rule pertaining to the festival of Samain (November 1), according to which people are to be at peace with one another and not to bear arms. Contrary to custom, the young man, says the Dagda, should enter Elcmar’s home and threaten him with weapons, forcing upon the landowner the stark choice between losing his life or granting the Mac Óc ‘kingship of [a] day along with night over his land’ (‘rigi lai co n-aidchi ina ferand’, Tochmarc Étaíne, p. 146). When, after a single day and night, Elcmar, who will choose the seemingly far less permanent option, comes to reclaim his property, the Mac Óc, as instructed by his father, is to insist upon the arbitration of the Dagda (in his role as the high-king of the Túatha Dé). The latter will of course favour his son and his argument, which his father tells him to proclaim thus in the judicial hearing: ‘It is in days and nights that the world is [or must be?] spent’ (‘Laib ⁊ aidchib dochaiter an doman’, Tochmarc Étaíne, p. 146). Taking advantage of the ambiguity of language (as it operates in both this judgment and the Mac Óc’s original request), the Dagda breaks down the difference between a single sequence of day and night, and all days and nights, thereby challenging not only the quantifiable measurement of time

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but even the distinction between preceding day and following night. For if, in a (re)interpretation of what the Mac Óc asked for, the judgement calls for his possession of the Brug to last for ‘all days and nights’, then distinguishing what seemed to be a condition of occupancy for a ‘day along with night’ from that of a ‘night followed by day’ becomes meaningless. Other versions of the story of the conception of the Mac Óc and his devious acquisition of the Brug have survived. Dindshenchas (place-name lore) literature, for example, presents Elcmar (or Elcmaire) as the woman’s brother, unwilling to let his home be the site for his (married) sister to have sex with the persistent Dagda, but thwarted in his resolve by the latter’s power.15 Remarkably, in this multiform the Dagda actually stops time (or its measurement) and the alternation of night and day by making the sun stand still during Elcmar’s time away from home. In the Tochmarc Étaíne, on the other hand, he is said magically to manipulate Elcmar’s perception of the passage of time, but not the sun itself. Still, time, or how its passing is felt, bends to the Dagda’s will. Another major difference among these versions of the story is that only in the opening episode of the saga of Étaín (a time-bender in her own right) does the ‘day and night’ trick played on Elcmar originate with the Dagda. In a late medieval text that tells the story, Elcmar is still the one stripped of his ownership, but it is another prominent member of the Túatha Dé, Manannán mac Lir, who advises the Mac Óc on how to do it. The Dagda does not f igure at all in the story.16 Elsewhere, it is the Dagda himself, presented as the original owner of the Brug, who is deprived of it by his son, who follows the advice of his foster father Midir to make the devious request.17 In this version of the tale of trickery, the ‘Youthful Son’ proves himself to be a chip off the old block, misleading his father into thinking that the conventional language of time is what will apply. Adding to the dreamlike quality of the story, and unique to what we find in the Tochmarc Étaíne, is the identity of the person to whom the Dagda sends the to-be-cuckolded husband on a day’s journey, in order to remove him from the scene and have free access to the woman he desires. It is Bres mac Elathan, the notorious half-breed who during his ill-fated kingship over his mother’s people (the Túatha Dé) betrays them, is deposed, and 15 Lucius Gwynn, ‘Cináed úa Hartacáin’s Poem on Brugh na Bóinne’; cf. E.J. Gwynn, The Metrical Dindsenchas, Part III, p. 36. 16 Altromh Tighi da Medar, ed. by Dobbs, pp. 196–202. 17 Gwynn, The Metrical Dindsenchas, Part III, pp. 224–228; Hull, ‘De Gabail int Shída’, pp. 55–56. On the latter text’s function as an exemplum for ‘verbal deceit’, see Maher, ‘De Gabáil int Shída: Remscél or Remremscél?’

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flees to his father’s transmarine people (the Fomoiri), bringing about the epic conflict between the two sides of his family that comes to be known as the (Second) Battle of Mag Tuired, the main subject of Cath Maige Tuired. In another of the already-cited sources for the story of the conception of the Mac Óc, the place to which the Dagda sends Elcmar is the same as in Tochmarc Étaíne – Mag n-Inis, presumably the same location so named in other sources, in what is modern County Down. The person to whom he is sent, however, is not named, but the association with the place remains: Elcmar goes to the home of a person described as the ‘king of Mag n-Inis’.18 Cath Maige Tuired concludes with the victory of the Túatha Dé and the expulsion of the Fomorian invaders seeking to return Bres to his throne. The Dagda plays a prominent role throughout, but certainly not as king of the Túatha Dé, which is what he is said to be in the story we have been discussing as preserved in the Tochmarc Étaíne. Rather, in Cath Maige Tuired he is kept in servitude by Bres as a builder of raths, until Bres loses his kingship. And, while Bres is pointedly left alive at the end of Cath Maige Tuired’s account of the Battle, it seems highly unlikely that he would have been repatriated in Ireland. Even if his presence had been tolerated, the Dagda’s accession to the throne, according to Lebor Gabála Érenn, only took place long after the defeat of Bres and his allies.19 So was the storyteller responsible for the Tochmarc Étaíne episode unaware of the ignominious failure of Bres and his virtual elimination from the scene as forming the background to the story of the Túatha Dé’s flourishing in Ireland? Or is the sending of Elcmar on an errand to Bres yet another sign of the power of the Dagda, able to warp the accepted chronology of the past or even change the outcome of events as recounted in a prominent strand of the tradition?

Two Captives In the flush of his triumph as the battle-leader of the Túatha Dé, Lug drives home his advantage with two Fomorian survivors, whose lives he offers to spare if they give him ransom of sufficient value, thereby defusing the danger the Fomoiri could still pose to Lug’s reign and the tranquillity of his rule over the Túatha Dé. It is no coincidence that the self-renewal and imperviousness to change that characterized the Túatha Dé and perhaps to 18 Gwynn, ‘Cináed úa Hartacáin’s Poem on Brugh na Bóinne’, pp. 222, 237. 19 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, Part IV, p. 150.

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some extent the Fomoiri in the halcyon days before the world’s coming of age in the battles of Mag Tuired are reflected in the unusual appearances of both of Lug’s captives. One of them, Bres, is a paradigm of physical beauty, we learn early on in the story (§ 21). The other captive is Lóch, the poet ( fili) of the slain Fomorian king Indech. He bears the epithet lethglas because ‘he was half green from the ground to the crown of his head’ (‘lethglass é ó talmain go mulluch a cinn’, § 136). Teeming with a vegetal life-force akin to the profusion of herbs said in a previous episode to sprout from the grave of a wondrous physician of the Túatha Dé (§ 35), Lóch is the first captive with whom Lug negotiates. As the price for his life and freedom, the poet offers Lug and the Túatha Dé a future of peace and the time to grow, giving the assurance that Ireland will not need ever again to be on guard against the Fomoiri and the destruction their renewed attempt to dominate would bring (§ 140). Lóch buys his freedom by additionally giving his captor an extraordinary power that will be Lug’s alone: ‘Whatever judgement your tongue will deliver in any difficult case, it will resolve the matter until the end of life’ (‘A ngébas di teungae, íocfaid fri diaid mbeuthaud ar cach, n-aingceus’, § 140).20 It is surprising that Lóch is able to make these commitments to Lug – he is clearly a Fomorian prophet as well as poet who can not only predict but also shape the future. A different world with a more structured kind of time is forming here. The definitiveness of what he proclaims – that the Fomoiri will never invade again, and that whatever Lug says to a person will hold true until that person dies – depends upon an irreversible time, a present progressing into a future, and an individual life progressing towards its end. This is the kind of existence with which Lug provides the Túatha Dé and their posterity – a very different world from the far more flexible one to which Lug came, and into which the Túatha Dé welcomed him. How appropriate it thus is that the most extensive exchange between Lug and Lóch has to do with the impossibility of estimating all the battle dead, on the innumerable bodies of whom this new world emerges. It starts with Lug 20 I am following Gray’s translation here, which supplies ‘judgment’ as that which comes forth from Lug’s tongue. Perhaps, however, there is some multivalence in Lóch’s statement. Ainces can mean ‘ailment’ as well as ‘(legal) quandary’, and the verb íccaid can mean ‘heals’ as well as ‘solves’ or ‘pays’. The reference to the ‘end of life’ implies a medical condition that Lug can alleviate with verbal charms. On the battlefield he is portrayed as singing or chanting (cétal) in a magical way that both incites his army and powers them to victory (§ 129; see eDIL, s.v. ainces, íccaid, cétal; accessed on 27 May 2020). If such ‘charmed’ language is implied in what Lóch says, then Lug has possibly inherited some of the healing knowledge possessed by his grandfather Dían Cécht, but it does not (or cannot) challenge the new reality of death.

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asking, how many of the Fomoiri were slain in the battle? The poet gives an answer that begins with hard numbers but finally admits to the impossibility of a final accounting: ‘Until the stars of heaven can be counted, and the sands of the sea, and flakes of snow, and dew on a lawn, and hailstones, and grass beneath the feet of horses, and the horses of the son of Lir in a sea storm – they will not be counted at all’ (‘Co roháirmither renda nime, ⁊ gainem maurae, ⁊ lóae snechtae, ⁊ drúcht for faichthi, ⁊ bommadn eghae, ⁊ féur fo cossaib greghae, ⁊ groigh meic Lir la máurainfini – ní háirmidter-side iter’, § 148). This is more than mere hyperbole: the outcome of the Battle as relayed by Lóch in response to Lug’s question offers a sobering preview of all the death to come in the world of the future. Moving on, Lug confronts the other captive, Bres, and demands a ransom that will make it worthwhile for him and his people to spare the life of their former oppressor. Guided by the counsel of his advisers, Lug does not accept Bres’s first two offers, the first, a year-round abundance of milk, and the second, a harvest of grain every season (§§ 150–158). These would create an unmanageable surfeit, ‘too much of a good thing’, a food-supply of a magnitude that only a generation possessing the Dagda’s appetite and capacity could fully consume.21 Perhaps even more importantly, these changes to the natural order would disrupt the divisions of the annual cycle of time, eliminating the difference between one season and another. With no fluctuation in the amount of food available from one cycle to another of agricultural and pastoral production, the bounty that Bres offers would reduce or even eliminate the ability to distinguish one year from the next. What Lug accepts as ransom from Bres is not at all as copious as what the first two proposals would have produced. It is a regulation by which time can be measured on a weekly, seasonal, and yearly basis: ‘[Asks Lug:] ‘‘How shall the men of Ireland plough? How shall they sow? How shall they reap? If you make known these things, you will be saved.” “Say to them, on Tuesday their ploughing; on Tuesday their sowing seed in the field; on Tuesday their reaping”’ (‘“Cocon ebrad, co sílfad, co chobibsad fir Érenn? Is íar fis an tréde-siu, manad-anustar.” “Abair friu, ‘Mairt a n-ar; Mairt hi corad síl a ngurt; Mairt a n-imbochdt”’, § 160). And with the acceptance of this offer, which the text calls a celg, a word that can mean ‘trick’, Bres is released, and Lug obtains a principle by which necessary agricultural work can be organized throughout the year (§ 161). There may be a genuine magical connection, revealed here by Bres, between 21 These traits of the Dagda’s are demonstrated in the episode of his visit to the Fomorian invaders’ camp, where he succeeds in eating the huge quantity of food he is given (§§ 88–93).

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the successful outcome of the work and Tuesday in particular. If, however, there is no such connection, and if the custom of designating a day for such activity is more important than whichever day is actually chosen, then this may be why this agricultural rule is designated a celg.22 Nevertheless, even if there is nothing supernatural about Tuesday, making it the day for different stages of agricultural activity to be carried out serves the purpose of marking a specific day as different from the other days of the week on account of the activities associated with it. Lug therefore introduces for posterity an understanding of time that is the opposite of the ‘trick’ that made it possible for the Mac Óc, the son of the Dagda, to occupy the Brug, when he was advised by his father to interpret ‘a day and a night’ to refer to all days and nights. In the world that Lug is ushering in, Tuesday and by implication each other day of the week has its own distinctive features, activities associated with it, and virtues inherent in it. One day, in other words, is not like all other days. So we see that in the aftermath of the battle Lug is busy acquiring and introducing new conditions that will apply in the world over which he is now set to rule. He negotiates a guarantee that in the future there will be freedom from the Fomoiri and no further repeats of the Battle of Mag Tuired. Singled out for a special privilege, he receives an infusion of authority that will be expressed in whatever may come from his tongue (whether a legal pronouncement or a healing charm) so that it will be effective ‘until the end of life’. And he is given a scheme for organizing the agricultural calendar that creates continuity within the larger temporal cycle (the year): the work progresses from one Tuesday in one season to another Tuesday in another season. But it is a scheme that also maintains difference within the smaller cycle (the week). Whether or not it is a particularly efficacious day – whether the elevation of Tuesday is a celg or not – matters less than the organization of sequential time that the scheme enshrines.

A Sword, a Harp, and a Cow Only three other members of the Túatha Dé besides Lug have roles to play in the post-battle scenes of Cath Maige Tuired. There is the Dagda, who, according to some sources, received a wound inflicted in the Battle by 22 For more on the ‘bargaining’ in this scene and the question of whether Lug obtains something of genuine value, see Sayers, ‘Bargaining for the Life of Bres’, and Gray, ‘Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri’, in this volume.

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Balor’s warrior-wife that killed him after a long while (including the time of the Dagda’s reign as king).23 In Cath Maige Tuired, however, there is no mention of his having emerged from the fray any the worse for wear. This is not the case with the champion Ogma, said earlier in the text to be a brother of the Dagda’s (§ 75) and, in the account of the battle, included among the fallen (§ 138). And yet, after Lug’s negotiations with Bres, there follows an episode in which an alive-and-well Ogma finds the sword of a fallen Fomorian king on the battle field, a recovered object that, after Ogma unsheathes and cleans it, recounts the past exploits in which it had taken part. Cath Maige Tuired explains that it was the habit of swords in those days to tell of the deeds that had been done by or with them whenever they were unsheathed (‘roindis an claideb nach ndernad de, ar ba béss do claidbib an tan-sin dotorsilcitis doadhbadis na gnímha dogníthea díb in tan-sin. Conid de sin dlegaid claidme cíos a nglantai íarna tosluccad. Is de dano forcométar brechda hi cloidbib ó sin amach’, § 162). The sword receives further honorary acknowledgement when the poet Lóch, with whom Lug negotiated, returns to the story in order to compose and perform a poem about the weapon, celebrating in esoteric language the transfer of its ownership from the Fomoiri to Ogma. Thus, unlike the forward-looking Lug who is shaping a rigorously organized future, Ogma, who himself through the magic of the Túatha Dé (or just authorial error) has come back to life, recovers a record(er) of the past that had been abandoned on the battlefield. Restored with a polish, the now-unmuted sword opens a channel into the past with an account of its deeds and of those who have wielded it – information that Cath Maige Tuired teasingly does not relay. Nor is it clear whether this was the first time a sword was coaxed into telling stories about the past, but the point is made: the victory in the Battle is not just a chance for the establishment of a new order but also an opportunity to bring back what otherwise would have been lost, and to pay respect not just to a sword but to the past itself. There is more to be recovered from the Fomoiri. In a rescue mission that brings together the team of Lug, the Dagda, and Ogma, they penetrate the lair of the surviving enemy to recover the Dagda’s harp (cruit) and his harper. (We are not told whether the instrument and its player had been taken before or after the Battle.) The Fomoiri had not been enjoying the music of the harp, nor was the musician able to play it, because the Dagda ‘had bound the melodies so that they did not make a sound until he summoned them, saying…’ (‘Is sí in cruit sin ara nenaisc na céola conarofhograidhsetor 23 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, Part IV, p.236; Ó Cuív, Cath Muighe Tuireadh, pp. 7, 48.

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tria gairm co ndegart in Dagda in tan atbert ann so sís’, § 163). As was also true in the episode featuring the sword on the battlefield, what needs to happens here is not just the taking possession of a valuable object (in this instance, the reclaiming of stolen property) but also the unmuting of a voice from the past – first it was the voice of a sword, and now it is the sound of a harp. The instrument, once it is poetically addressed by the Dagda, can go back to being the way it was and playing what it used to play. Astonishingly, the Dagda’s call to the harp to return to its owner includes a direct invitation to the seasons to join him and the harp – ‘Come summer, come winter’ (‘Tair sam, tair gam’) – in the celebration of the reversal of time and adverse circumstances that the Dagda so thoroughly achieves in this episode. Remarkably, the harp, like the sword (which Ogma will doubtless employ as a weapon in the future), proves to be lethal once it is awakened. It moves by itself to the Dagda, coming down from the wall and killing nine of the Fomoiri in its path (§ 164). The trio of rescuers succeeds in escaping from the grasp of their angered enemy when the Dagda, now reunited with his harp, plays the three kinds of music with which harpers traditionally mesmerize their audience. The last of these kinds is sleep-inducing, which is what the Dagda performs in order to facilitate his, Ogma’s, and Lug’s escape. Here again, the Dagda is presented as capable of matching Lug in power and talent, as if they were engaged in an extended bout of one-upmanship. Earlier on in the story, when Lug arrived among the Túatha Dé and was being tested by them, he too played the three kinds of music, perhaps not to an audience as hostile as the Fomoiri, but one that, before his performance, was still wary of accepting the uninvited guest into their midst (§ 73). Whether it is the same mission is not clear, but directly following this episode we learn that there are even more stolen goods to be recovered: the cattle of the Túatha Dé. This time, the heroic task is accomplished not by the Dagda or his colleagues but by the Dagda’s heifer. This is the (at the time) unremarkable animal that the Dagda had requested and received in payment from Bres for the heavy construction work that the Dagda had performed on Bres’s behalf (§ 31). Perhaps the Dagda had brought the bovine along in the search for the abducted harp and harper. Of the post-battle episodes recounted by Cath Maige Tuired – including Lug’s dealings with Lóch and Bres, Ogma’s discovery of the sword, and the Dagda’s leading a mission to reclaim his cruit and the musician – this is the only one that takes us back into the past of the story, to a previous episode, in which the ever-resourceful Mac Óc had advised the Dagda to ask for just that single heifer in payment for service rendered (§§ 31–32). She is revealed in this continuation of her

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story to be in effect (if not literally) the mother of all Irish cows, for when she calls her calf, all the cattle that had been taken by the Fomoiri start to graze and follow her, and so for a third time in this sequence of three episodes, a voice is released that evokes a relationship with the past (in particular, the relationship between a cow and its calf). In restoring all of what had been lost, the bellowing heifer proves its worth and vindicates the Mac Óc’s advice and the Dagda’s decision to ask just for this cow instead of a whole herd or something of even greater value. We recall that the request of one day and one night led to all days and nights for the Mac Óc as the owner of the Brug. For the Dagda and the Túatha Dé, the request for the single heifer leads to the restitution of all the cows taken by the Fomoiri. Seemingly, this ability to turn the singular into plural, the particular into the general, as exhibited by the Dagda and the Mac Óc, correlates with their ability to treat time as a flexible device for realizing their wishes.

Divergent Paths Cath Maige Tuired saves for last the clearest sign that major changes are taking place in the mythic Ireland it has presented, affecting the characters who populate it in the narrative present and in whatever future may follow it. These are changes whose ramifications will resound in the lives of all inhabitants of the island, including those yet to arrive on its shores. Whether the changes are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depends on whether they are perceived according to the agenda of the Dagda, a figure informed by a primal fluidity that makes it possible for him, among many other things, to bend time to his will, turn death into life for himself and others, and partake freely of food and sex, no matter how ridiculous his overindulgence makes him seem.24 The changes, however, take on a very different significance when viewed according to the agenda of Lug, who is leading his people toward a world of greater stability, predictability, and moderation, but one in which death can no longer be avoided. Central to the finale of Cath Maige Tuired is the Morrígan, the fourth member of the Túatha Dé quartet to feature in the aftermath of the Battle of Mag Tuired, besides Lug and the brothers Ogma and the Dagda. The text parenthetically identifies a woman with whom the Dagda enjoys intimacy 24 Oversexed behaviour follows overeating in the Cath Maige Tuired sequence of episodes in which the Dagda eats all of the food prepared for him by the Fomoiri (an incident mentioned above) and then encounters the bold daughter of his Fomorian host (§§ 88–93).

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earlier in the story as the Morrígan, a figure frequently associated with the battlefield and conflict in general (§§ 84–85; pp. 129–130). As if overwhelmed by his sexual performance, she agrees to help the Dagda and the Túatha Dé in their fight against the Fomoiri. True, the Morrígan already counts as a member of the Túatha Dé, so her assistance is not unexpected. Still, her having to be won over shows that she is a figure with her own sphere of influence, and that she stands apart from the peoples vying for the possession of Ireland. And, despite her consorting with the Dagda, she is the spokesperson not only for him but for Lug and all the Túatha Dé as well when she makes an announcement of their triumph in battle ‘to the royal heights of Ireland and to its síd [‘supernatural dwelling]-hosts, to its chief waters and to its rivermouths’ (‘do rídingnaib Érenn ⁊ dia sídhcairib, ⁊ dia arduscib ⁊ dia inberaiph’, § 166). By performing this service, the Morrígan wins the distinction of representing the erstwhile immortality of the Túatha Dé to future generations. She is the only character mentioned in Cath Maige Tuired who the text says still exists and has a role to play in latter times: ‘And that is the reason Badb [another name for the Morrígan, especially when she is in her avian form] still relates great deeds’ (‘Conid do sin inneses Badb airdgníomha beus’, § 166; p. 118). Presumably, she relates them in response to a question we are still asking, which, when it was asked by people in the wake of the Battle, spurred the Morrígan to respond: ‘“Have you any news?” everyone asked her then’ (‘“Nach scél laut?” ar cách friai-se ann suide’, § 166) Also forming part of her contributions to the post-battle report are the two prophetic arias that she performs at the end of Cath Maige Tuired, which present dramatically different predictions about how the future will unfold after all that has happened in the story. Whether the two visions are to be read sequentially – a golden age followed by total breakdown – or as two sides of the same future coin, each employs language concerning the seasons, as did the Dagda’s poetic summons to his harp. Here, the seasonal contrast reflects the tension among different notions of time – controlling, eluding, or giving into it – that we have been tracing throughout this study. When she sings of a utopian future where ‘summer [is] in winter’ (‘sam i ngam’, § 166), this image could refer to a desirable freedom from time whereby it is summer throughout the year, or it could ominously signify a seasonal fusion that will leads to the collapse of other vital distinctions that society must respect in order to survive. And in the other aria, which lists the characteristics of a dystopia reeling from the breakdown of familial structure, social control, and the rules prohibiting incest, the ‘summer without blossoms’ (‘sam cin blatha’, § 167), the opposite of ‘summer in

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winter’, could be expressing the consequence of death and sterility running rampant in a world turned historical that can no longer resist the ravages of time. If the Morrígan is still with us today, as Cath Maige Tuired suggests she might be, perhaps from her bird’s eye view she may be able to clarify these ambiguities.

Bibliography Bergin, Osborn, ed. and trans., ‘How the Dagda Got his Magic Staff’, in Medieval Studies in Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis, ed. by Roger Sherman Loomis (Paris: H. Champion; New York: Columbia University Press, 1927), pp. 399–406. Bergin, Osborn and Richard Irvine Best, ed. and trans., Tochmarc Étáine, Ériu 12 (1938), 137–196. Breatnach, Caoimhín, ‘Chloinne Tuireann agus Cath Maige Tuired: dhá shampla de mhiotas eiseamláireach’, Éigse 32 (2000), 35–46. Carey, John, ‘Time, Space, and the Otherworld’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 1 (1987), 1–15. Carey, John, ‘Time, Memory, and the Boyne Necropolis’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 10 (1990), 24–30. Carey, John, The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature, Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures 3 (Cork: Cork University Press, 2018). Dobbs, Margaret Emmeline Conway, ed. and trans., Altromh Tighi da Medar, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 18 (1930), 189–230. eDIL= Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, ed. by Gregory Toner, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf and Dagmar Wodtko, online at www.dil.ie. Gray, Elizabeth A., ‘Cath Maige Tuired: Myth and Structure (1–24)’, Éigse 18 (1981), 183–209. Gray, Elizabeth A., ‘Cath Maige Tuired: Myth and Structure (24–120)’, Éigse 19:1 (1982), 1–35. Gray, Elizabeth A., ed. and trans., Cath Maige Tuired: The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, Irish Texts Society 52 (Kildare: Irish Texts Society, 1982). Gray, Elizabeth A., ‘Cath Maige Tuired: Myth and Structure (84–93, 120–67)’, Éigse 19:2 (1983), 230–262. Gray, Elizabeth A., ‘Tuatha Dé and Fomoiri in Cath Maige Tuired’, in this volume. Gwynn, Edward John, ed. and trans., The Metrical Dindsenchas, Parts I–V, Todd Lecture Series 8–12 (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1903–1935). Gwynn, Lucius, ed. and trans., ‘Cináed úa Hartacáin’s Poem on Brugh na Bóinne’, Ériu 7 (1914), 210–238.

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Hamp, Eric P., ‘The Dag(h)d(h)ae and his Relatives’, in Donum grammaticum: Studies in Latin and Celtic Linguistics in honour of Hannah Rosén, ed. by Lea Sawicki and Donna Shalev, Orbis/Supplementa 18 (Louvain: Peeters, 2002), pp. 162–169. Hull, Vernam, ed. and trans., ‘De Gabail int Shída (Concerning the Seizure of the Fairy Mound)’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 19 (1933), 53–58. Macalister, Robert A. Stewart, Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Parts I–V, Irish Texts Society 34, 35, 39, 41, 44 (London: Irish Texts Society, 1938–1956). McLeod, Neil, ‘Irish Law and the Wars of the Túatha Dé Danann’, in An XIV Comhdháil Idirnáisiúnta sa Léann Ceilteach, Maigh Nuad 2011: Imeachtaí. Proceedings, XIV International Congress of Celtic Studies, Maynooth 2011, ed. by Liam Breatnach, Ruairí Ó hUiginn, Damian McManus, and Katharine Simms (Dublin: School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2015), pp. 75–94. Maher, Martina, ‘De Gabáil int Shída: Remscél or Remremscél?’, in Ulidia 4: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, ed. by Mícheál B. Ó Mainnín and Gregory Toner (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2017), pp. 150–161. Nagy, Joseph Falaky, ‘Are Myths in the Text or Outside the Box?’, in Writing Down the Myths, ed. by Joseph Falaky Nagy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 1–17. Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás, ‘Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth’, in Coire Sois: The Cauldron of Knowledge. A Companion to Early Irish Tales, ed. by Matthieu Boyd (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), pp. 135–154. Ó Cuív, Brian, ed., Cath Muighe Tuireadh: The Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1945). O’Duffy, Richard, ed. and trans., Oidhe Chloinne Tuireann: The Fate of the Children of Tuireann (Dublin: M.H. Gill, 1888; reprint1901). O’Rahilly, Thomas Francis, Early Irish History and Mythology (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946; reprint 2010). Rees, Alwyn, and Brinley Rees, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1961; reprint 1978). Sayers, William, ‘Bargaining for the Life of Bres in Cath Maige Tuired’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 34 (1987), 26–40. Sayers, William, ‘Netherworld and Otherworld in Early Irish Literature’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 59 (2012), 201–230. Thurneysen, Rudolf, ‘Turill Bicrenn und seine Kinder’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 12 (1918), 239–250. Watson, James Carmichael, ed., Mesca Ulad, Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 13 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1941; reprint 1983). Williams, Mark, Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016).

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About the Author Joseph Falaky Nagy is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies at Harvard University and co-editor (with Charles W. MacQuarrie) of The Medieval Cultures of the Irish Sea and the North Sea: Manannán and his Neighbors (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019).

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The Idols of the Pagan Irish in the Medieval Literary Imagination Alexandra Bergholm

Abstract Medieval Irish literary sources include a number of legends relating to idols purportedly worshipped by the pagan Irish prior to the coming of Christianity. Of these the most famous is Crom Cróich of Mag Slécht, identified as the ‘king-idol of Ireland’ in the pseudohistorical lore as well as in the hagiography of Saint Patrick. This article traces the development of the various traditions relating to Crom Cróich in the medieval literary milieu and re-examines some of the evidence presented by previous scholars in support of the view that these legends could refer to an actual cult of a pre-Christian deity. Keywords: Idolatry, paganism, process of Christianization, cultic practices, ritual sacrifice

When Saint Patrick began his missionary work in Ireland in the early fifth century, he encountered there a people who had never before had any knowledge of God but had until then only worshipped ‘idols and unclean things’.1 This statement comes from his Confessio, the famous autobiographical document in which he defends the divine justification of his mission and provides a retrospective reflection on his own spiritual growth. As envisaged by Patrick, the conversion of the Irish marked the ultimate fulfilment of the apostolic command of Christ: by leading them away from idolatry and making them a ‘people of the Lord’ (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:9), he had completed

1 Confessio 41: ‘Unde autem Hiberione qui numquam notitiam Dei habuerunt nisi idola et inmunda usque nunc semper coluerunt’; Bieler, Libri epistolarum, p. 81.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch05

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the final stage in a process that prepared the way for the Second Coming of Christ in the Last Days.2 We know today that Christianity had already reached parts of Ireland prior to Patrick’s mission, and that the process of Christianization was a lot longer and more complex than what could be inferred from Patrick’s words.3 But what more can be said about these ‘idols and unclean things’ that the Irish in their ignorance were said to have worshipped as their gods? The nature of Ireland’s indigenous belief system has been the subject of extensive scholarly speculation, in which evidence adduced from the archaeological and literary record has been utilized to reconstruct different aspects of ‘pre-Christian’ or ‘Celtic’ religion. 4 The texts discussed in this article are of particular interest in this regard, since they have often been viewed as the foremost historical witness to organized cultic activity associated with the worship of a pagan deity in pre-Christian Ireland.5 The deity in question is not a member of the well-known native pantheon of the Túatha Dé, but rather an elusive figure variously called Crom or Cenn Cróich, who at least from the eighth century onwards was known in the literature as the ‘chief-idol’ of Ireland, and whose cult centre was traditionally located in Mag Slécht in modern-day County Cavan.6 Medieval versions of the legend of Crom Cróich have been preserved in two main types of sources, Patrician hagiography and pseudohistorical lore included in the Lebor Gabála and the dindshenchas.7 Although all of these texts agree in portraying the destruction of Crom’s idol as one of the great 2 An accessible introduction to Patrick’s world and his theology, including English translations of several primary source texts, is O’Loughlin, Discovering Saint Patrick. 3 See, for example, Johnston, Literacy and Identity; Etchingham, ‘Conversion in Ireland’; Flechner, ‘Conversion in Ireland’. The two edited volumes stemming from the activities of the interdisciplinary Converting the Isles research network present a comprehensive overview of the historiography of early medieval religious conversion and the current state of the art; see Flechner and Ní Mhaonaigh, The Introduction of Christianity; Edwards, Ní Mhaonaigh, and Flechner, Transforming Landscapes. 4 See, for example, Ó hÓgáin, The Sacred Isle; Raftery, Pagan Celtic Ireland. For an appraisal of some of the methodological issues involved in the study of ‘Celtic religion’, see Ritari and Bergholm, Understanding Celtic Religion. 5 One of the early examples identifying Crom as a sun-god is Dalton, ‘Cromm Cruaich’. Borsje, ‘Human Sacrifice’, pp. 33–45, reviews the evidence by focusing on the ritual activities associated with Crom’s cult. 6 A comprehensive overview of various mythologies relating to the Túatha Dé is provided in Williams, Ireland’s Immortals. 7 For a concise summary of these sources see Ó Duígeannáin, ‘On the Medieval Sources’. It is noteworthy that the stated aim of Ó Duígeannáin’s article was to argue against the view that the legends concerning Crom Cróich had historical value.

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achievements of Patrick’s missionary career, they are especially interesting in revealing the ways in which idolatry has been used as a discursive trope to promote particular perceptions of the pre-Christian past. The concept of idolatry by definition carries with it connotations of false belief, impurity, deception, and disorder, and therefore the evocation of the term always entails drawing a fundamental distinction between us and them.8 For the medieval literati, the pagan cult of Crom similarly provided a powerful symbol, which became part of a sophisticated learned imaginary that sought to structure the collective understanding of the most transformative event in the nation’s history, the coming of Christianity.

‘Idols and Unclean Things’: The Biblical Background The juxtaposition of idolatry and true faith in Patrick’s Confessio is rooted in the rhetoric of Judaeo-Christian tradition, in which ‘idolatry’ functioned as the foremost signifier of religious alterity. The polemic against idolatry has its origins in the Hebrew Bible, in which the explicit injunctions against the worship of images defined the basis of the Covenant between Yahweh and Israel. The principle of monolatry was articulated in the first and second commandments of Mosaic Law, which forbade the adoration of other gods and the making of representations of the divinity (Exodus 20:2–5, Deuteronomy 5:6–9). These closely interrelated prohibitions established idolatry as the ultimate offence against God; the people of Israel should not simply avoid it, they should abhor and detest it as an abomination worthy of the gravest divine punishment (Deuteronomy 7:25–26).9 The scriptural treatment of idolatry bears witness to the development of a complex theological discourse in which the conceptions of ‘idols’ and ‘idolatrous practices’ are marked by considerable fluidity. Surveys of Hebrew terminology have identified thirty different words used to denote idolatry in the Old Testament, including elil ‘nothingness’ (Isaiah 19:3), aven ‘vanity’ (Deuteronomy 32:21, Isaiah 66:3, 1 Kings 16:13), gillulim ‘clods, excrement’ (Ezekiel 16:36, 20:8), and eymah ‘horror’ (Jeremiah 50:38).10 The negative connotations of idolatry in this context were reinforced by the association 8 Ries, ‘Idolatry’; Rosner, ‘The Concept of Idolatry’; Freudenberg and Goetz, ‘The Christian Perception’; Rubiés, ‘Theology, Ethnography’. 9 Faur, ‘The Biblical Idea’, pp. 1–3; Rosner, ‘The Concept of Idolatry’, pp. 21–22. All biblical references are to the Vulgate with translations from the Douay–Rheims version. 10 Nodbell, ’Old Testament Word-studies’; Ries, ’Idolatry’, p. 73.

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of idols with other things that were deemed ritually impure, as witnessed for instance in the writings of the prophets (Jeremiah 16:18, Ezekiel 21–23), as well as the pseudepigraphical Book of Jubilees (20:7–8).11 The adoption of the Greek word eidōlon to denote the proscribed images in the Septuagint solidified the pejorative meaning of the term, which subsequently passed into the New Testament and patristic writings alongside the Latin idolum and simulacrum. In the New Testament, the sinfulness of idolatry became entwined with other dangerous vices to be detested by Christians, including ‘sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed’ (Colossians 3:5; cf. Wisdom 14:12). While in the Old Testament much of the polemic against idolatry stemmed from the need to safeguard the purity of Israel and its separation from the surrounding nations, the later writings further elaborated on the futility of idols to reinforce the identity of the newly formed religious communities.12 According to the critics, the foolishness of those who worshipped false gods was nowhere more evident than in their belief that lifeless man-made images could interact with people or be capable of sensation.13 To refute the notion that pagan divinities were actually present in the artefacts, the early Fathers developed the conception that the material representations of other gods were taken over by demons.14 This argument, found in the writings of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine among others, drew upon the treatment of eidōla in the Pauline epistles where Paul repeatedly emphasizes the emptiness of idols and the demonic nature of their cults (Galatians 4:8, 1 Corinthians 10:19; cf. Psalms 95:5). The demonic interpretation allowed for the framing of idolatry as a practice whose adherents were either inherently wicked, or simply gullible in their stupidity. Both of these views became widely circulated in medieval hagiography, in which the destruction of the idols of the pagans came to function as a useful metonym for conversion and the triumph of Christianity.15

The Cult of Crom in Patrician Hagiography For Patrick’s seventh-century hagiographers Muirchú and Tírechán, the Confessio provided the foremost authoritative account of the Saint’s missionary 11 Charles, Book of Jubilees, p. 130. See further van Ruiten, ’Jubilees 11–12’, pp. 109–110; Doering, ‘Purity and Impurity’, p. 273. 12 Ries, ‘Idolatry’, pp. 76–79; Rubiés, ‘Theology, Ethnography’, p. 578. 13 Ries, ‘Idolatry’, pp. 75–76; see also Wellendorf, ‘The Æsir and their Idols’, pp. 91–93; Halbertal and Margalit, ‘Idolatry and Representation’, pp. 19–23. 14 Ries, ‘Idolatry’, pp. 76–77; Rubiés, ‘Theology, Ethnography’, pp. 577–578. 15 Fricke, ‘Fallen Idols’; Freudenberg and Goetz, ‘The Christian Perception’.

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activities, upon which they grafted additional details and episodes drawn from both local traditions and literary models.16 Although neither one of the authors identifies any specific idol as the main object of adoration among the Irish, in Muirchú’s Vita in particular the Old Testament imagery of idolatry features prominently in his description of Patrick’s confrontation with the pagan king Loíguire and his druids during Easter at Tara. From this perspective, Muirchú’s explicit identification of Tara with Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, for instance, evokes the scenes from Daniel 3 and 5, where the summoning of people to banquets to worship false idols leads up to the demise of both Nebuchadnezzar and his son. The typological parallels between Loíguire and other wicked biblical rulers including Herod and Pharaoh reinforce the portrayal of paganism as inherently evil.17 Despite many other dramatic actions taken by Patrick to demonstrate the supremacy of Christianity during this event, however, his smashing of ‘the head of all paganism and idolatry’ (cf. Psalms 73:14) as narrated by Muirchú is ultimately figurative.18 It was only in the later hagiography that the motif took on a more literal meaning, associating Patrick’s feat with the actual destruction of a pagan cult figure, Crom Cróich. The earliest reference to traditions concerning Crom Cróich has usually been traced back to Tírechán’s Collectanea, in which a passing mention is made of Patrick sending one of his followers to Rath Slécht: Mittens autem Patricius Nieth Brain ad fossam Slecht, barbarum Patricii propinquum, qui dicebat mirabilia in Deo uera. […] Finit liber primus in regionibus nepotum Neill peractus. (Patrick sent Nie Brain to the Moat of Slecht; [he was] a native close to Patrick, who made miraculous true prophecies [inspired] by God. […] This is the end of the first book, [deeds] performed in the territory of the Uí Néill.)19

In the absence of a broader narrative framework, the relevance of this passage rests on the place name, which has been taken to refer to the same 16 See Bieler’s introduction to his edition of the texts of Muirchú and Tírechán, especially pp. 16–20, 36–41. 17 See further O’Loughlin, ‘Reading Muirchú’s Tara-event’; O’Leary, ‘An Irish Apocryphal Apostle’. 18 Muirchú, Vita Patricii I. 13: ‘Caput omnis gentilitatis et idolatriae’; Bieler, Patrician Texts, p. 82. O’Leary, ‘An Irish Apocryphal Apostle’, pp. 291–292, argues that Muirchú’s earlier reference to Patrick abolishing the worship of idols indicates that he was aware of other traditions relating to the actual destruction of cultic images (I. 10: ‘euersis enim in aduentu Patricii idulorum culturis fides Christi catholica nostra repleuit omnia’; Bieler, Patrician Texts, p. 74). 19 Tírechán, Collectanea 17: Bieler, Patrician Texts, pp. 136, 138.

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location as Mag Slécht later associated with the cult of Crom. While it is probable that the site held some significance to merit becoming part of Patrick’s itinerary, the fact that the connection between the Saint and the location is only established by proxy suggests that it did not enjoy the fame of a major national cult-site in Tírechán’s view.20 Given that no allusions to the legend of Crom occur in the other Patrician materials included in the early ninth-century Book of Armagh, it has previously been suggested that the tradition must have been unknown in Armagh around that time.21 Still the legend had gained enough currency by then to become incorporated into the two Latin Lives of St Patrick known as Quarta vita and Tertia vita, as well as the bilingual Vita tripartita, all of which have been dated to the eighth and ninth centuries. The main narrative elements constituting the legend of Crom in these sources are well illustrated in the following account from the Quarta vita: Erat quoddam idolum [in campo] Slécht auro et argento ornatum, et duodecim dij aerei fabricate hinc et inde erga idolum positi. Rex autem et omnis populous hoc idolum adorabant; in quo daemon pessimus latitabat; qui response populis dare solebat; quapropter illum pro deo colebant; veniens autem S. Patricius circumquaque praedicando, ad campum in quo idolum positum fuerat eleuata manu dextera baculo Iesu, quem manu tenebat, idolum jugulare minabatur. Daemon autem, qui in idolo fuerat, timens S. Patricium, lapidem in latus dextrum vertit, et in latere sinistro vestigium baculi adhuc manet: et tamen de manu sancti baculus non recessit. Caetera autem duodecim simulacra terra absorbuit usque ad capita, quae tantum videntur in miraculi memoriam. Daemon vero qui in idolo multis temporibus latitabat, et homines ludificabat, S. Patricio jubente foras venit: quem populi cum rege suo Loegario videntes timuerunt, et S. Patricium rogauerunt ut horribile monstrum de praesentia eorum abire juberet. Quem jussit S. Patricius abire in abyssum. Tunc omnes populi gratias omnipotenti Deo egerunt, qui per S. Patricium illos de potestate tenebrarum liberare dignatus est. (There was a certain idol in the plain of Slecht decorated with gold and silver, and twelve bronze gods were placed here and there around the idol. And the king and all the people worshipped the idol, in which lay hidden the most evil demon who used to give answers to people, on account of which they revered him as a god. But Saint Patrick came as he preached 20 Cf. Ó Duígeannáin, ‘On the Medieval Sources’, p. 305. 21 Ó Duígeannáin, ‘On the Medieval Sources’, p. 305.

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all around to the plain in which the idol was placed, and raising his right hand with the Staff of Jesus which he held in his hand threatened to kill the idol. And the demon who was in the idol, fearing Saint Patrick, turned the stone away to the south and the mark of the staff remains on the north side, and yet the staff did not leave the hand of the saint. Moreover the earth swallowed the twelve other images up to their heads, which alone can be seen as a reminder of the miracle. Indeed the demon who had been hidden in the idol for a long time and used to make mock of men, came forth from it at the command of Saint Patrick; and when they saw him the people and their king Loegarius were greatly afraid, and they asked Saint Patrick to order the horrible monstrosity to go away from their presence; and Saint Patrick ordered it to go into the abyss. Then all the people gave thanks to Almighty Lord who had deemed Patrick worthy to free them from the power of darkness.)22

The episode indicates that the legend introduces several details which are not found in either Muirchú or Tírechán, but which conform to the typical topoi of other conversion narratives in the hagiographical genre.23 The description of the idols adorned with precious metals echoes the Old Testament depictions of false gods (Psalms 134:15; Daniel 5:4) as well as the prophetic criticisms levelled against pagan idols, which, despite their expensive materials, were still fashioned by humans and were therefore empty and worthless (Isaiah 2:8, 20, Hosea 4:17, 8:4–6). What is particularly highlighted in this regard, moreover, is the demonic interpretation of the supernatural presence inside the idol that is animating it, and is thus responsible for deceiving the people with its false oracular pronouncements. This statement, as discussed above, draws directly upon the arguments of early Christian apologists, for whom the most fundamental error of the pagans was seen to lie in their belief that mere objects could in themselves be sensual and active. Minucius Felix, who argued that the demons were behind all the superstitious practices of the pagans, succinctly articulates the view that the unclean spirits residing in the images were misleading the ignorant: Isti igitur impuri spiritus, daemones, ut ostensum magis ac philosophis, sub statuis et imaginibus consecratis delitiscunt et adflatu suo auctoritatem quasi praesentis numinis consequuntur, dum inspirant interim 22 Vita quarta 53: Colgan, Acta Triadis, p. 42, trans. Byrne and Francis, ‘Two Lives’, pp. 52–53. 23 Cf. Fricke, ‘Fallen Idols’; pp. 70–73; Leone, ‘Smashing Idols’, pp. 36–51.

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vatibus, dum fanis inmorantur, dum nonnumquam extorum f ibras animant, avium volatus gubernant, sortes regunt, oracula efficiunt, falsis pluribus involuta. Nam et falluntur et fallunt, ut et nescientes sinceram veritatem et quam sciunt, in perditionem sui non confitentes. (These impure spirits, therefore – the demons – as is shown by the Magi, by the philosophers, and by Plato, consecrated under statues and images, lurk there, and by their afflatus attain the authority as of a present deity; while in the meantime they are breathed into the prophets, while they dwell in the shrines, while sometimes they animate the fibres of the entrails, control the flights of birds, direct the lots, are the cause of oracles involved in many falsehoods. For they are both deceived, and they deceive; inasmuch as they are both ignorant of the simple truth, and for their own ruin they confess not that which they know.)24

From this perspective, idols, while ridiculous, were not dangerous in themselves; what needed to be dealt with was the wicked forces in them that incited the pagans to worship themselves as if they were divine. In the narrative, Patrick likewise acts as an exorcist, whose staff, like the rod of Moses, serves as a powerful symbol of authority as well as an instrument of destruction.25 The emphasis laid on the visible signs of the miracle indicates that the legend, at some point at least, most likely had some point of reference in the physical landscape around Mag Slécht, such as a prehistoric stone circle or a row of standing stones, with which these features could be linked.26 In addition to the stone leaning on its side towards the south, the mark of the staff, and the sunken lesser idols, the Vita tripartita even mentions three more such signs, all of which serve as permanent reminders of the Saint’s actions: Dorochair dano a graif a brut Pátraic oc erlad in nítho ⁊ in eggnamo frisin n-ídal. Ro lommair-seom in fróech isin maigin sin co fúair a graif, ⁊ noc[h] on ássa froíchne isin maigin sin sech in achad olchenai. Forothaig-sium dano eclais isin inut sin .i. Domnach Maige Slécht, ⁊ foráccaib and Mabran barbarus Patricii cognatusque ei et profeta; ocus itá tipra Pátraic ann ubi babtizauit multos. (His pen [? pin, brooch], moreover, fell from Patrick’s cloak when he was engaged [?] in the struggle and the exploit with the idol. He stripped the 24 Minucius Felix, Octavius 27.1–3. 25 See Grigoryev, ‘Bachal Isu’. 26 Ó Duígeannáin, ‘On the Medieval Sources’, pp. 305–306.

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heather in that place so that he found his pen, and no heather-plantlet grows in that place as distinguished from the rest of the field. He founded, moreover, a church in that place, namely Domnach Maige Slécht, and left there Mabran, barbarus Patricii cognatusque ei et profeta; and Patrick’s well is there, ubi babtizauit multos.)27

Compared to the Quarta vita and the Vita tripartita, the version in the Tertia vita is significantly less informative, but it does add an important detail by naming the idol encountered by Patrick: Divertit autem Patricius ut uideret idolum ex auro et argento constructum; quod rex Leogar adorabat in campo Slecht; cuius nomen uocabatur Cenuerbhe. Et orante Patricio imago illa, quam populi adorabant, comminuta est et in puluerem redacta. (Patrick, moreover, turned aside to see the idol constructed of gold and silver; which king Lóegaire adored in Mag Slécht, and which was named Cenuerbhe. And at Patrick’s prayer that image which the peoples adored was broken up and reduced to powder.)28

The name of the idol is not included in the Quarta vita, and in the Vita tripartita it is only added as a gloss. Máire Mac Neill, who discussed the issue extensively in her study of the festival of Lughnasa argued that the legendary matter concerning the idol known as Cenn or Crom Cróich had already in the medieval period become assimilated with local lore relating to another equally shadowy figure known as Crom Dubh, whose name was linked with harvest celebrations taking place around the last Sunday of July. According to Mac Neill, both Cenn Cróich and Crom Dubh feature in folklore as pagan adversaries of Saint Patrick, and some popular beliefs and customs relating to the harvest festival also seem to bear traces of the legends relating to the confrontation between the saint and the idol as retold in hagiographical literature.29 With the introduction of the material adduced from the pseudohistorical lore around the eleventh and twelfth centuries, then, yet another layer was added to the literary versions of the narrative, which sought to add historical veracity to the tale by tracing the origins of Crom’s cult all the way back to the distant past. 27 Stokes, Vita tripartita (Bethu Phátraic), pp. 91–92. 28 Tertia vita 46–47: Colgan, Acta Triadis, p. 25, trans. Ó Duígeannáin, ‘On the Medieval Sources’, p. 302. 29 MacNeill, The Festival of Lughnasa.

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The Pseudohistorical Lore The pseudohistorical traditions preserved in the Lebor Gabála and the dindshenchas present two main versions of the legend of Crom, only one of which brings Saint Patrick into the picture. The primary focus of this material as a whole rests on providing a learned explanation for how Mag Slécht first got its name. According to the Lebor Gabála and the prose dindshenchas of Mag Slécht, the appellation originated in the time of one of the renowned early High Kings of Ireland from the Sons of Míl, whose long reign was among other things associated with the introduction of the smelting of gold to Ireland. In the text of the Lebor Gabála in the Book of Leinster, the background is outlined as follows: Gabais Tigernmas mac Ollaich ríge íar tain […] Co n-érbailt i mMaig Slécht i mmórdáil Maige Slécht ⁊ teora cethram na fer nHérend malle ris ic adrad Chroim Chróich ríg-ídail Hérend conná térna amlaid sin acht óenchethrar fer nHérend ass. Unde Mag Sléc[h]t. (Tigernmas son of Ollach took the kingship then […] And he died in Mag Slécht, in the great assembly of Mag Slécht, with three fourths of the men of Ireland along with him, while adoring Crom Cróich, the king-idol of Ireland; so that only one fourth of the men of Ireland escaped thence like that. Hence [the name] Mag Slécht.)30

The explanation that the place name was derived from the acts of worship performed by the pagans was based on a fanciful etymology that associated the place name with the verb sléchtaid meaning prostrating, bowing or kneeling down.31 What is more unusual is the notion that the adoration of the idol was so vigorous and violent that it actually led to the demise of most of the population. This idea is also in the focus of the prose dindshenchas of Mag Slécht, in which an even more detailed account is offered: Ann roboi ri[g]idal Erenn .i. in Crom Croich, ⁊ da idhal decc do clochaib ime, ⁊ eisium dí or, ⁊ is é ba déa do cach lucht rogab Erinn co toracht Patric. Is dó no ídpradis cétgeine cacha sotha ⁊ primgene cacha cloinde. Is cuca rosiacht Tigern[m]as mac Follaich ri Erenn dia samna co firu ⁊ co mna Erenn imalle dia adhradh, coro slecht uile fiadhu co ræm[d]etar tul a n-etan ⁊ maetha hi srona ⁊ faircledha a nglun ⁊ corra a n-uillend, 30 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn IX: The Roll of the Kings (vol. 5, pp. 205–207). 31 eDIL, s.v. sléchtaid.

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co n-eplatar teora cethrama[i]n fer n-Erenn oc na slechtonaib sin. Unde Mag Slecht. (’Tis there was the king-idol of Erin, namely the Crom Cróich, and around him twelve idols made of stones; but he was of gold. Until Patrick’s advent, he was the god of every folk that colonized Ireland. To him they used to offer the f irstlings of every issue and the chief scions of every clan. ’Tis to him that Erin’s king, Tigernmas son of Follach, repaired on Hallontide, together with the men and women of Ireland, in order to adore him. And they all prostrated before him, so that the tops of their foreheads and the gristle of their noses and the caps of their knees and the ends of their elbows broke, and three fourths of the men of Erin perished at those prostrations. Whence Mag Slecht “Plain of Prostrations”.)32

The claim that the idol was an actual pagan god is only found in the dindshenchas, in which it is also stated that the worship of this deity involved sacrificial ritual actions. The metrical dindshenchas of Mag Slécht mentions further that the tribute was given in expectation of prosperity and well-being: 1. Sund nobíd idal ard, co n-immud fhích, diarbo chomainm in Cromm Crúaich: tuc in cach thúaith beith cen síd. (Here used to stand a lofty idol, that saw many a fight, whose name was the Cromm Cruaich; it caused every tribe to live without peace.) 2. Trúag in rúin, nonadraitis Góedil gúir: úad nícochuingtis cen chain a n-díl im dáil domuin dúir. (Alas for its secret power! the valiant Gaedil used to worship it: not without tribute did they ask of it to satisfy them with their share in the hard world.) 3. Ba h-é a n-día in Cromm crín, co n-immud chía; in lucht rancreit, ós cach cúan in flaithius búan nochosbía. (He was their god, the wizened Cromm, hidden by many mists: as for the folk that believed in him, the eternal Kingdom beyond every haven shall not be theirs.) 4. Dó cen búaid marbtais a claind toísig trúaig con- mmud guil ocus gáid a fuil do dáil ‘mon Cromm Crúaich. (For him ingloriously they slew their hapless firstborn with much wailing and peril, to pour their blood round Cromm Cruaich.) 5. Blicht is ith uaid nochuingitis for rith dar cend trín a sotha sláin: ba mór a gráin is a grith. 32 Prose Dindshenchas 85: Stokes, ‘The Prose Tales’, pp. 35–36.

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(Milk and corn they asked of him speedily in return for a third part of all their progeny: great was the horror and outcry about him.) 6. Is dó sain nosléchtaitis Gáedil glain: is dia adrad, ilar n-écht, atá Mag Slécht ar in maig. (To him the bright Gaedil did obeisance: from his worship – many the crimes – the plain bears the name Mag Slecht.)33

In early Irish literature, the metonymic pairing of ‘milk and grain’ held special significance in relation to the attributes of ideal rulership, but here the specific mention of the bloody sacrifice required to appease the idol indicates that the medieval authors’ description of the heinous ritual was particularly inspired by the scriptural examples of pagan cults such as those associated with the worship of Moloch and Baal in the Hebrew Bible (e.g. Leviticus 18:21, Jeremiah 19:5, 32:35).34 Interestingly, the performance of human sacrifice, which in the Christian tradition was arguably one of the most potent symbols of the barbarous nature of the pagans, has in this passage become linked with other ritual practices, which in the biblical context were considered entirely appropriate expressions of mourning among the Israelites: 7. Tánic and Tigernmas, tríath Temra thall, aidche Samna, lín a shlóig: rosbaí damna bróin don bann. (Thither came Tigernmas, prince of distant Tara, one Samain eve, with all his host: the deed was a source of sorrow to them.) 8. Lúiset olc, buailset bassa, brúiset corp: ac coí ri demun rosdáer, fertais frossa, fáen a folc. (They stirred evil, they beat palms, they bruised bodies, wailing to the demon who held them thralls, they shed showers of tears, weeping prostrate.) 9. Marba fir sluaig na Banba cen bríg m-bil im Thigernmas taglach thúaid d’adrad Chruimm Chrúaich, nímuscin. (Dead the men, void of sound strength the hosts of Banba, with landwasting Tigernmas in the north, through the worship of Cromm Cruaich – hard their hap!) 10. Uair itgén, acht cethraimthe Gaídel ngér, fer i m-bethaid, búan in sás, ní dechaid cen bás ‘na bél. 33 Gwynn, Metrical Dindshenchas 7 (vol. 4, pp. 18–21). 34 See Borsje, ‘Human Sacrifice’, pp. 34–35. MacNeill, Festival of Lughnasa, provides numerous examples of symbolic sacrificial offerings associated with harvest festivals.

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(For well I know, save a fourth part of the eager Gaedil, not a man – lasting the snare – escaped alive, without death on his lips.) 11. Im Chromm Crúaich and nosléchtaitis na slúaig: cía dosfuc fo mebail mairb, lenaid a n-ainm don maig múaid. (Round Cromm Cruaich there the hosts did obeisance: though it brought them under mortal shame, the name cleaves to the mighty plain.)35

In the Old Testament, the various acts of self-debasement such as the gestures mentioned here are recurrently attested as typical forms of petitionary behaviour in the supplications addressed to Yahweh.36 Thus in Hosea 7:14, for instance, a mention is made of the Ephraimites petitioning Yahweh for agricultural bounty by wailing on their beds, and lacerating themselves for grain and wine, while in Joel 2 the priests lament and gird themselves in sackcloth to entreat the Lord to replenish the produce of field and vineyard destroyed by locusts. If this stanza is in fact another variation on the same theme, it obviously incorporates it into the narrative in a considerably exoticized form. When transposing the dramatic mourning gestures of the Israelites to this setting, the poem inverts their symbolic significance by attributing the pious actions of the Israelites to the frenzied worship of a pagan idol. The seamless incorporation of these different elements into one narrative aptly illustrates the dynamics of the pseudohistorical tradition as a whole, which allowed the medieval literati to draw on the Bible as well as their own native lore in their learned speculations. Compared to Muirchú it is worth noting here how the treatment of idolatry in the poem, while still negative, also adds more nuance to the picture. The pagans worshipping Crom are not performing the sacrifice of their own volition, but rather out of desperation. Therefore, the blame for the transgression of idolatry ultimately lies with the idol, and not the people who have been terrorized into action by the malignant spirit that is deceiving them. At the end of the poem, the image of the saint single-handedly destroying the pagan idol worshipped by the entire nation – not only symbolically but literally – provides a suitable closing scene to demonstrate the magnitude of Patrick’s achievement: 12. Na srethaib trí h-ídail chloch fo chethair: fri sáebad serb inna slog delb in Chruimm d’ór dodechaid. 35 Gwynn, Metrical Dindshenchas 7 (vol. 4, pp. 20–21). 36 Olyan, Biblical Mourning, especially pp. 62–96.

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(Ranged in ranks stood idols of stone four times three; to beguile the hosts grievously the figure of the Cromm was formed of gold.) 13. Ó baí flaith Héremóin, ard-fhir in raith, adrad robaí for clacha co techt Pátraic Macha maith. (Since the kingship of Heremon, bounteous chief, worship was paid to stones till the coming of noble Patrick of Ard Macha.) 14. Ord don Chrumm rogab ó bathis coa bunn: rodíchuir cen gallacht ngand in n-arracht fann robaí sund. (He plied upon the Cromm a sledge, from top to toe; with no paltry prowess he ousted the strengthless goblin that stood here.)37

With regard to the spectacular destruction of Crom, Jacqueline Borsje has argued convincingly that there are several clues in this account which suggest that Muirchú’s text was one of the major influences behind the dindshenchas poem, even though the actual events leading up to the demolition of the idol are in the latter more explicitly associated with the distant mythical past. Borsje suggests moreover that a more literal interpretation of the repetitive reference made to the head of idolatry in Muirchú could have at some point given rise to the appellation Cenn Cróich or Crúach, which is one of the common names used of the idols in the medieval sources.38 The relationship between the Tara episode of Muirchú and the various tales concerning Crom or Cenn Cróich has in the past proven especially vexing to those scholars who have been willing to approach the texts as history rather than legend. As pointed out above, the fact that the so-called chief-idol of Ireland was not mentioned by Patrick or his earliest hagiographers Muirchú and Tírechán may imply that the cult place at Mag Slécht, if it actually existed, never had the kind of national prominence envisaged in the later literary sources. Even if the plain was only a site of local assemblies or festive gatherings, however, it does not exclude the possibility that it may have also enjoyed a reputation as a sacred site of great antiquity. Indeed, the emphasis laid in all the sources on the particular features of the idols of Mag Slécht, such as their number, size, and positioning, is perhaps one of the foremost indications that something bearing a physical resemblance to these ‘idols’ was in fact recognizable in the surrounding landscape, and hence served as a natural material prompt for the imaginative etiologies that sought to explain their origin. 37 Gwynn, Metrical Dindshenchas 7 (vol. 4, pp. 22–23). 38 Borsje, ‘Human Sacrifice’, pp. 37–39.

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Conclusion Massimo Leone has noted that ‘evoking, defining, and narrating idolatry is […] a central task for all monolatries wishing to def ine themselves in relation to alternative semiotics of the sacred’.39 The same desire of articulating and affirming the complete transformation of the Irish people after their conversion to Christianity also runs across all the sources surveyed here. In the scheme of Irish pseudohistory, the arrival of Patrick marked the decisive end to an era of paganism among the Irish people, and in the eyes of the medieval literati, the triumph of Christianity was immediate and conclusive. While the ideological and temporal distance between the pagan past and the Christian present meant that idolatry was no longer perceived as a distinct problem or a threat, the authors of the hagiographical and pseudohistorical texts were still heirs to the long tradition of JudaeoChristian polemical discourse, which defined idolatry as fundamentally ‘other’. In Muirchú’s Vita, the interweaving of scriptural parallels and typologies allowed him to paint a vivid picture of Tara as Ireland’s Babylon and the ‘head of all paganism and idolatry’ without actually including a physical idol in the scene. For a learned audience, the pairing of the two terms sufficed to convey all the negative connotations that illicit worship was associated with in the Old Testament, including magic, superstition, moral depravity, and abhorrent rituals. The later hagiographical and pseudohistorical narratives concerning Saint Patrick’s confrontation with Crom Crúaich bear witness to similar conceptions, but the recurrent notion of demonic agency in these accounts also reflects the apologetic argumentation of the early Church Fathers, to whom the outrage of idolatry lies both in the deceitfulness of the demons and the gullibility of the people who worshipped them. As more details were added to the tradition in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, this framing of idolatry was most effectively adopted in the metrical dindshenchas, in which the horrific actions of the hapless pagans appear to elicit pity rather than ridicule. With their learning and penchant for imaginative speculation, the medieval Irish thus crafted an iconography of idolatry that suited their own understanding of Ireland’s historical past: their ancestors may have been misled by the devil to adore false images, but despite their depravity they were not inherently wicked. Thanks to the work done by Patrick, even the ignorant could be saved, and made ‘a people of the Lord’. 39 Leone, ‘Smashing Idols’, p. 32.

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Bibliography Bieler, Ludwig, ed. and trans., Libri epistolarum Sancti Patricii episcopi: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Clavis Patricii II), Royal Irish Academy Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources, Ancillary Publications IV (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy 1952; reprint 1993). Bieler, Ludwig, ed. and trans., The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae X (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1979; reprint 2004). Borsje, Jacqueline, ‘Human Sacrifice in Medieval Irish Literature’, in The Strange World of Human Sacrifice, ed. by Jan N. Bremmer (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), pp. 31–54. Byrne, Francis John, and Pádraig Francis, ‘Two Lives of Patrick: Vita secunda and Vita quarta’, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 124 (1994), 5–117. Charles, Robert Henry, ed., The Book of Jubilees, or The Little Genesis (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1902). Colgan, John, ed., Acta Triadis Thaumaturgae (Leuven, 1647). Dalton, John P., ‘Cromm Cruaich of Magh Sleacht’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 36 (1921–1924), pp. 23–67. Doering, Lutz, ‘Purity and Impurity in the Book of Jubilees’, in Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees, ed. by Gabriele Boccaccini and Giovanni Ibba (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009), pp. 261–275. Edwards, Nancy, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, and Roy Flechner, eds., Transforming Landscapes of Belief in the Early Medieval Insular World and Beyond: Converting the Isles II, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017). Etchingham, Colmán, ‘Conversion in Ireland’, in The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World: Converting the Isles I, ed. by Roy Flechner and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 181–207. Faur, José, ‘The Biblical Idea of Idolatry’, The Jewish Quarterly Review 69.1 (1978), 1–15. Flechner, Roy, ‘Conversion in Ireland: Reflections on the State of the Art’, in The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World: Converting the Isles I, ed. by Roy Flechner and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 41–59. Flechner, Roy, and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, eds., The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World: Converting the Isles I, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 19 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016). Freudenberg, Bele, and Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘The Christian Perception of Heathens in the Early Middle Ages’, Millennium, 10.1 (2013), 281–292.

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Fricke, Beate, ‘Fallen Idols and Risen Saints: Western Attitudes towards the Worship of Images and the “Cultura Veterum Deorum”’, in Negating the Image: Case Studies in Iconoclasm, ed. by Anne McClanan and Jeff Johnson (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 67–95. Grigoryev, Grigory, ‘Bachal Ísu: The Symbolism of St. Patrick’s Crosier in Early Medieval Irish Hagiography’, Studia Celtica Fennica 14 (2017), 71–84. Gwynn, Edward John, ed. and trans., Metrical Dindshenchas, 5 vols, Todd Lecture Series 8–12 (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1903–1935; reprint Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1991). Halbertal, Moshe, and Avishai Margalit, ‘Idolatry and Representation’, Res 22 (1992), 19–32. Johnston, Elva, Literacy and Identity in Early Medieval Ireland, Studies in Celtic History 33 (New York: Boydell and Brewer, 2013). Leone, Massimo, ‘Smashing Idols: A Paradoxical Semiotics’, Signs and Society 4.1 (2016), 30–56. Macalister, Robert A. Stewart, ed. and trans., Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Parts I–V, Irish Texts Society 34, 35, 39, 41, 44 (London: Irish Texts Society, 1938–1956). MacNeill, Máire, The Festival of Lughnasa: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Feast of the Beginning of Harvest (London: Oxford University Press, 1962). Minucius Felix, Octavius, Latin text available online at: https://www.thelatinlibrary. com/minucius.html. English translation at: http://www.earlychristianwritings. com/text/octavius.html (accessed 20 November 2020). Nodbell, P.A., ‘Old Testament Word-studies: 8. Idols and images’, The Old Testament Student 8.8 (1889), 296–301. Ó Duígeannáin, Mícheál, ‘On the Medieval Sources for the Legend of Cenn (Crom) Cróich of Mag Slécht’, in Féil-sgríbhinn Eoin Mhic Néill: Essays and Studies Presented to Professor Eoin MacNeill, ed. by John Ryan (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1940), pp. 296–306. Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí, The Sacred Isle: Pre-Christian Religions in Ireland (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2001). O’Leary, Aideen, ‘An Irish Apocryphal Apostle: Muirchú’s Portrayal of St. Patrick’, The Harvard Theological Review 89.3 (1996), 287–301. O’Loughlin, Thomas, ‘Reading Muirchú’s Tara-event within its Background as a Biblical “Trial of Divinities”’, in Celtic Hagiography and Saints’ Cults, ed. by Jane Cartwright (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2003), pp. 123–135. O’Loughlin, Thomas, Discovering Saint Patrick (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2005). Olyan, Saul M., Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

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Raftery, Barry, Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994). Ries, Julien, ‘Idolatry’, in Encyclopaedia of Religion, ed. by Mircea Eliade, vol. 7 (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 72–82. Ritari, Katja, and Alexandra Bergholm, eds., Understanding Celtic Religion: Revisiting the Pagan Past, New Approaches to Celtic Religion and Mythology 1 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2015). Rosner, Brian S., ‘The Concept of Idolatry’, Themelios, 24.3 (1999), 21–30. Rubiés, Joan-Pau, ‘Theology, Ethnography, and the Historicization of Idolatry’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 67.4 (2006), 571–596. van Ruiten, Jacques, ‘Jubilees 11–12 against the Background of the Polemics against Idols in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Literature’, in Intolerance, Polemics, and Debate in Antiquity: Politico-cultural, Philosophical, and Religious Forms of Critical Conversation, ed. by George van Kooten and Jacques van Ruiten (Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 92–114. Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans., Vita tripartita: The Tripartite Life of Patrick (London: Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1887). Stokes, Whitley, ed. and trans., ‘The Prose Tales in the Rennes Dindshenchas’, Revue celtique 16 (1895), 31–83, 135–167, 269–312. Wellendorf, Jonas, ‘The Æsir and their Idols’, in Old Norse Mythology – Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Pernille Hermann, Stephen A. Mitchell, and Jens Peter Schjødt, with Amber J. Rose, Publications of the Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), pp. 89–110. Williams, Mark, Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016).

About the Author Alexandra Bergholm is University Lecturer in the Study of Religions at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include early medieval religious cultures, death rituals, and the history of emotions. She was guest editor of Temenos 55.1 (2019).

6

Myth as a Historical Resource: The Case of Orgain Denna Ríg (The Destruction of Dinn Ríg) Kevin Murray

Abstract This article examines how mythology and fictional narratives in medieval Irish literature were used to communicate important societal ideas and to encode political messages. It is a commonplace that stories about the past were re-used, re-cycled and re-interpreted in order to justify the present. These sources were utilized by the ruling classes in medieval Ireland to help explain the status quo on the one hand and to justify emerging change on the other. As the preference of the medieval Irish was ‘to take their history in the form of fiction’, many stories like Orgain Denna Ríg (The Destruction of Dinn Ríg) are extant from this period, stories which provide us with an important perspective on the growth and articulation of a significant facet of medieval Irish historiography. Keywords: Early Laigin history; Labraid Loingsech; Cycles of the Kings; medieval Irish narrative texts; pseudo-history.

In her analysis of the medieval Irish pseudo-historical prophetic text Baile in Scáil ‘The Phantom’s Vision’,1 Máire Herbert makes the case that ‘for the Uí Néill propagandists of the early eleventh century the mythic past provided a defensive strategy in a threatening present’.2 What she is referencing here is the use made by literati associated with Uí Néill3 – and particularly 1 Murray, Baile in Scáil. 2 Herbert, ‘Goddess and King’, p. 272. 3 Uí Néill ‘The Descendants of Níall (Noígíallach)’ refers to the dominant political federation in the northern half of Ireland (Leth Cuinn) in the second half of the first millennium AD; they

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch06

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with the northern branch known as Cenél nEógain – of the motif of the sovereignty goddess bestowing a drink on the rightful ruler in order to re-assert their long-established rights to the kingship of Tara, reckoned as the pre-eminent kingship in early medieval Ireland. This use of myth to back up contemporary political concerns occurred at a period in their history when Uí Néill hegemony was under serious threat from powerful political rivals; 4 the compilation of this particular narrative has been described as ‘a recourse by Cenél nEógain to the cornerstone of tradition at a time when they “were isolated from the currents of social, political, and ecclesiastical change”’.5 Baile in Scáil was not the only attempt made by Uí Néill propagandists to utilize the image of the sovereignty goddess in re-affirming their rights to the kingship of Tara. In fact, this narrative re-uses the central plotline of a text which was committed to writing in the f irst decades of the eighth century,6 Baile Chuind ‘The Prophecy of Cond’, i.e. the revelation by the goddess of the future kings of Ireland to their ancestral f igure, Cond Cétchathach.7 In the case of Baile Chuind, however, the particular Uí Néill dynasty being singled out for praise is Síl nÁedo Sláine; the encomium was penned as this southern branch were declining in importance and thus were no longer in a position to hold the kingship of Tara. What this narrative nexus illustrates so clearly is that tales of the past, particularly those which could be directly or indirectly linked to contemporary events, were at least partly cultivated for their efficacy in the present. This is unsurprising because ‘in a lineage society with at least a basic genealogical culture […] tales cast in a historical mould, in which prominent roles are given to the ancestors (real or imagined) of powerful lineages, have an immediacy and a remarkable potential for the communication of ideas’.8 And these tales, though cast as historical fiction, are historical writings nonetheless and ‘[s]o far as there is a central tradition in our historical writing, it arises from this recurrent need to understand were the predominant holders of the kingship of Tara during this period. Their origins are much disputed; see Byrne, The Rise of the Uí Néill. 4 As Matthew Innes has noted, ‘writing about the past thus emerges as an act of power, in that it sought to influence action in the present’ (‘Introduction: Using the Past’, p. 4). 5 Murray, ‘“Ticfa didiu rí aili foræ”’, p. 117, quoting Byrne, The Rise of the Uí Néill, p. 21. 6 For discussion, see Murray, ‘The Manuscript Tradition of Baile Chuind Chétchathaig’. 7 Edited and translated by Bhreathnach and Murray, ‘Baile Chuind Chétchathaig: An Edition’, in Bhreathnach, The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, pp. 73–94. Much of the text is elliptical, obscure, and hard to interpret reflecting the fact that ‘ambiguity of imagery or statement was so common in prophetic utterances, that obscurity was sometimes adduced as a proof of genuineness’ (Southern, ‘Aspects of the European Tradition’ [3], p. 161). 8 Ó Corráin, ‘Historical Need’, p. 144.

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and stabilize the present by reviving the experience of the past’.9 And the preference of the medieval Irish in reviving the experience of the past was ‘to take their history in the form of fiction’.10 One significant historical narrative which adheres to this fictive pattern is Orgain Denna Ríg ‘The Destruction of Dinn Ríg’,11 a medieval Irish prosimetric text dealing with the mythical history of Laigin and their famous ancestor figure, Labraid.12 Versions of the text survive in three manuscripts, viz.: – R: The Book of Glendalough: Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson B 502 [twelfth century] f. 71vb14–72rb18. – L: The Book of Leinster: Trinity College Dublin MS 1339 (H 2.18) [twelfth century] pp. 269a1–270a44. – Y: Yellow Book of Lecan: Trinity College Dublin MS 1318 (H 2.16) [in a portion of this composite manuscript written by Giolla Íosa Mac Fhir Bhisigh c. 1392] cols 754.1–756.45. The tale is found, along with other Laigin tales, in the section of Rawlinson B. 502 headed Scélṡenchas Lagen inso sis ‘The Story-Lore of the Leinstermen here below’;13 in the Book of Leinster, it is the first of three consecutive Laigin narratives;14 while in the Yellow Book of Lecan (as in L) it is followed by the Laigin story Esnada Tige Buchet. In R, the story is referred to at the outset as cetna scel Lagen ⁊ tuus a ngliad ‘the first tale of the Leinstermen and the commencement of their fighting’.15 T.F. O’Rahilly has argued that ‘[t]he legend of 9 Southern, ‘Aspects of the European Tradition’ [4], p. 263. 10 Byrne, ‘Senchas’, p. 150. 11 The standard edition (without translation) is Greene, Fingal Rónáin and Other Stories, pp. 16–26, ll. 304–471. An earlier edition (with translation) is Stokes, ‘The Destruction of Dind Ríg’. There is a semi-diplomatic edition (without translation) of the text from the Book of Leinster in Best and O’Brien, The Book of Leinster vol. 5, ll. 35212–35340 (henceforth LL). A list of further translations of the text – along with an overview of the associated secondary literature – is given in Ó Corráin, Clavis Litterarum Hibernensium, vol. 3, § 1086. 12 Laigin, who were inveterate enemies of Uí Néill in the early historic period, were a population group who give their name to the province of Leinster. They were mainly located in the east and south-east of the country, but their territory is thought to have been more extensive once. They are traditionally understood to have been settlers who came from outside Ireland. For discussion, see Byrne, Irish Kings, Chapter 8, Ó hUiginn, ‘The Literature of the Laigin’, and Koch, Celtic Culture, vol. 3, 1078–1081. 13 This heading is at f. 71vb13 and covers the material down to the end of f. 73v; see Ó Cuív, Catalogue of Irish Language Manuscripts, p. 192. 14 The other two are Esnada Tige Buchet ‘The Songs of Buchet’s House’ (LL v, ll. 35341–35432) and Fingal Rónáin ‘Rónán’s Kin-slaying’ (LL v, ll. 35433–35669). 15 Stokes, ‘The Destruction of Dind Ríg’, p. 2.

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Labraid was the oldest legend that the Lagin possessed concerning themselves; it was in fact the story of their origin, of their arrival in Ireland’;16 he is here not referring solely to Orgain Denna Ríg but is drawing within his ambit of study a multitude of references to Labraid extant in various sources.17 From his analysis of these, he believes the outline of the legend to have been as follows: Cobthach Coel slew his brother, Loegaire Lorc, as well as Loegaire’s son, Ailill. The latter’s son, Labraid Loingsech Moen, went to Gaul; and returning later with an army of Gauls, he slew Cobthach and thirty other kings in Dind Ríg, and became king of Ireland.18

The basic information presented here by O’Rahilly is a little at variance with that presented in Orgain Denna Ríg and it highlights for us the fact that the various narratives – prose, poetic, and prosimetric – concerning Labraid that were extant in medieval Ireland did not always agree fully on points of detail. Orgain Denna Ríg is a particularly nuanced and sophisticated tale; this may be partly due to the fact that it draws upon some of the earlier extant written sources concerning Labraid Loingsech. Some of these may predate Orgain Denna Ríg by up to a couple of centuries and may have their roots even farther back in oral tradition; other oral and written materials which no longer survive may also have played a signif icant part in its creation. Though there are some inconsistencies across this entire range of sources, nevertheless this text stands at the centre of a reasonably coherent body of narratives. What Seán Ó Coileáin has said about the cycle of material pertaining to Gúaire Aidni, the seventh-century king of Connacht, might be applied with equal truth to the medieval narrative traditions associated with Labraid Loingsech: ‘[a] surprising degree of unity will be seen to emerge from a reconstruction of these often fragmentary sources’.19 Now to turn to the story itself. At the beginning of Orgain Denna Ríg, Cobthach Cóel (‘The Meagre’) king of Brega is seen to be wasting away out of envy of his brother Lóegaire Lorc who is either king of Leinster or of Ireland (the various manuscript versions of the text are not at one on this point). With the assistance of his wife and steward, Cobthach pretends to 16 O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology, p. 106. 17 O’Rahilly lists some of these in Early Irish History and Mythology, pp. 103–105. 18 O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology, p. 107. 19 Ó Coileáin, ‘The Structure of a Literary Cycle’, p. 88.

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be dead and when his brother throws himself upon his prostrate body in his chariot out of grief, he stabs Lóegaire to death. Thereafter, Lóegaire’s son, Ailill Áine, assumes the kingship of Laigin until Cobthach Cóel pays to have him poisoned and begins to reign in his place. Ailill leaves behind him a solitary son, Móen Ollam, who is mute from birth; only on the playing-field in his adulthood does he begin to speak and is renamed Labraid Móen (lit. ‘The Mute One Speaks’).20 In subsequent exile in west Munster with Craiphtine the harper and Ferchertne the poet (who are both banished for lauding Labraid’s generosity over Cobthach’s), Labraid wins the hand of Moríath, daughter of the Fir Morca king Scoríath. With the help of these Munstermen, he then attacks and defeats the stronghold of Dinn Ríg 21 (which was earlier known as Túaim Tenbath)22 and assumes the kingship of Laigin. Then, he has a house of iron secretly built there and he invites Cobthach and his retinue to a feast. Cobthach refuses to enter the house until Labraid’s jester and mother precede him into it.23 The next day the iron house is chained shut, a large fire is kindled outside and Cobthach, seven hundred of his entourage and the thirty kings who had accompanied him – along with Labraid’s mother and jester – are all burned to death in the house. This then is Orgain Denna Ríg ‘The Destruction of Dinn Ríg’ which is said in the tale to have taken place three hundred years before Christ’s birth. The elements in Orgain Denna Ríg and related Labraid narratives which tend towards story rather than history are quite numerous. In detailing a number of these below, it is important to remember that many of these incidents encoded and communicated important messages for contemporary audiences, and that the composition and telling of the story was one of the 20 He is also known as Labraid Loingsech (‘Labraid the Exile’) because he was exiled by Cobthach Cóel Breg and as Labraid Lorc (after his father Lóegaire Lorc). 21 This is now a moat in the townland of Ballyknockan, parish of Wells, barony of Idrone West, County Carlow (variously called ‘Burgage Moat’ and ‘Ballyknockan Moat’). For details and references, see Nic Cárthaigh, Ó Riain, and Murray, Historical Dictionary of Gaelic Placenames, s.n. Dinn Ríg. 22 There is some deliberate etymological play with the placenames: Dinn Ríg translates as ‘Fortress of Kings’; while Túaim means ‘a moat, hillock or tomb’ and Tenbath ‘death by f ire’ (see dil.ie/40486). Some scholars think that this was not in origin an alternate name for Dinn Ríg but emerged from a misunderstanding of the opening lines of the archaic Dind Ríg poem. Therein, Wagner translates tūaim tenbath as ‘the hill-face (is) a kindled fire’ (poem is cited in full below): Wagner, ‘The Archaic Dind Ríg Poem’, pp. 1–2. See Greene, Fingal Rónáin and Other Stories, pp. 16–17. 23 The significance of the jester in this episode has been examined in detail by Boyd, ‘Competing Assumptions’.

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principal ways in which Laigin engaged with their own earlier traditions. From the opening scenes of the tale, the negative personality of Cobthach Cóel Breg is foregrounded. He is physically wasting away out of jealousy of his brother Lóegaire Lorc: Ba formtech Cobthach fri Loegaire im ríge Laigen, corra gaib sergg ⁊ galar de, coro ṡergg a ḟuil ⁊ a ḟeoil de, conid de ro boí Coel Breg fair-sium.24 (Cobthach was envious of Lóegaire’s kingship of Laigin, so that he wasted away and became ill, and his blood and his flesh wasted away, so that he was known as the “Meagre One of Brega”.)

The bodily decline of Cobthach lets the audience know immediately that he is not fit to be king as he is physically blemished. The envy which leads to him murdering his brother in a deceitful and cowardly fashion remains with him as his dominant character trait throughout. Having killed his brother, he then decides to scheme in order to do away with Lóegaire’s son, Ailill. What may have saved Labraid from the same destiny is that he is still mute at this point: ‘Given the fate of his father and grandfather, Labraid’s dumbness might well be construed as a way of ensuring that the king will not regard him as a threat to his position’.25 The broader context here is clear; southern Uí Néill, represented by the personage of Cobthach Cóel Breg, are presented as deceitful usurpers who have fraudulently deprived Laigin, represented by Lóegaire Lorc (and later Ailill Áine), of their rightful kingship. Consequently, when Labraid Móen takes his revenge on Cobthach towards the end of the tale, he is revolting not just against his granduncle and the murderer of his father and grandfather, he is also rebelling against his overking. Furthermore, it has been suggested that: [He would] have been anxious to rid himself (and Leinster) of the indignity of his position as a holder of rechtas [‘subordinate kingship’] when Cobthach held lánríge [‘full kingship’]. This primeval rejection of the claims of an ancestor of the Uí Néill to superior kingship is presented in the literature as an exemplary act, and it was replicated by many historical kings of Leinster who claimed descent from Labraid.26 24 Greene, Fingal Rónáin and Other Stories, p. 18, ll. 305–308. 25 Ó Cathasaigh, ‘The Oldest Story’, p. 16. 26 Ó Cathasaigh, ‘The Oldest Story’, p. 10.

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This overt political message – preserved in the two oldest surviving manuscripts from Leinster to contain vernacular narrative materials – is here encoded in a personal mythical act of revenge. One of the elements (noted above) which O’Rahilly saw as being an intrinsic part of the original myth is Labraid’s exile (loinges) in Gaul from which he returns with an invading army to help him regain his kingship. If this is indeed part of the original core of the story, we see in Orgain Denna Ríg a significant departure from this narrative element. Instead of being banished abroad, we find that Labraid ends up in exile among Fir Morca, a Munster sept said in the tale to be located in Lúachair Dedad in west Kerry.27 It has been proposed that: The author of O[rgain] D[enna] R[íg] may have wished to suggest a certain degree of defiance in Labraid’s character, but on the political level his motivation may well have been the propagandistic one of providing Labraid with Munster allies in his opposition to Cobthach. And so it is that Labraid brings an army of the men of Munster […] with him when he returns to Leinster to destroy the fort at Dind Ríg.28

Considering the recurrent enmity over the years between Leth Moga and Leth Cuinn,29 and the sporadic warfare between different branches of Fir Muman and southern Uí Néill, this particular element in Orgain Denna Ríg would undoubtedly have resonated strongly with a contemporary audience. However, we must also bear in mind an ingenious suggestion made by O’Rahilly – one which is all the more potent when one realizes that there is no historical or archaeological support for the literary references we possess for the existence of Fir Morca and/or Críoch Fher Morca – that their name may in fact be ‘an early popular corruption of tír (or crích) *Armorca, a borrowing of Latin Armorica’.30 If this be accepted, then the external component of the Labraid story survives at least tangentially 27 Greene, Fingal Rónáin and Other Stories, p. 19, ll. 356–357: ‘Tiagait iarum co rríg Fer Morca (.i. Fir Morca bātar immon Lúachair nDedad thíar. Scoriath iss hé ba rí dóib)’ (‘They go then to the king of Fir Morca (i.e. Fir Morca were located around Lúachair Dedad in the west. It is Scoríath who was their king)’). However, other references to Fir Morca generally give them as an alternative name for Uí Chonaill Gabhra in County Limerick; see Ó Riain, Murray, and Nic Cárthaigh, Historical Dictionary of Gaelic Placenames, s.n. Críoch Fhear Morc(a). 28 Ó Cathasaigh, ‘The Oldest Story’, p. 7. 29 Leth Moga ‘Mug’s Half’ (named for Mug Núadat) refers to the southern half of Ireland, and Leth Cuinn ‘Conn’s Half’ (named for Conn Cétchathach) refers to the northern half. 30 O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology, p. 113.

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in Orgain Denna Ríg. What may be a combination of both elements may be seen in a variant of this exile abroad theme in the tale about Moríath and Labraid preserved in the Bodleian Amra Coluim Chille.31 Therein, Labraid ends up in exile in Armenia,32 and Moríath, daughter of the king of Fir Morca, sends her harper Craiftine in pursuit of him as she has given him love in absence (grad ecmasi). In this version of the Labraid story, Craiftine plays the harp in his presence and the beautiful music prompts him to speech. The first thing out of his mouth is a request to the king of Armenia for support troops to return to Ireland to retake the kingship. He lands at the mouth of the Boyne, discovers that Cobthach is at Dinn Ríg, proceeds there and kills him, and thus becomes king of Ireland. It is said then that the spears (laigne) that were used in the conquest gave name to Laigin: Labraid Loingsech, lor a lin. Ro ort Cobthach a nDind righ, co sluag laigen ro lin gail. uad ro hainmnigte Lagin. (Labraid Loingsech sufficient his number, slew Cobthach at Dind rig: with a host of lances he fulfilled valour, thence the Laigin were named.)33

That a similar tradition may have been known to the author/compiler of Orgain Denna Ríg is arguable from the tale’s coda concerning Labraid which is found only in the Rawlinson version of the text, however: dia ragaib rige co Muir n-Icht, dia tuc na gaullu imda leis .i. cc. ar fichet cet gall cosna laignib lethnaib ’na lamaib, et de quibus Lagin dicuntur. (when he gained a realm as far as the Ictian Sea, and brought the many foreigners with him (to Ireland), to wit, two thousand and two hundred foreigners with broad lances in their hands, from which the Laigin (Leinstermen) are so called.)34

Thus, both versions in their own way tie the Labraid narrative to the wellknown etymology of Laigin and serve as exemplary texts for them in their 31 Stokes, ‘The Story of Labraid’. 32 Which is said in the text (‘The Story of Labraid’, p. 430) to be in Inis Bretan ‘The Island of the Britons’. 33 Stokes, ‘The Story of Labraid’, pp. 431, 433. 34 Stokes, ‘The Destruction of Dind Ríg’, 8, 14 § 29.

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ongoing political and military struggles with Dál Cuinn, and particularly with southern Uí Néill. One of the aspects of Orgain Denna Ríg which renders it such an interesting case study is the presence of discrete linguistic strata in the text. With regard to its date, its most recent editor argues: The original of the story in its present form cannot be much earlier than the beginning of the tenth century, in view of the ascription of quatrains to Orthanach Ua Caelláma (†839) and Flan (sic!) mac Lonáin (†896); this dating agrees well with the language of the prose. But much older material is incorporated in the poems.35

This is also the position taken by Donnchadh Ó Corráin who, in ascribing the text to the tenth century, notes that: It reflects the centuries long hostility between Leinster and Brega. […] The specific historical circumstances that prompted the present elegant narrative are not evident to us. It is clear that it is constructed from much earlier material in the Leinster genealogies and origin legends.36

Thus, the text as it has come down to us is thought to date to c. 900 AD or a little later but it is universally conceded that earlier materials are also present in the tale. The most famous of all of these earlier constituent elements is the composition known as ‘The Archaic Dínd Ríg Poem’;37 though there is no consensus concerning its date of composition, it may predate Orgain Denna Ríg by up to a couple of hundred years or more.38 It may be cited in its entirety here from Wagner’s edition: Dind Rīg rūad – tūaim tenbath; tricha n-airech – ro·brōn bebsat. 35 Greene, Fingal Rónáin and Other Stories, p. 16. 36 Ó Corráin, Clavis Litterarum Hibernensium, vol. 3, § 1086. 37 This is the title of the edition, translation, and analysis by Wagner, ‘The Archaic Dind Ríg Poem and Related Problems’. For a bibliography of the scholarship on this poem, see Davies, ‘Protocols’, p. 3, n. 2. 38 Carney in ‘The Dating of Archaic Irish Verse’, p. 39, dated this poem to the ‘Pagan period’ adding (n. 2) that this term ‘is intended to express a date earlier than 450, although, of course, it is conceded that it is not impossible, however unlikely, that a genuinely pagan poem could be written at any date up to 600 A.D.’. As I have pointed out elsewhere (Murray, ‘Medieval Ireland’, p. 80), Carney ‘was inclined to date poems far earlier than other scholars were willing to allow’. See also Breatnach, Review of Tranter and Tristram, p. 120.

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bruisius breosius – bār-nia lond Labraid, lāith Elggae – aue Luirc Loegairi. Lugaid loeg – lond sanb Sētne, sochla Coel Cobthach – conn Māil Muiredach. mandrais arma – athair athar Ollomon, oirt Moen – maccu āin Augaini. (Dind Rig (is) red – the hill-face (is) a kindled fire. Thirty chieftains have died in sorrow. He crushed them, he broke them down, the fierce boar-champion Labraid, the warrior of Ireland, the grandson of Loegaire Lorc. Lugaid (was) a bull-calf; fierce, eager for spoils (was) Sétne; famous (was) Cobthach Coel, a chief (was) Muiredach Mál. He trod down the weapons, the father of the father of Ollom; The Dumb killed the sons of glorious Augaine.)39

Some of the pithy constituent elements of this poem echo significant elements of the Orgain Denna Ríg narrative: the fire at Dinn Ríg; the killing of Cobthach Coel and of thirty leaders; and the fact that Lóegaire’s grandson Labraid (who was once called Móen) is responsible for these deaths. Much of the rest of the poem is quite obscure with other Laigin characters named who are thought to have perished at Dinn Ríg. The position of this poetic composition at the end of the narrative is not accidental: its very archaicness and opaqueness is used as ‘evidential verse’, bearing witness to the veracity of the events related in the tale itself. 40 Nevertheless, despite its opacity as a composition, the central message in this mythical narrative is clear: the defeat of an ancestor figure of Uí Néill by Laigin’s Labraid (lāith Elggae ‘the warrior of Ireland’) is presented as an exemplary act for later Laigin leaders to emulate. Another aspect of the Labraid narrative which is of interest here is the intersection of literary and historical sources. A basic outline of the events 39 Wagner, ‘The Archaic Dind Ríg Poem and Related Problems’, pp. 1–2. For other editions of the poem, see Meyer, Über die älteste irische Dichtung, II, 7–9; O’Brien, Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae, p. 18; Campanile, Die älteste Hofdichtung von Leinster, pp. 26–27; Carney, ‘The Dating of Archaic Irish Verse’, pp. 44–45; Corthals, ‘Some Observations’, p. 117; Corthals, ‘The Rhymeless “Leinster Poems”’, pp. 85–86. 40 For the terminology, see Mac Cana, ‘Prosimetrum in Insular Celtic Literature’, p. 111. Davies, ‘Protocols’, p. 5, succinctly refers to the poem ‘as a kind of authenticating coda on the action in the saga, and especially on the denouement – the burning to death of Cobthach Coel and the thirty kings in the iron house’.

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would seem to have made its way from the literary sphere into the historic record. The following brief information is given as a retrospective pre-historic entry in the Annals of Tigernach: Cobtach Cóel Breg mac Ugaine Móir do loscud co trichait ríg imme i nDind ríg Maige Ailbe hi[m]Brudin Tuamma Tenbath sainrud, la Labraid Loiṅgsech Móen mac Ailella Áne maic Loeguire Luirc maic Ugaine Móir, i ndigail a athar ⁊ a senathar romarb Cobthach Cóel. Cocad ó ṡein etir Laigniu ⁊ Leth Cuind. (Cobthach the Slender, of Bregia, son of Úgaine the Great was burnt, with thirty kings around him, at Dind Ríg of Magh Ailbe, in the Hostel of Tuaimm Tenbath precisely, by Labraid the Dumb Exile, son of Ailill Áne, son of Lóeguire Lorc, son of Úgaine the Great, in revenge for his father and grandfather whom Cobthach the Slender had killed. Warfare thence between Leinster and Conn’s Half.)41

Similar accounts – along with significant portions of the storyline of Orgain Denna Ríg – are also to be found in Lebor Gabála Érenn ‘The Book of the Taking of Ireland’ and in Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Éirinn ‘The Foundation of Knowledge concerning Ireland’. 42 Though we should not be too preoccupied with drawing rigid distinctions between the genres of literature and history, 43 it is interesting nevertheless to note that for scholars in late medieval and early modern Ireland, tales concerning Labraid and Cobthach had attained the status of history despite the many legendary and narratological elements present in them. What begins as a mythical Laigin exemplary tradition gives rise to a sober truncated account of events in the annalistic record of pre-history. A distinction needs to be drawn between pre-Patrician annal entries such as this one from the Annals of Tigernach and annal records of the seventh century, for example, which contain accounts of historical events occasionally dealt with in much more detail in narrative texts. The relationships between the sources in these cases is differently complex. Sometimes a contemporaneous annal entry may serve as the basis for an incident or brief 41 Stokes, ‘The Annals of Tigernach’, Revue celtique 16, p. 378. 42 Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn, V, pp. 274–279, §§ 555–557; Comyn and Dinneen, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, II, pp. 162–167. 43 See discussions of this topic by Poppe, ‘Reconstructing Medieval Irish Literary Theory’, Toner, ‘The Ulster Cycle’, and Sims-Williams and Poppe, ‘Medieval Irish Literary Theory and Criticism’.

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story in the later narrative tradition; frequently, however, the relationship is the other way round with a Middle Irish episode or tale plundered for information which is then entered into the annals. As Gearóid Mac Eoin has pointed out: The truth is that the Middle-Irish author had very little information about seventh-century characters and events apart from the anecdotes he was using and other parallel tales. But the picture provided by these, as interpreted by the saga authors, came to be accepted as the true history of the time and as such was inserted into the developing annalistic compilations by scribes who were glad to find any material to fill the vacuum which existed for most of the century. 44

Texts such as Orgain Denna Ríg seem to have served a similar function for scribes who were creating retrospective accounts of Ireland’s pre-history. This brief excursus through Orgain Denna Ríg and related narratives gives support to the statement made by Francis John Byrne many years ago that ‘the Irish were extremely interested in their history – more so, it would seem, than any of their contemporaries – but they preferred it in the form of historical fiction’. 45 The tale is suffused with ideas about the past, some of which are also found in other sources, some of which are unique to this composition. The modern reader gets the very strong impression that for contemporary audiences, myth was a remarkably useful medium for communicating both ideas and propaganda, and for articulating shared communal beliefs. The fact that material about Labraid is spread across a broad range of sources and a wide timeframe leads one to the inevitable conclusion that continual and repeated recourse to characters of bygone eras was one of the important ways in which peoples connected with their past, enunciated their opinions, communicated their history, and expressed their sense of identity. For those interested in the early history of Laigin, the f irst place to turn was to narratives which provided information about their most famous mythical ancestor, Labraid Loingsech. 44 ‘Orality and Literacy’, p. 183. This sentiment is echoed in Ó Coileáin, ‘The Structure of a Literary Cycle’, p. 88: ‘legendary material has frequently found its way back into the more staid historical sources, so that it is often quite impossible to distinguish primary material from secondary’. 45 ‘The Ireland of St Columba’, p. 38. A similar point has been made with regard to the construction of the Bible by Robert Alter: ‘fiction was the principal means which the biblical authors had at their disposal for realizing history’ (The Art of Biblical Narrative, p. 32).

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Bibliography Alter, Robert, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981). Best, R.I. and M.A. O’Brien, The Book of Leinster formerly Lebar na Núachongbála, V (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1967). Bhreathnach, Edel, and Kevin Murray, ‘Baile Chuind Chétchathaig: An Edition’, in The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, ed. by Edel Bhreathnach (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), pp. 73–94. Boyd, Matthieu, ‘Competing Assumptions about the Drúth in Orgain Denna Ríg’, Ériu 59 (2009), 37–47. Breatnach, Liam, Review of Early Irish Literature: Media and Communication, ed. by Stephen N. Tranter and Hildegard L.C. Tristram, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 23 (Summer, 1992), 120–122. Byrne, Francis John, ‘The Ireland of St Columba’, Historical Studies 5 (1965), 37–58. Byrne, Francis John, The Rise of the Uí Néill and the High-kingship of Ireland, O’Donnell Lecture Series 13 (Dublin: National University of Ireland, 1969). Byrne, Francis John, Irish Kings and High-Kings (London: Batsford, 1973; 2nd ed. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001). Byrne, Francis John, ‘Senchas: The Nature of Gaelic Historical Tradition’, Historical Studies 9 (1974), 137–159. Campanile, Enrico, Die älteste Hofdichtung von Leinster: alliterierende reimlose Strophen, Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historische Klasse 503, Veröffentlichungen der Keltischen Kommission 8 (Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1988). Carney, James, ‘The Dating of Archaic Irish Verse’, in Early Irish Literature: Media and Communication / Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit in der frühen irischen Literatur, ed. by Stephen N. Tranter and Hildegard L.C. Tristram, ScriptOralia 10 (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1989), pp. 39–56. Comyn, David, and Patrick S. Dinneen, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn: The History of Ireland by Geoffrey Keating D.D., 4 vols, Irish Texts Society 4, 8, 9, 15 (London: Irish Texts Society, 1902–1914). Corthals, Johan, ‘Some Observations on the Versification of the Rhymeless “Leinster Poems”’, Celtica 21 (1990), 113–125. Corthals, Johan, ‘The Rhymeless “Leinster Poems”: Diplomatic Texts’, Celtica 24 (2003), 79–100. Davies, Morgan T., ‘Protocols of Reading in Early Irish Literature: Notes on Some Notes to Orgain Denna Ríg and Amra Coluim Cille’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 32 (Winter, 1996), 1–24. Greene, David, Fingal Rónáin and Other Stories, Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 16 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1955).

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Herbert, Máire, ‘Goddess and King: The Sacred Marriage in Early Ireland’, in Women and Sovereignty, ed. by Louise O. Fradenburg (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992), pp. 264–275. Innes, Matthew, ‘Introduction: Using the Past, Interpreting the Present, Influencing the Future’, in The Uses of the Past in The Early Middle Ages, ed. by Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 1–8. Koch, John T., ed., Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, 5 vols (Santa Barbara: ABC- CLIO, 2006). Macalister, Robert A. Stewart, ed. and trans., Lebor Gabála Érenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland, Parts I–V, Irish Texts Society 34, 35, 39, 41, 44 (Dublin and London: Irish Texts Society, 1938–1956). Mac Cana, Proinsias, ‘Prosimetrum in Insular Celtic Literature’, in Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse, ed. by Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl (Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 99–130. Mac Eoin, Gearóid, ‘Orality and Literacy in Some Middle-Irish King-Tales’, in Early Irish Literature: Media and Communication / Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit in der frühen irischen Literatur, ed. by Stephen N. Tranter and Hildegard L.C. Tristram, ScriptOralia 10 (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1989), pp. 149–83. Meyer, Kuno, Über die älteste irische Dichtung, 2 vols, Aus den Abhandlungen der Königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist Classe 6, 10 (Berlin, 1913–1914). Murray, Kevin, Baile in Scáil, Irish Texts Society 58 (London: Irish Texts Society, 2004). Murray, Kevin, ‘The Manuscript Tradition of Baile Chuind Chétchathaig and its Relationship with Baile in Scáil’, in The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, ed. by Edel Bhreathnach (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), pp. 69–72. Murray, Kevin, ‘Medieval Ireland’ [review of D. Ó Cróinín ed., A New History of Ireland I], Classics Ireland 14 (2007), 77–88. Murray, Kevin, ‘“Ticfa didiu rí aili foræ”: Prophecy, Sovereignty Narratives and Medieval Irish Historiography’, in The Medieval Imagination: Mirabile Dictu. Essays in Honour of Yolande de Pontfarcy Sexton, ed. by Phyllis Gaffney and Jean-Michel Picard (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012), pp. 111–122. Nic Cárthaigh, Emma, Pádraig Ó Riain, and Kevin Murray, Historical Dictionary of Gaelic Placenames / Foclóir Stairiúil Áitainmneacha na Gaeilge, Fascicle 7 / Fascúl 7 [D-Drongán] (London: Irish Texts Society, 2018). O’Brien, M.A., ed., Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1962). Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás, ‘The Oldest Story of the Laigin: Observations on Orgain Denna Ríg’, Éigse 33 (2002), 1–18.

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Ó Coileáin, Seán, ‘The Structure of a Literary Cycle’, Ériu 25 (1974), 88–125. Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, ‘Historical Need and Literary Narrative’, in Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Celtic Studies, held at Oxford, from 10th to 15th July, 1983, ed. by D. Ellis Evans, John G. Griffith and E.M. Jope (Oxford: D.E. Evans, 1986), pp. 141–158. Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, Clavis Litterarum Hibernensium. Medieval Irish Books & Texts (c. 400 – c. 1600), 3 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017). Ó Cuív, Brian, Catalogue of Irish Language Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and Oxford College Libraries, Part 1: Descriptions (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2001). Ó hUiginn, Ruairí, ‘The Literature of the Laigin’, Emania 8 (1990), 5–9. O’Rahilly, Thomas F., Early Irish History and Mythology (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946). Ó Riain, Pádraig, Kevin Murray, and Emma Nic Cárthaigh, Historical Dictionary of Gaelic Placenames / Foclóir Stairiúil Áitainmneacha na Gaeilge, Fascicle 6 / Fascúl 6 [Cóbh-Cutloch] (London: Irish Texts Society, 2016). Poppe, Erich, ‘Reconstructing Medieval Irish Literary Theory: The Lesson of Airec Menman Uraird maic Coise’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 37 (Summer, 1999), 33–54. Sims-Williams, Patrick, and Erich Poppe, ‘Medieval Irish Literary Theory and Criticism’, in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism II: The Middle Ages, ed. by Alastair Minnis and Ian Johnson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 291–309. Southern, R.W., ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing, 3: History as Prophecy’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 22 (1972), 159–180. Southern, R.W., ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing, 4: The Sense of the Past’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 23 (1973), 243–263. Stokes, Whitley, ‘The Annals of Tigernach’, Revue celtique 16 (1895), 374–419, 17 (1896), 6–33, 119–263, 337–420, 18 (1897), 9–59, 150–97, 267–303; repr. 2 vols (Felinfach: Llanerch Press, 1993). Stokes, Whitley, ‘The Story of Labraid and Moriath’s Harper’, Revue celtique 20 (1899), 429–434. Stokes, Whitley, ‘The Destruction of Dind Ríg’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 3 (1901), 1–14. Toner, Gregory, ‘The Ulster Cycle: Historiography or Fiction?’, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 40 (Winter, 2000), 1–20. Wagner, Heinrich, ‘The Archaic Dind Ríg Poem and Related Problems’, Ériu 28 (1977), 1–16.

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About the Author Kevin Murray is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork. His research interests include medieval Irish texts and the Finn Cycle, and he is an editor of the projected Historical Dictionary of Gaelic Placenames.

7

Hagiography as Political Documentation: The Case of Betha Beraigh (The Life of St Berach) Ksenia Kudenko

Abstract The focus of the article is on the historical stimuli which might have prompted the compilation of the Irish Life of St Berach, Betha Beraigh, and on the textual structure and motifs employed by the hagiographer to achieve his goals, i.e. to extol his patron saint and to claim territories for his church. Although the twelfth century was characterized by Church reform, Betha Beraigh seems to show little interest in contemporary religious discourse. Instead, the main purpose of the text seems to be concern with property, as well as desire to forge or revive connections with secular dynasties. The Life, therefore, represents a property record and accordingly, should be read against a political background as a document similar in its intent to continental charters. Keywords: Irish hagiography, St Berach, twelfth-century Church reform

The vernacular Life of St Berach, Betha Beraigh, is concerned with the reputed founder of the church of Clúain Coirpthe, modern Kilbarry (Cell Beraig, ‘Berach’s church’, parish of Termonbarry, County Roscommon, province of Connacht). The only other Life extant is the Latin Vita Sancti Berachi. Since the two Lives and a few genealogies are the only documents available about Berach, and since this saint is not mentioned in the annals, the historicity of Berach cannot be established. His proposed floruit may be estimated from the other persons he is brought into contact with within the text of his Irish Life. Judging by the mention of meetings with Colum Cille (St Columba) and the prophecy of St Patrick made sixty

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch07

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years before the birth of Berach, the saint is supposed to have lived in the sixth century. Both Latin and Irish versions are rather late and give no evidence of having been based on any earlier texts.1 The Irish Life of Berach is found solely in Brussels MS 4190–4200 (3409), ff. 71–88 in the Bibliothèque Royale at Brussels, and the text itself is ‘much fuller and more original’ than the Latin version.2 MS 4190–4200 contains hagiographical and other religious literature in Irish and Latin, and is part of a collection made in Ireland by Míchél Ó Cléirigh in the second quarter of the seventeenth century.3 According to a colophon in Betha Beraigh (§ 91), the text was copied from an old parchment in 1629: Slicht droich-leabhair shenda meambruim le cloinn Briain oig Úi Máolconaire innsin. A cconueint na mbrathar ag Drobhaois 6 Februarii, 1629. (This was copied from a bad old vellum book, belonging to the children of Brian O’Mulconry the younger. In the convent of the friars on the Drowes on Feb. 6, 1629.)

The Latin Life of Berach survives in one of the three largest collections of Latin Lives of Irish saints, viz. Codex Insulensis (this term being introduced by Colgan who also referred to it as Codex Inisensis, Codex Insulae Sanctorum, or Codex Lochriuensis), 4 and is also found in two Rawlinson MSS in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, namely Rawlinson B 485, ff. 58v–62v, and Rawlinson B 505, ff. 191v–194v. These manuscripts date to the fourteenth century, and this may be the time of the original creation of the Latin text.5 It is not a translation of the Irish source; nevertheless, apart from a few discrepancies, the vita relates the saint’s miracles which are also found in the Irish text, though sometimes accompanying them with new interpretative commentary. For these reasons, the focus of this chapter is on the vernacular Life, which gives a fuller account of the saint’s sacred biography, his lineage and acta. Betha Beraigh also surpasses his vita in terms of length: twenty-one pages to twelve in Plummer’s editions.

1 Kenney, The Sources, p. 402. Both Lives were edited by Charles Plummer; see Plummer, Bethada I: 23–43, II: 22–43, and Vitae I: 75–86. All references to paragraphs in Betha Beraigh used in this article refer to Plummer’s edition in Bethada. 2 Plummer, Vitae, I: xxxiii. See also Plummer, Bethada, I: xvi. 3 Plummer, Bethada, I: xi–xii. 4 Kenney, Sources, p. 306. 5 Plummer, Vitae, I: xxxiii.

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The language of Betha Beraigh indicates a date of compilation not earlier than the last quarter of the twelfth century6 and shares much linguistically with Acallam na Senórach, ‘The Colloquy of the Ancients’, which was composed c. 1225.7 This is supported by the historical context. The granting of Tuaim Achad, mentioned in the Life among Berach’s lands, in the year 1176 provides a terminus post quem for the text, or at least for this particular part of the text. Though hagiography frequently provides little trustworthy information about a saint, such documents often shed light on their contemporary historical background, that is, on the epoch when the Life was compiled, and on the intentions of the community that produced this record. While working with a repertoire of motifs and anecdotes to create a coherent narrative, the hagiographer re-interpreted them in a way which reflected his current concerns and imbued them with aspirations of the time of compilation. For this reason, analysis of the Life of Berach can lift the veil on political and social life in Ireland (particularly in Connacht) of the late twelfth century, the century which heralded a new departure in the history of Ireland with overarching ecclesiastical reform and the Anglo-Norman invasion. As I will argue, the granting of Tuaim Achad to Berach’s church in the year 1176 , as well as the advancement of the diocese of Elphin in the second half of the twelfth century, may have been the major reasons which prompted the composition of the Life in order to glorify one of the patron saints of Roscommon and, by so doing, to support the contemporary position of his native parish and diocese.

The Content and Structure of Betha Beraigh After the preface, the glory of Berach is predicted by St Patrick sixty years before his birth. At the end of this period, Finmaith, the daughter of Carthach and wife of Nemnall, bears a son, who is baptized and fostered by Fraech, Finmaith’s brother. At the age of seven, Berach is taken into fosterage by St Daig mac Cairill, after which he starts his journey and performs his first miracles. Thereafter, Berach spends seven years in Glendalough protecting St Cóemgen and his monastery with his miraculous power. After leaving Glendalough, Berach proceeds to Rathonn, the land where he should build 6 On the linguistic basis, I have dated the Life to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century; see Kudenko, Fabula, (Hi)story and Text, pp. 56–71. 7 Nuner (‘The Verbal System’) postulated the years 1200 to 1225 as the date of the compilation, with an emphasis on the year 1225 as the more probable date, and Dooley supports this dating (‘The Date and Purpose’, p. 103). See also Connon, ‘The Roscommon Locus’, p. 54.

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his own monastery, as was prophesied by St Patrick. Diarmait, head poet and chief master of druidism to the king of Connacht, dwells in the named place and refuses to give it to Berach. The saint and the poet travel together in Ireland and Scotland trying to find a king who would decide between them. Eventually, the saint and the poet arrange an assembly involving the kings of Bréifne and Tethba. God sends his angel to utter righteous judgment and the land goes to Berach. The story continues with an account of a meeting between Berach and St Columba and features some other miracles which Berach performs on his territory. Berach spends his last days in fasting and prayer; on the day of his death, he receives communion from the hand of Talmach and commends to him his inheritance and the headship of his monastery. The beginning of the Life contains standard hagiographical matter, viz. the details of the saint’s genealogical background (§ 4) and his pre-natal fame (§ 5): Mór tra an onoir ⁊ in airmittiu dorad Dia do naemh Berach, co ro foillsicchedh triasin taircettal ro thirchan Patraicc occan proicept ‘dorinne’ do Connachtuibh, ⁊ occa mbaistedh. (‘Great then was the honour and distinction which God gave to St Berach, as was shown by the prophecy which Patrick prophesied when preaching to the men of Connaught, and baptizing them.’)

No wondrous circumstances of Berach’s conception, which would be a locus communis in medieval sacred biography, are mentioned. Perhaps the functional role of the miracle connected with the conception of a saint is replaced in this particular narrative by Patrick’s colourful prophecy about the future fame of an extraordinary child (§ 9). This initiates the account of Berach’s life by forging a pre-natal connection with the greatest Irish saint who foretells the birth of a holy child from Cenél Dobtha (lit. ‘sept of Dobtha’, one of the ruling kindreds in Co Roscommon) and indicates the place where Berach should build his monastery (§ 12). After this introduction and the description of his early years, the story mostly concerns Berach’s circuit around Ireland before he founds his church on the place bequeathed to him by Patrick. This structure follows, on the one hand, a well-established hagiographical model of an itinerarium ‘travelling’, famously employed by Tírechán in his Life of St Patrick.8 On the other hand, nearly every place Berach visits is marked by his marvellous deeds. Thus, the Life also includes a ‘catalogue of miracles’, the most influential 8

For the edition and translation of the text, see Bieler, The Patrician Texts.

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template of which is Sulpicius Severus’ Vita Martini.9 If the analysis of the early Lives of the three greatest Irish saints (Patrick, Colum Cille, and Brigit) allowed Kim McCone to distinguish between ‘the geographical orientation of Tírechán and the thaumaturgic orientation of Cogitosus and Adomnán’,10 in Betha Beraigh these two models conflate and functionally complement each other. While the itinerarium form primarily refers to a circuit of the saint as a means of claiming land and people’s vassalage, the thaumaturgic part focuses on praising the patron and on placing him in the hierarchy of venerated saints.11 Combining these models, the author of Betha Beraigh claims continuity with the prestigious tradition of classical hagiography. However, the Life of Berach is, in the first place, a homily for the saint’s feast day, 15 February, which highlights the history of his relics (bell and crozier), sacred places connected with his cult and the dues that are to be paid to his church. The homiletic character of the Irish Life is clearly seen from the introduction, which shows that this text was intended to be read during St Berach’s feast: Is on topar sa tra .i. Íosa Criost, as topar fír-eccna, ro lionadh ina huile naemha […] amail ro lionadh antí diatá líth ⁊ foraithmet ind eccmaing na ree si ⁊ na haimsere .i. an lasair lainnerdha, ⁊ an lochrand solusta, ⁊ an ruithen taitnemhach, ⁊ an lía lógmar, ⁊ an gescca tóirtech co cclannaibh sualach .i. Berach mac Nemhnaill (§ 4) (It is from this fount then, that is from Jesus Christ, who is the fount of true wisdom, that all the saints were filled […] as he was filled whose festival and commemoration fall at this time and season, namely the shining flame, the bright lamp, the brilliant sheen, the precious jewel, and the fruitful bough with shoots of virtues, Berach, son of Nemhnall)

This occasion is also repeated at the end of the Life, which significantly culminates with a prayer, as is appropriate for a homily: Ailim trocaire meic De uile-cumachtaigh tre impidhe naemh Beraigh dá ffuil líth ⁊ foraithmet i neccailsibh úaisle imdha isin laithe si, corisam, co 9 In a tradition where the concept of sanctity was based on wonderworking as a sign of a saint’s favour with God (as opposed to sanctity based on personal virtues), the Life of Martin of Tours was the most attractive template for, inter alia, Adomnán, biographer of Colum Cille, as well as many other hagiographers. For discussion, see Picard, ‘Tailoring the Sources’. 10 McCone, ‘An Introduction’, p. 31. 11 This being said, Berach’s miracles are also often used to impress lay authorities, thus stimulating their submission to Berach and his church.

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ro airiltnighem, ⁊ co ro aitreabam in riced, in secula seculorum. Amen. Finis (§ 90) (I pray the mercy of the Son of God Almighty through the intercession of St Berach whose festival and commemoration are (observed) in many noble churches to-day, that we may attain, that we may merit, that we may inherit the kingdom in secula seculorum. Amen. Finis.)

Thus, information about the feast of St Berach runs through the text and serves as an invitation to the audience to take part in future commemorations and pilgrimages to places connected with Berach. This particular structure echoes Cogitosus’ Life of St Brigit in which ‘emphasis on the feast comes near the beginning and end of the work so as to make maximum impact upon the reader’.12

St Berach as ‘Collector of Lands’ The ‘catalogue of miracles’ reflects a textual structure imported from the continent, while saintly journeys partly derive from ‘a native Irish narrative tradition of which topographical, genealogical and onomastic elements were an integral part of the evidence of early Irish vernacular literature’.13 Betha Beraigh manifests a certain mélange with an imported emphasis upon miracles and a native preoccupation with places. Speaking about the latter, Doherty argues that ‘such an approach was particularly attractive since there already existed a native oral and later vernacular written literature about places’.14 Indeed, with its wealth of place-name material, Betha Beraigh seems to be generally focused on setting the background for Berach’s actions, and many episodes in the Life show the impact of the tradition of dinnshenchas, onomastic texts focused on the origins and aetiologies of place-names. The toponyms in the Life, however, are used for a different reason: they connect certain places with the saint, spreading Berach’s cult over particular territories and claiming some element of jurisdiction for his church. The narrative also serves as a guide-book for future pilgrimages. The first ‘dinnshenchas’ episode is found at the very beginning of the text (§§ 5–7). Before the birth of Berach, an abode of his ancestor Dobtha 12 McCone, ‘An Introduction’, p. 30. 13 McCone, ‘An Introduction’, p. 31. 14 Doherty, ‘The Cult of St Patrick’, pp. 55–56.

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receives the name of Achad Gréine, ‘Sun Field’, after St Patrick’s miracle.15 Other important sites include places where Berach performed his miracles. The new names of these places refer to the circumstances of a concrete deed, giving to a place a sacral status of religious worship, such as Ráen Beraig (‘Berach’s Road’) (§ 23), Dísert Beraig (‘Berach’s Hermitage’) (§ 28), and Láithrech Cainnig (‘Cainech’s Swamp’) in Glendalough (§ 38); as well as Berach’s rushes, ‘sibhne Beraich’ (§ 86). Places of this type may also commemorate the deeds of Berach’s followers, as, for example, Achad Cul-lebar (‘The Field of the Long Hair’), where one of Berach’s students killed an enemy (§ 73). Sometimes, by bestowing a new name upon a site, Berach symbolically domesticates the place and proclaims himself as its new possessor. Thus, the site predestined for the church of Berach used to be called Clúain mac Lilcon; however, when Berach comes there, he demonstrates that henceforth he is the new legitimate owner by giving it a new name, Clúain Coirpthe, commemorating a great slaughter he had witnessed there (§ 47). One of the most crucial episodes in the Life (§§ 74–75) tells us how some maddened oxen suddenly ploughed across a large territory so that ‘every place in which they ploughed belongs to Berach’ (‘is lá Berach gach ionad in ro dheargsat’) (§ 75). Indirectly, this episode is connected with a miracle performed by Berach as he prophesies that however great the journey of the oxen might be, it will be completed before night, and so it happens (§ 74). As Charles Doherty notes, this passage represents a record of property claimed for Berach’s church: the dispersed nature of a church’s estates is aetiologically reflected in the motif in the Life of Berach in which the plough-team of the church went mad and ran through the neighbouring territories ploughing in various places in its career. As a result, twenty properties in counties Longford, Leitrim and partly Roscommon were claimed by the monastery.16

The last site mentioned in the long list of places, encompassed by the plough, is Tuaim Achad (‘Mound of Fields’). The granting of this site to Berach’s 15 According to the text, there was no candle in Dobtha’s household to prepare a meal for Patrick after the sun set. The saint miraculously brought the sun back (§ 7); and hence the place was named ‘Sun Field’. This location has been identified with Aughagrany, County Leitrim (Quinn, ‘The Identification of Aughagrany’, pp. 117–144). 16 Doherty, ‘Some Aspects of Hagiography’, p. 309.

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monastic community is mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters in the entry for the year 1176: Baile biataigh do iodhbairt la ruaidhri ua concobhair Ri Ereann don coimdhedh ⁊ do naoimh bearach go brath .i. baile tuama achadh. Itiad Slana na hoghdhilsi go brath. Cadhla ua dubhthaigh airdepscop tuama, aireachtach ua Roduibh, flann ua fionnachta, aodh uá floinn, Ruarc ua Maoilbreanainn, Ignaidhe uá mannachain, Giollu an coimdhedh mac an leastair, ua hainlighi, ⁊ concobhar mac diarmada, a ccoraigheacht an baile sin do beith ag dia ⁊ ag bearach go brath ó ua cconchobhair ⁊ o fhior a ionaid. (A ballybetagh was granted in perpetuity by Roderic O’Conor, King of Ireland, viz. the townland of Toomaghy to God and St Berach. The following were the sureties of that perpetual gift: Keyly (Catholicus) O’Duffy, Archbishop of Tuam; Aireaghtagh O’Rodiv; Flann O’Finnaghty; Hugh O’Flynn; Rourke O’Mulrenin; Ignatius O’Monahan; Gilla-an-choimhdhe Mac-an-leastair; O’Hanly; and Conor Mac Dermot; who were to guarantee that this townland was to remain for ever the property of God and St Berach, from O’Conor and his representative.)17

As is evident from the entry, Baile Tuama Achadh was granted to the church of St Berach by Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, and the grant was confirmed by a number of influential guarantors, including the archbishop of Tuam himself. Another guarantor mentioned in the list is the representative of Uí Áinlige who were the chiefs of Cenél Dobtha.18 Their lands lay in north-eastern Roscommon between Sliab Badbgna and the River Shannon, and Berach’s church, Cell Beraig, was situated in their territory. Since the site was granted to Berach’s church in the presence of the member of his own kin, we might suppose that this grant may have prompted the compilation of the Life with its particular emphasis on Berach’s descent from Dobtha. One might also argue that the grant of this site may have caused the enhancement of the prestige of Berach’s church, prompting his community to compile the 17 O’Donovan, Annala Rioghachta Eireann, pp. 26–27. The location of Tuaim Achad is unknown. As O’Donovan observes in a footnote (pp. 27–28), ‘the name of this ballybetagh is now forgotten. It must have been applied to a large townland, since subdivided into quarters, somewhere near Kilbarry, in the north-east side of the county of Roscommon, where St. Berach’s principal church is situated’. 18 According to the entry in the Annals of Tigernach (Stokes, p. 156), Lestar Ua hÁinlige is called the chief of Cenél Dobtha (taisech Cene[oi]l Doftha). For Uí Áinlige as taoisigh of Cenél Dobtha, see Ó Riain, Ó Murchadha, and Murray, Historical Dictionary, pp. 112–113.

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Life. The Life also served as a ‘guarantor’ of the gift by anachronistically mentioning Tuaim Achad, as ‘by situating ownership of the site in the saint’s lifetime, hagiography presented the grant as an affirmation of an existing right’.19 The interests of Berach’s church in particular territories are also expressed by mention of crosses which are related to Berach’s biography. First of all, we are told that in Gort na Luachra near Cluain Conmaicne, there is said to be a cross and a stone on which Berach was born (§ 16). Secondly, after Berach shows a vision of Rome to one of his students in order to prevent him from going on a pilgrimage to Urbs Aeterna, they build a church and two crosses in the place where the miracle was performed (§ 87). These standing crosses seem to function like standing stones, which served in pre-Christian Ireland as boundary or grave markers, or pointed towards sites of religious significance. Similarly, the crosses erected by the saints commemorated events, marked areas of sanctuary and recorded land ownership. They were an effective means of demonstrating the affiliation of land to certain churches. As Herbert puts it, ‘within early Irish society, standing stones on boundaries and crosses marking monastic perimeters evidently had stronger semiotic impact than vellum pages, however elaborated’.20 The author of the Life has employed various means of introducing the names of places: the easily recognisable patterns borrowed from dinnshenchas, an original account of maddened oxen, and material evidence of standing crosses. The choice of these sites was not arbitrary: they were gathered under the umbrella of Berach’s church, with the very genre of the narrative legitimizing the property record.

Betha Beraigh in Relation to Twelfth-century Church Reform However, the hagiographer used yet another strategy to broaden the territory which he claimed to be under Berach’s influence. The Life contains a number of episodes in which Berach is said to receive lands from secular rulers. Could this be a symptom of the vigorous ecclesiastical reform which promoted the image of a secular prince as a patron of the church, or were there other reasons for including such episodes? 19 Herbert, ‘Before Charters?’, p. 116. 20 Herbert, ‘Before Charters?’, p. 110. For a discussion of the legal use of inanimate evidence (‘the dead which overswear the living’), including such property markers as ‘boundary or pillar’ (crích ł coirthe), see Carey, ‘The Testimony of the Dead’.

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The latter part of the twelfth century, when the Life of Berach was most likely composed, was a turbulent and eventful period in the history of Ireland, with the ongoing church reform and the Anglo-Norman invasion.21 The main features of twelfth-century theological thought found eloquent expression in texts of that period, their subjects ‘frequently being made to exemplify evolving spiritual ideals’.22 First of all, the movement was characterized by optimism toward salvation through confession and penance.23 Another aspect of the reform was an acute attention to sacraments, especially baptism and communion. Thirdly, reformers saw their mission as one of purging and renewing lay society by presenting a strong Christian message. A particular area which reformers sought to purge of abuses concerned problematic sexual and marital practices.24 Observance of Sunday rest and attendance at Mass were also among the prerequisites for salvation of the laity.25 Pilgrimages to Rome and the Holy Land were largely supported and, in this regard, the mid-twelfth-century Betha Choluim Chille, ‘The Life of Colum Cille’, may be partly understood as a homily on pilgrimage.26 The all-embracing reform reshaped the image of a bishop – humble, poor, virtuous and obedient. Such ideals of an apostolic life were advocated, for example, by Rupert of Deutz in his De vita vera apostolica written in the beginning of the twelfth century.27 Enthusiastic patronage of churches on behalf of nobility was another central aspect of the Zeitgeist. For example, in Cocad Gáedel re Gallaib (‘The War of the Irish against the Foreigners’) – an account of Brian Bóruma’s battle with the Viking invaders – Brian is anachronistically ‘imbued with the values of reform’28 and is depicted as a fervent re-builder of temples and protector of the church against the heathen foe.29 Generosity to the church becomes a model for an exemplary ruler and comprises ecclesiastical patronage, gift-giving, and alms.30 To what extent did such reforming discourse influence the compilation of the Life of Berach? We can see that Berach renders obedient service to 21 For the most recent treatment of this subject, see Ó Corráin, The Irish Church, its Reform and the English Invasion (2017). 22 Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘Pagans and Holy Men’, p. 144. 23 Flanagan, The Transformation, pp. 211–212. 24 Ó Corráin, The Irish Church, p. 43. 25 Flanagan, The Transformation, p. 203. 26 Flanagan, The Transformation, pp. 227, 229. 27 Martène and Durand, De vita vera apostolica, p. 1007. For the discussion of apostolic life, see Chenu, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century, pp. 202–238. 28 Ní Mhaonaigh, ‘Pagans and Holy Men’, p. 149. 29 Flanagan, The Transformation, p. 170. 30 Flanagan, The Transformation, pp. 196–202.

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monks in Glendalough (§§ 29–44), shows hospitality to visitors (§§ 40–41) and humbly carries Colum Cille on his back (§ 76). Significantly, Colum Cille interrupts his voyage after having heard the evening bell on Sunday eve which points toward the observance of Sunday rest (§ 76). Berach’s student does penance for having killed a man (§ 73), while Tipraite who is brought back to life after having been killed in a battle relates in terror the torments he has seen in hell (§ 49). This short episode echoes a popular genre of visio, the most famous example being Visio Tnugdali written in 1149 in Regensburg.31 The final eulogy of Berach portrays him, in accordance with vita vera apostolica, as ‘gentle, humble, merciful’ (‘cennais, umhal, áilgen’), and as an ‘industrious and obedient slave to Christ’ (‘mogh sáethair ⁊ foghnama do Chriost’) (§ 88). Finally, a chaste successor, Talmach, is mentioned to show the continuity of vita communis (§ 90). However, although such episodes may well reflect the concerns of twelfthcentury reformers, to regard them as indicative of the Life’s interest in Church reform would be stretching the point too far. Sunday observance was already articulated in the ninth-century tract Cáin Domnaig, ‘The Law of Sunday’;32 penance for committed offences can be traced back to the sixth- and seventh-century Irish penitentials;33 while the genre of visio goes back as far as the third-century Visio sancti Pauli and remained popular throughout Middle Ages with such famous vernacular exemplars as the early Middle Irish Fís Adomnáin, ‘The Vision of Adomnán’. Besides, Berach cannot be genuinely called the epitome of evangelical life. In claiming lands and cursing his opponents, he pursues traditional hagiographical goals; he is presented as hot-tempered, worldly-minded and ambitious.34 The text also conveys a claim by Berach’s monastic community upon certain territories which their patron allegedly received from secular rulers. Would this be characteristic of Church reform ideals? As previously noted, Berach is shown travelling across Ireland, performing miracles, while searching for the ‘promised land’ on which to build his monastery. Local kings, to whom Berach’s miracles are apparently geared, are impressed and often terrified by his power which results in their subordination to the saint. Thus, Berach, insulted by a refusal of a drink, ruins the feast of a king of Brega prepared for the king of Tara so that all the liquor disappears. Having 31 Picard and de Pontfarcy, The Vision of Tnugdal. 32 O’Keeffe, ‘Cáin Domnaig’. 33 Bieler, The Irish Penitentials. 34 The cursing motifs in the Life of Berach are addressed in Kudenko, ‘In Defence of the Irish Saints Who “Loved Malediction”’.

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no drink for a noble guest, the king of Brega risks failing to show generosity and hospitality – qualities indispensable for a king. Under the threat of having his status undermined, the king prostrates himself before Berach asking him to restore the liquor. This having been done, the king offers land to God and Berach (§§ 25–28). Similarly, Tipraite son of Tadg of Cruachan gives ‘his service in life and death, and the service of his seed to Berach till doom’ (‘mainchine a bí ⁊ a mairbh, ⁊ manchine a shil ⁊ a shemen do Berach go brath’) when Berach raises him from the dead (§ 49). After Berach finds Rathonn, the narrative mostly concerns Berach’s conflict with his archenemy, poet and druid Diarmait, who dwells on this land and does not want to quit it. They travel together seeking a ruler to make a decision regarding the estate. They proceed to Alba (Scotland) to King Áedán, and Berach turns the sons of the chieftains of Alba into stone figures, enraged by their attempts to stone him. Consequently, Áedán also prostrates himself before the saint (§ 59): ocus ro edbair an rí a rígh-erredh féin, ⁊ o gach rí ina diaigh dó, ⁊ mór-cuairt Alban, ⁊ día shamhadh ina dhíaigh. Ocus ro edhbairset an mhacraidh a mancine fein, 7 maincine a síl ⁊ a seimen go bráth cona crich ⁊ cona ferann do Bherach. (and the king offered to Berach and to his convent after him his own royal suit, and that of every king after him, and dues from all Alba. And the youths offered their own service to Berach, and that of their offspring and seed till doom, and their districts and territories.)

Thereafter, the two opponents travel back to Ireland, where Áed Dub, son of Suibne, king of Ulster, offers his fort to Berach (§ 60). Finally, they ask Áed Dub son of Fergna and Áed son of Brénnán to decide between them. After Berach performs a miracle healing the disfigurement of Áed Dub, the latter offers ‘his royal apparel and that of every king after him till doom, and a scruple from every city from his seed and offspring till doom’ (‘a righ-erredh ⁊ righ-erredh gach rígh ina diaigh go brath, ⁊ screpall gacha cathrach óa síol ⁊ oa seimen go brath do Bheruch’) (§ 65). In a similar manner, after Berach saves Áed son of Brénnán from a lampoon composed by Diarmait, the king offers ‘his own royal apparel to Berach, and that of every king after him, and a scruple from every city from East Tethba and from his seed and offspring till doom’ (‘a righ-erredh fein, ⁊ righ-erredh gach righ ina diaigh, ⁊ screpall gacha cathrach ó airther Tethba, ⁊ oa shíol fein, ⁊ óa seimen do Berach go brath’) (§ 67). This dramatic part being completed, the author changes the line of Berach’s behaviour: now Berach himself ordains people that should serve him. One

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such episode concerns Berach’s relationship with the ruling clan of Uí Briúin Sinna. The Life tells us that Uí Briúin Sinna and their king, Cú Chathfaid, raid the less powerful peoples who are under the protection of Berach. The saint learns about these misdeeds and makes a bog swallow Cú Chathfaid and his army (§ 82). Then he meets two warriors who come after the lost army, Dícholla and Toranach. Berach ordains that the lordship of Uí Briúin Sinna which Cú Chathfaid possessed will henceforth belong to Dícholla and his seed to the end of the world (§ 83). When Dícholla and Toranach offer their services to the saint, he refuses, and eventually they agree that ‘the royal suit of their king and a scruple for every city and for every dutiful son, and for every nephew, and every foster child, should be given every third year’ (‘righ-erredh a rígh, ⁊ screpall gacha cathrach ⁊ gacha gar-meic, ⁊ gach meic sethar, ⁊ cech dalta dobéradh gacha tres bliadhna’) (§ 84). Thus, Berach positions himself as patron of the rulers of Uí Briúin Sinna. These episodes echo the methodologies by which lands were granted to St Patrick’s monastery of Armagh in Tírechán’s Collectanea.35 For instance, in an episode therein, Patrick tells Conall son of Níall, ancestor of Cenél Conaill, that: semen fratrum tuorum tuo semini seruiet in aeternum. et tu missericordiam debes facere heredibus meis post me in saeculum et filii tui et filiorum tuorum filiis meis credulis legitimum sempiternum. (§ 10) (the seed of your brother will serve your seed forever, and you must make over alms to me and my heirs after me forever and your sons and grandsons (must make over) perpetual dues to my sons in the faith.)36

In a similar vein, Énde son of Amolngid offers his son and part of his inheritance ‘to the God of Patrick and to Patrick’ (Deo Patricii et Patricio), followed by Tírechán’s note that ‘through this some say that “we are servants of Patrick” down to the present day’ (‘per hoc dicunt alii quia serui sumus Patricii usque in praesentem diem’) (§ 15).37 As McCone notes: the main, indeed almost exclusive, aim of Tírechán’s collection appears to be the presentation of a detailed dossier of Armagh’s various claims in 35 The journeys in Collectanea, representing Patrick’s mission, were in fact a f ield-survey, claiming that all those churches were Patrician and hence, belong to Armagh. As Charles Doherty observes in ‘Some Aspects of Hagiography’, pp. 303–304, ‘in Tírechán we first come across the formulae for the granting of alms, tribute or land to the church’. 36 Bieler, Patrician Texts, pp. 132–133. 37 Bieler, Patrician Texts, p. 134.

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her founder’s name in the Midlands and Connacht and the delineation of actual or desired relations with certain key dynasties…38

Apparently, the author of Betha Beraigh was pursuing similar goals. Ó Riain stresses that the vernacular version emphasizes the links between the local ruling noble family of Cenél Dobtha and Berach who is portrayed as a direct descendant of Dobtha.39 Thus, in the Irish Life, Berach is presented not only as a spiritual leader of the region, but as a secular aristocrat by birth – a symbol of sympathy between secular and ecclesiastical authorities. The purpose of highlighting a saint’s connection with a particular dynasty was to ennoble the saint in the public eye and to strengthen claims for support from this dynasty for the saint’s church. Furthermore, dynasties were also interested in relationships with local monasteries as these were strong economic units. The text also portrays Berach as the legitimizer of a new line of Uí Briúin Sinna kings, while grants of lands and dues from secular nobility in Ireland and Scotland provide Berach’s cult with the necessary scope and respect. It seems, therefore, that the granting of property in Betha Beraigh follows the example of earlier Lives, such as Tírechán’s Collectanea, rather than the twelfth-century literary models. The twelfth century saw an increase in secular rulers’ roles as benefactors of the church, and Irish kings used ecclesiastical grants strategically to promote themselves. However, secular princes were seeking not only treasures on earth but also treasures in heaven. As Flanagan stresses, twelfth-century charters registering the grants of property ‘can be read as political and legal documents but they also were pious texts recording religious motivation’.40 The generosity of grateful kings whom Berach raises from the dead, heals, or otherwise saves from lampooning, might, of course, be considered as examples of pious conduct toward a representative of the church expected from contemporary aristocrats. But the granting of lands in Betha Beraigh cannot be called voluntary and 38 McCone, ‘An Introduction’, p. 32. 39 Ó Riain, A Dictionary of Irish Saints, p. 95. The genealogical material devoted to Berach clearly demonstrates the intention to establish a link between Berach and Cenél Dobtha, who held lands on the western bank of the Shannon, from Kilmore (barony Ballintober North) to Kilgefin (barony Ballintober South) (see Ó Riain, Ó Murchadha, and Murray, Historical Dictionary, p. 112). In the Book of Leinster, the name of Berach is mentioned in two lists of Irish bishops and priests (Nomina episcoporum Hibernensium incipiunt, LL 365d-g, and Incipit de sacerdotibus, LL 365g–366d). Pedigrees of the saint are found in the Book of Leinster, Book of Ballymote, Book of Lecan and Leabhar Breac (see Ó Riain, Corpus Genealogiarum, pp. 7, 64, 89, 180). 40 Flanagan, The Transformation, p. 196.

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enthusiastic, something that we might expect in twelfth-century discourse: the kings rather offer their lands and services to expiate for a wrong they have done. This significant difference in kings’ motivations was captured by Máire Herbert, who stresses that during the twelfth century, ‘active patronage of the church became part of the role of power-seeking rulers. Hitherto, the records had depicted Irish kings granting property as reparation for offences against saints’. 41 Betha Beraigh, therefore, gives the general impression of being indifferent to the new ideals or at least does not seem to be actively promoting them. The Life seems to be more in tune with earlier hagiography, for instance, Muirchú’s and Tírechán’s Patrician Lives, with their dramatic conflicts with druids, land grants and conversion of sinful kings. This negligence of a new paradigm might be explained by the fact that ‘acceptance of reform was slow and reluctant in Connacht right through the twelfth century’. 42 As Herbert shows in her analysis of Caithréim Cellaig (‘The Martial Career of Cellach’), a portrayal of supposedly sixth-century events composed in the middle of the twelfth century in Clonmacnoise, ‘the author of CC apparently uses his account of the career of Cellach to represent a traditionalist attitude to twelfth-century Irish church reform, an attitude which appears to have been particularly dominant in the western province’. 43 Such traditionalism, therefore, is not unique to Betha Beraigh. Another roughly contemporary hagiographical account, Betha Colmáin maic Lúacháin, ‘The Life of Colmán mac Lúacháin’, devoted to the reputed founder and patron saint of Lann (County Westmeath), also uses traditional templates of Irish hagiography without endowing the text with new motifs associated with church reform. 44 But if the promulgation of Church reform was not the aim of the Life’s compiler, what were the possible stimuli for its compilation? We might surmise that other factors were at play, as, for instance, the recognition of the monastic site of Elphin (to which Cell Beraig belonged) as the diocesan centre;45 as well as the connection between Elphin and the royal family of Ua Conchobair (Síl Muiredaig). Bishop of Elphin Mael Íosa Ua Connachtáin (1152–1174)46 is called after his death ‘bishop of Síl 41 Herbert, ‘Before Charters?’, p. 113. 42 Herbert, Caithreim Cellaig, p. 330. 43 Herbert, Caithreim Cellaig, pp. 331–332. 44 In terms of its structure and contents, Betha Beraigh is very close to Betha Colmáin: see Meyer, Betha Colmáin maic Lúacháin. 45 Aubrey Gwynn, The Irish Church, p. 190. 46 Ó Corráin, The Irish Church, pp. 92–93.

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Muiredaig’, epscop Síl Muiredaig;47 and his successor became Tomaltach Ua Conchobair, grandson of the high-king Toirdelbach Ua Conchobair. Through the intervention of papal legate Laurence O’Toole, Tomaltach’s career reached its peak: he was installed as archbishop of Armagh, and in 1181 he was officially named comarba of Patrick. 48 Most likely, the appointment of Tomaltach, bishop of Elphin and member of the ruling royal dynasty, to such a high position was a significant event for every church in his native diocese. This, of course, remains in the realm of speculation, but these notable changes might have influenced the composition of the Life of Berach, with the purpose of advancing the prestige of Kilbarry and of the larger diocese by the glorification of the monastery’s reputed founder and first abbot. Furthermore, the Life might have been compiled to solidify the union between Berach’s church and the Ua Conchobair kings who held undisputed power on the territory of Tuam and Elphin (i.e. most of modern County Roscommon and significant part of East Galway). Uí Chonchobair belonged to Uí Briúin Aí, one of the three branches of Uí Briúin, claiming descent from Brión, son of Eochu Mugmedón. In our text, Berach acts as the legitimizer of the new line of Uí Briúin Sinna after the death of Cú Chathfaid (§ 84). Uí Briúin Sinna were originally called Cenél maic Ercai, but they attached themselves to the pedigree of Uí Briúin Aí in the eighth century, and probably this renewal of the dynasty is what is referred to in the Life. 49 Notably, Berach’s own kin, Ua hÁinlige of Cenél Dobtha were Ua Conchobair’s admirals on sea and on the Shannon, and they were also affiliated to Uí Briúin Sinna, as ‘such genealogical promotion was an accepted record of political alliance’.50 The Life, therefore, pushes this connection back to the legendary past, not only simply drawing an association between Berach of Cenél Dobtha and Uí Briúin Sinna, but also unambiguously stressing the supremacy of Berach, who receives Dícholla’s and Toranach’s vassalage in this alliance. The saint is also directly linked to the mighty Uí Briúin Aí through Tipraite. When Berach brings Tipraite back to life, he receives his manchaine and that of his seed till doom (§ 49). Tipraite mac Taidg (ob. 786) was a king of Connacht, and his reign marks the ‘final acceptance of the Uí Briúin as 47 Stokes, ‘The Annals of Tigernach’, p. 289. 48 O’Donovan, Annala Rioghachta Eireann, pp. 58–59. Tomaltach was studied in detail by Aubrey Gwynn in ‘Tomaltach Ua Conchobair, Coarb of Patrick’. 49 Ó Cróinín, New History of Ireland I, p. 232. See also Doherty, ‘Some Aspects of Hagiography’, p. 318. 50 Cosgrove, New History of Ireland II, p. 34.

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natural heirs to the kingship of Connacht in perpetuity’.51 The king’s total submission to the saint might be seen to parallel the claim of Berach’s church to certain tributes on behalf of Uí Chonchobair. This being said, it might be useful to recall here that Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, high king of Ireland, granted the site of Tuaim Achad to Berach’s church in the presence of a representative of Ua hÁinlige.

Conclusion The contents of any hagiographical narrative are governed by the pragmatical intentions of the hagiographer and his patrons. The Life of Berach serves as a vehicle for a few specific political messages. First of all, the geographical orientation of Betha Beraigh with granting of lands amount to a claim by Berach’s church to control over those territories. From this point of view, the presentation of the figure of Berach is very important: he is not only shown as a great saint but also as a nobleman. For these reasons, the Irish text is very precise in terms of localizing the story and drawing links with Cenél Dobtha. Although land grants from kings were one of the main messages of twelfth-century Church reform, the ways those grants are introduced in the Life point towards earlier templates, while the Life seems to ignore the reform movement. I suppose that such episodes were brought into the text because it served not only as a homily, but – probably, first and foremost – as a property record. From this point of view, Betha Beraigh would have functioned as a charter before the tradition of continental charters came to Ireland. Charles Doherty has observed that although no original charters are preserved for any period, the Irish were most definitely aware of them. The Book of Armagh contains seventh- and eighth-century material similar to ‘charters’, which made Doherty suppose that ‘written “charters” form[ed] part of the hagiographer’s quarry’ noting that Lives ‘interested in property use charter language’.52 As Herbert puts it, ‘from the seventh century onwards, Irish ecclesiastical communities had incorporated property records in hagiographical texts, and emphasis on property and property rights is particularly notable in vernacular Lives throughout the twelfth century’.53 The Life indeed functions as a charter which names 51 Byrne, Irish Kings and High-kings, p. 250. See also Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, pp. 280–281. 52 Doherty, ‘Some Aspects of Hagiography’, pp. 306–307. 53 Herbert, ‘Before Charters?’, p. 115.

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all the territories associated with or claimed by the church of St Berach. Taken together, the narrative strategies employed by the compiler ensured the valued position of the parish of Termonbarry, projecting the political aspirations of its twelfth-century ecclesiastical community – including territorial influence and much sought-after alliances with political groups and dynasties – back to an ideal past, located in the sixth century when the glorious patron saint purportedly lived. As happens so often, the past was being utilized in the service of the present.

Bibliography Bieler, Ludwig, The Irish Penitentials (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1963). Bieler, Ludwig, The Patrician Texts in the Book of Armagh (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1979). Byrne, Francis John, Irish Kings and High-Kings (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1973). Carey, John, ‘The Testimony of the Dead’, Éigse 26 (1992), 1–12. Charles-Edwards, Thomas, Early Christian Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Chenu, Marie-Dominique, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968). Connon, Anne, ‘The Roscommon Locus of Acallam na senórach and Some Thoughts as to tempus and persona’, in In Dialogue with the Agallamh: Essays in Honour of Seán Ó Coileáin, ed. by Aidan Doyle and Kevin Murray (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2014) 21–59. Cosgrove, Art, A New History of Ireland II: Medieval Ireland 1169–1534 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press; Clarendon Press, 1993). Doherty, Charles, ‘Some Aspects of Hagiography as a Source for Irish Economic History’ Peritia 1 (1982), 300–328. Doherty, Charles, ‘The Cult of St Patrick and the Politics of Armagh in the Seventh Century’, in Ireland and Northern France, AD 600–850, ed. by Jean-Michel Picard (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1991), pp. 53–94. Dooley, Anne, ‘The Date and Purpose of Acallam na senórach’ Éigse 34 (2004), 97–126. Flanagan, Marie-Therese, The Transformation of the Irish Church in the Twelfth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010). Gwynn, Aubrey, ‘Tomaltach Ua Conchobair, Coarb of Patrick (1181–1201): His Life and Times’ Seanchas Ardmhacha 8.2 (1977), 231–274. Gwynn, Aubrey, The Irish Church in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992).

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Herbert, Máire, ‘Caithreim Cellaig: Some Literary and Historical Considerations’ Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 49–50 (1997), 320–332. Herbert, Máire, ‘Before Charters? Property Records in Pre-Anglo-Norman Ireland’, in Charters and Charter Scholarship in Britain and Ireland, ed. by Marie-Therese Flanagan and Judith A. Green (Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 107–119. Kenney, James F., The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: An Introduction and Guide. Ecclesiastical (New York: Octagon, 1929). Kudenko, Ksenia, ‘Fabula, (Hi)story and Text in Medieval Irish Hagiography: The Case of Betha Beraigh’, unpublished MA thesis (University College Cork, 2015). Kudenko, Ksenia, ‘In Defence of the Irish Saints Who “Loved Malediction”’, in Charms, Charmers and Charming in Ireland: From the Medieval to the Modern, ed. by Ilona Tuomi, John Carey, Barbara Hillers, and Ciarán Ó Gealbháin, New Approaches to Celtic Religion and Mythology (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2019), pp. 65–77. Martène, E. and U. Durand, eds., De vita vera apostolica. Veterum scriptorum et monumentorum amplissima collectio IX (Paris, 1733). McCone, Kim, ‘An Introduction to Early Irish Saints’ Lives’ Maynooth Review 11 (1984), 26–59. Meyer, Kuno, Betha Colmáin maic Lúacháin: Life of Colman son of Luachan (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, 1911). Ní Mhaonaigh, Máire, ‘Pagans and Holy Men: Literary Manifestations of Twelfthcentury Reform’, in Ireland and Europe in the Twelfth Century: Reform and Renewal, ed. by Damian Bracken and Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006), pp. 143–161. Nuner, Robert D., ‘The Verbal System of the Agallamh na senórach’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 27 (1958–59), 230–310. Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, The Irish Church, its Reform and the English Invasion (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2017). Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí, A New History of Ireland I: Prehistoric and Early Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). O’Donovan, John, Annala Rioghachta Eireann: Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1616, vol. 3 (Dublin: Hodges, Smith, and Co., 1856). O’Keeffe, James G., ‘Cáin Domnaig’, Ériu 2 (1905), 189–214. Ó Riain, Pádraig, Corpus Genealogiarum Sanctorum Hiberniae (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1985). Ó Riain, Pádraig, A Dictionary of Irish Saints (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011). Ó Riain, Pádraig, Diarmuid Ó Murchadha and Kevin Murray, Historical Dictionary of Gaelic Placenames / Foclóir Stairiúil Áitainmneacha na Gaeilge, Fascicle 4 / Fascúl 4 (London: Irish Texts Society, 2011).

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Picard, Jean-Michel and Yolande de Pontfarcy, The Vision of Tnugdal (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1989). Picard, Jean-Michel, ‘Tailoring the Sources: The Irish Hagiographer at Work’, in Irland und Europa im früheren Mittelalter: Bildung und Literatur, ed. by Próinséas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1996), pp. 261–274. Plummer, Charles, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910). Plummer, Charles, Bethada náem nÉrenn: Lives of Irish Saints, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922). Quinn, John, ‘The Identification of Aughagrany and its Correlation with Achadh Gréine in Betha Beraigh (The Life of Saint Barry)’ Ainm 12 (2014), 117–144. Stokes, Whitley, ‘The Annals of Tigernach’ Revue celtique 18 (1897), 9–59, 150–198, 267–303.

About the Author Ksenia Kudenko holds an MA in Historical Linguistics from St Petersburg State University and an MA in Medieval History from University College Cork. She was awarded a PhD in Irish and Celtic Studies by Ulster University in 2019.

Scandinavian Tradition

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Baldr’s Achilles’ Heel? About the Scandinavian Three-God B-Bracteates Karen Bek-Pedersen

Abstract The article seeks to revise the currently dominant interpretation of the so-called ‘three-god bracteates’ as an early version of the Norse myth about Baldr. A detailed review shows that the elements of this myth as it is known from medieval literary sources and the iconographic elements depicted on the much earlier bracteates do not really match. It is clear that the motif on the bracteates is inspired by images from Roman coins, but it is also clear that it does not constitute a direct parallel. The article presents a new suggestion, which is that the bracteates must be considered with Norse narrative traditions in mind, but without forcing the motif to comply with preconceived ideas. Keywords: Scandinavian Iron Age, iconography, Roman coins, Norse mythology

A number of Iron Age bracteates from Scandinavia have long been thought to depict a version of the Norse myth about the death of the god Baldr. In two versions of the myth, as it is preserved in literary sources, Baldr is said to be invulnerable to everything except for one special or highly unlikely weapon. In the best-known rendition, this is the mistletoe.1 Despite efforts to avoid it, this improbable weapon ends up causing his death.

1 The invulnerability together with the mistletoe features in Gylfaginning 49, which is part of the medieval Icelandic Snorra-Edda, c. 1220, but with extant manuscripts only from 1300 and later (Faulkes, Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Prologue and Gylfaginning, pp. xii–xxxi). The invulnerability, together with a special sword, features in Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum 3.1.1 – 3.3.8, c. 1200 (Friis-Jensen and Zeeberg, vol. 1, pp. 58–59).

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch08

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It is a fate that Baldr may be said to share with the Greek hero Achilles about whose invulnerability two stories have come down to us. In one, his mother Thetis attempts to secure immortality for her infant son by anointing him with ambrosia and purifying him in the embers of the hearth, but Peleus, the child’s father, interferes and so the treatment remains incomplete.2 In another, better known, version, Thetis is said to have dipped her son in the waters of Styx and this has made his body invulnerable, except for his heel where she held him.3 Like Baldr, who is killed with the unusual weapon, Achilles dies when a wound is inflicted on his heel, and this part of his body has become a proverbial reference to a seemingly small, but crucial, weakness.4 These two mythological figures have little else in common, but Achilles’ heel is nonetheless relevant in the present context – proverbially and also in a more concrete sense. The bracteates in question belong to the B-type and are often called three-god bracteates.5 B-bracteates carry images of one, two, or three human figures in various positions who are sometimes accompanied by animals.6 I am concerned here with a small sub-group of these, namely those that contain a specific constellation of three human figures together with certain animals. The term bracteate refers to a thin, coin-sized gold medal with an image stamped into it on one side, typically about 2 or 3 cm in diameter.7 Bracteates seem to have been produced mainly in Scandinavia, but also more widely across Northern Europe,8 during the Migration Period – more specifically 450 to 550 AD,9 which is part of the Scandinavian Iron Age. Production ceased in the sixth century.10 They are clearly inspired by and, in terms of motif, are sometimes modelled on Roman coins, but they 2 This is told in Apollonius’s Argonautica, Book 4. 3 This is told in Statius’s Achilleid, Book 1. 4 The theme ‘unique invulnerability’ exists in many forms (Thompson, Motif-Index, nos. Z310–Z316). 5 For example, Axboe, Die Goldbrakteaten, p. 211; Christensen, Lejre, pp. 210–211; Wicker, ‘Bracteate’, p. 36. 6 See Wicker, ‘Bracteate’, pp. 26–27, for a concise description of the different types. 7 Wicker, ‘Bracteate’, pp. 28–29. 8 A map of the distribution of all bracteates according to find sites is found in Axboe, Brakteatstudier, p. 10. According to this, the density is very high in Denmark and the Swedish islands of Öland and Gotland and there are clusters also in Western Sweden, South-Western Norway and South-Eastern England, with scattered finds from elsewhere across Northern Europe. Pesch, Die Goldbrakteaten, p. 101, provides a map of locations for finds belonging to this specific group up until 2007. 9 Axboe, Brakteatstudier, pp. 73–76; cf. Bursche, ‘Germanic’, pp. 145–146. 10 Certain types continued to be in use in Gotland; Axboe, Brakteatstudier, pp. 122–123.

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differ from these in two ways: Bracteates are one-sided, and they were used as jewellery instead of as currency. Their use as jewellery is evident since most are fitted with a small loop that enables them to be drawn onto a string; these loops often show signs of wear. In Southern Scandinavia, many bracteates are found in hoards, but elsewhere they are also found in graves, often women’s graves.11 The three-figure bracteates discussed here appear, judging by the find locations, to be associated with central places. Whether they had any religious significance or political meaning beyond being expensive status symbols is unclear, albeit likely. Of the type discussed here, there are now twelve known finds, which are all illustrated in Figures 8.1–8.12. They are named for the locations where they were found, and IK numbers are used to identify individual bracteates in the iconographic catalogue, IK. The twelve f inds are: 1) Skovsborg (IK 165); 2) Fakse (IK 51,1); 3) Killerup (IK 51,2); 4) Denmark (IK 40), exact location unknown; 5) Denmark (IK 39), exact location unknown; 6) Zagórzyn (IK 20); 7) Gummerup (IK 66); 8) Gudme (IK 51,3); 9) Fuglsang/ Sorte Muld (IK 595); 10) Snogskilden (IK 646);12 11) Hvorslevgård (IK 675); 12) Dalshøj (IK 685).13 Eleven are from Denmark and one (IK 20) from Poland.14 It should be noted that four (Figs. 8.9–8.12) are relatively recent finds, from 2001 and later, that have obviously not been taken into account in earlier scholarship. In order to discuss the iconography in relation to the known myth and assess the interpretation of the image as a version of it, we must consider the myth. The death of Baldr is mentioned in three skaldic poems, five eddic poems and one prose text from Old Norse tradition – all recorded in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Of the skaldic poems, only Úlfr Uggason’s Húsdrápa is relevant here.15 Of the eddic poems, the details presented in Hyndluljóð 29–30, Vǫluspá (R) 31–33 and Baldrs draumar are 11 Axboe, Brakteatstudier, pp. 105–113. 12 Found in 2012 near Lejre in Denmark, see Christensen Lejre, p. 210. 13 The twelve finds appear to represent eleven different dies, since the fragmented Killerup (IK 51,2) looks very similar to Gudme (IK 51,3) (the two locations are about forty kilometres apart). Some finds include more specimens; for example, Fuglsang/Sorte Muld (IK 595) of which there are three specimens all made on the same die; Axboe ‘Guldbrakteater’, pp. 37–41. 14 This was formerly referred to as ‘Beresina-area’, Belarus, but the bracteate was actually found at Zagórzyn in Poland; Bursche, ‘Germanic’, pp. 138–142. 15 This is dated c. 985 and is recorded, albeit in disjointed form, in Snorra-Edda (Faulkes Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Skáldskaparmál 1, p. 9 et passim). The other two skaldic poems are both anonymous: Eiríksmál 3, dated c. 950 and preserved in Nóregs konungatal from c. 1220 (ÍF 29, pp. 77–79), and Málsháttakvæði 9, preserved in Gks 2367 4to from c. 1300 to 1350 (Gunnar Skarpheðinsson ‘Málsháttakvæði’, pp. 31–39).

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Figure 8.1 Skovsborg (IK 165).

Figure 8.2 Fakse (IK 51, 1).

Figure 8.3 Killerup (IK 51, 2).

Figure 8.4 Denmark (IK 40).

Figure 8.5 Denmark (IK 39).

Figure 8.6 Zagórzyn (IK 20).

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Figure 8.7 Gummerup (IK 66).

Figure 8.8 Gudme (IK 51, 3).

Figure 8.9 Fuglsang/Sorte Muld (IK 595).

Figure 8.10 Snogskilden (IK 646), drawn by the author.

Figure 8.11 Hvorslevgård (IK 675), drawn by the author.

Figure 8.12 Dalshøj (IK 685), drawn by the author.

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relevant.16 The prose text is Gylfaginning 49 of Snorra-Edda.17 These were all produced in Iceland in the period c. 1270 to 1350,18 some seven or eight centuries after the bracteates. This is a substantial time gap, but that in itself is no hindrance for a myth to have remained recognisably the same. The Norse literary sources present a relatively coherent picture of the myth, but with some major variations. The fullest account of the myth comes from Gylfaginning 49, which tends to be accepted – rightly or wrongly – as the standard against which the other versions are measured. This version of the myth is as follows. Baldr, son of Óðinn and Frigg, has ominous dreams that appear to predict his impending death. To avoid this, the gods decide to make him invulnerable. All things and living creatures swear an oath not to harm Baldr and the gods proceed to test the validity of this at their assembly site by flinging all sorts of missiles and weapons at Baldr, who remains unharmed. But Loki does not like this. He disguises himself as a woman, seeks out Frigg and gets her to tell him that one thing did not take the oath, namely the mistletoe, which seemed to her too young to demand the oath from. Loki tears the mistletoe out of the ground, makes a weapon of it and returns to the assembly site.19 Here, he convinces the blind god Hǫðr to fling the mistletoe at Baldr – and so Baldr dies. The gods are distraught and immediately devise a way of solving this problem. They send a son of Óðinn, Hermóðr, to Hel to ask the female ruler of this realm (also named Hel) to allow Baldr to return. In the meantime, the gods arrange a magnificent funeral for Baldr, who is laid to rest on his ship together with his wife Nanna, who dies of a broken heart. The gods need the assistance of a giantess named Hyrrokkin to launch the funeral ship; she arrives riding a wolf and using a 16 See Neckel and Kuhn, Edda, pp. X–XI; see ONP for the dates of manuscripts. Hyndluljóð is found in Gks 1005 fol. (Flateyjarbók) from 1387 to 1394. Baldrs draumar is found in AM 748 I 4to from 1300 to 1324. Regarding Vǫluspá, only the R-version contains the relevant stanzas; this is found in Gks 2365 4to (Konungsbók) from c. 1270. The remaining two poems make only cursory mentions of Baldr’s death: Vafþrúðnismál 54 and Lokasenna 27–28, both from Gks 2365 4to. 17 Preserved in three manuscripts: DG 11 (Uppsalabók), c. 1300–1325, Gks 2367 4to (Konungsbók of Snorra-Edda), 1300–1350 and AM 242 fol. (Ormsbók), c. 1350; Faulkes Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Prologue and Gylfaginning, pp. xxviii–xxxi. 18 Also the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus recorded an extensive version of the myth in Latin in his work Gesta Danorum, written around 1200, but, although this is technically the earliest, it seems to have been significantly revised and may therefore not be very reliable. It digresses so markedly from the vernacular versions produced in Iceland, which are commonly accepted as much closer to the ‘genuine’ myth, that it seems irrelevant here. 19 The author was probably not familiar with the appearance and nature of the mistletoe, which does not grow in Iceland.

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snake as bridle. All the gods attend the ceremony. Hermóðr arrives in Hel where he spends the night, and both Baldr and Nanna give him presents to take back to the gods. Next morning, Hel says that she will allow Baldr to return if every thing and every creature in the world will weep for him. Hermóðr returns with this message and the gods send out messengers across the world to ask all things and all beings to weep. But one old woman in a cave refuses – and because of her (the text suggests that she, too, is Loki in disguise), Baldr does not return. In contrast to Gylfaginning, the poems emphasize other aspects of the myth: Baldrs draumar tells a story not alluded to at all in Gylfaginning; here, Óðinn travels in disguise to the realm of the dead to awaken a long-dead seeress from her grave and question her about Baldr’s dreams. She says that Baldr is expected in Hel where the hall is richly decorated with gold, and mead is ready in anticipation of welcoming him there. She also says that Hǫðr will kill him and that Baldr’s death will be avenged by Váli – a son not yet born to Óðinn and Rindr – who at the age of just one night will kill Baldr’s foe. Hyndluljóð 29–30 says that when Baldr died, his brother Váli killed the one who had slain Baldr by hand. This is a reference to Hǫðr who carried out the deed. The implication may be that someone else devised the plan, but no name is mentioned. In Vǫluspá (R) 31–33, the seeress who speaks this poem says that the mistletoe became the deadly missile with which Baldr was slain, that Hǫðr took the shot, that Baldr’s brother (no name is given) was born soon after and that he was only one night old when he avenged Baldr by bringing Hǫðr to the funeral pyre.20 Finally, Húsdrápa, which the Icelandic skald Úlfr Uggason composed to match some carved wooden panels decorating the house of a man of high social standing, describes in stanzas 7–12 the procession of gods who attend Baldr’s funeral. He mentions a giantess who helps the gods launch the funeral ship; she remains unnamed but comes riding a ferocious wolf. Interestingly, exactly such a figure is portrayed on a picture stone from Hunnestad in Sweden, dating from the tenth century.21 This is probably the only extant iconographic representation that can be directly linked to the Baldr-myth. 20 The other complete version of Vǫluspá (the H-version), preserved in AM 544 4to (Hauksbók), c. 1310, does not include any of this. 21 The stone is identified as Hunnestad 3, DR 284; see e.g. McKinnell, Meeting, p. 115.

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As is clear, the poetic sources focus on different aspects of the myth than does the prose version: the identities of the slayer and the avenger appear as the central theme. This provides some indication of what were considered the essential details – the ones required in order to recognize the myth in orally conveyed form. Simultaneously, the skaldic version stands out by describing the funeral procession, and purportedly basing itself on an iconographic source, that is, a materially conveyed form of the myth. It, too, implies that the details mentioned enable the viewer of the wooden panels as well as the listener of the poem to recognize the myth. This, then, is the body of literary material against which we can assess the narrative alluded to on our twelve bracteates, and we must now take a look at these. There seem to have been different versions of the narrative they depict, but it is clear that these are all versions of the same fundamental plot. The elements included on all ten complete bracteates are as follows:22 There are three anthropomorphic figures, all of which are standing. The central and largest figure appears to be balancing on one foot while the other leg crosses the straight one so that only the toes (sometimes the whole foot) of the bent leg touch the ground behind the straight leg. He holds one arm up in front of himself and in all the Danish bracteates the other arm stretches downwards behind his back – on the Polish one, the arm behind his back also stretches upwards. He either holds items in both hands or uses the hand behind his back to grasp the arm of the f igure standing behind him in a gesture that suggests control. His thumb is often clearly indicated and he wears a sort of belt. Facing the central figure is a smaller figure wearing something that looks like a petticoat or a kilt. In most Danish specimens, the legs of this figure either look stunted, are placed in an odd-looking box or the feet are gathered into a ball – on the Polish one the legs are quite short. The figure holds a ring or pointy item out towards the central figure. There is nothing about the figure’s hair or face that distinguishes it from the other two and all three appear to be male. The third figure stands behind the central figure and usually holds a downward pointing spear (sometimes also another item), which in most Danish specimens is located behind him, but on the Polish one between him and the central figure. The figure wears a garment that may be inspired by a Roman pteruges.23 22 For detailed descriptions of the motif, see also Pesch, Die Goldbrakteaten, pp. 99–100, and Åkerström-Hougen, ‘Adventus’, pp. 232–237. 23 Axboe, Brakteatstudier, p. 68.

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In addition, the following elements are frequently, but not consistently, featured: – An animal – reptilian or aquatic looking – is depicted near the feet of the central figure. Some specimens show two such similar looking creatures while others show two animals of different kinds. – The reptile attacks the heel or foot of the central figure – this is very clear in some and on the basis of this seems to be implied in others. – There is a complete or partial depiction of a bird, usually at the top. – A pointy item linked to the head or hair of the central figure seems to strike at the neck or torso of the figure behind him. – The central figure grasps the arm of the figure behind him with his hand. – The figure standing behind has a more or less clearly shown thumb on the hand grasped by the central figure. – In one case (Fig. 8.6, Zagórzyn), the central figure has a clearly shown thumb on the hand he holds up in front of his face – in a gesture that suggests he might stick it into his mouth – and the figure behind him also has a clearly depicted thumb on one hand. – The central f igure possibly stands on a sort of podium visible as a horizontal line under his feet, which breaks at a 90-degree angle and rises up in front of his legs24 – in one case (Fig. 8.6, Zagórzyn), the kilted figure is standing on this. – A twig-like item is associated with either the central figure or the kilted figure; in some cases, this protrudes from the neck of the kilted figure and points straight backwards, in one case (Fig. 8.6, Zagórzyn) the kilted figure holds it up in front of himself, and in two cases the item protrudes from the belly of the central figure and looks broken at a 90-degree angle. – The kilted figure is sometimes winged. – Some specimens contain runes or rune-like signs whose meaning is unclear.25 – One specimen shows a swastika (Fig. 8.7, Gummerup) and two a triskelion-like item (Fig. 8.6, Zagórzyn, and Fig. 8.8, Gudme). Moreover, several bracteates contain elements that are harder to decipher. 24 This feature is described variously as a sacrificial altar (Wiker, ‘Balders’, p. 515), a platform (Åkerström-Hougen, Genesis, p. 73), or as the front of a chariot or prow of a ship (Stephens, ‘Tre Gemmer’, pp. 53–54). 25 Wicker, ‘Bracteate’, pp. 28–31.

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On the basis of this, Hauck had already suggested in 1970 that the image was a depiction of an early version of the Baldr-myth, yet one that was clearly linked to the later written versions, especially Gylfaginning 49.26 The idea proposed by Hauck is that the central figure is Baldr, the kilted (and winged) figure is Loki in disguise and the spear-carrying figure is Óðinn. One of the premises of his interpretation is a sort of iconographic shorthand whereby a detail may stand for something other and more than itself – for example, one bird may stand for two and a demon of death stands for the road to Hel.27 The idea of such a shorthand system is to some extent acceptable and even expected – portraying a plot, a sequence of events and actions, in just one picture requires something like that. But it is problematic that Hauck relies on it in the case of all details that do not fit with the known myth. It is likewise problematic that he practically disregards all poetic versions of the myth since these are likely to be the oldest. Hauck suggests the following reading of the imagery:28 – The bird is one of Óðinn’s ravens. – The kilted figure is Loki disguised as a woman and as a bird. – Loki’s wings compare him to the ‘Angel of Death’ mentioned by Ibn Fadlan.29 – Loki holds a twig but in one case (Gummerup) a sword. – The victory-wreath is a sign that Baldr withstands all attacks. – The animal below is the otter that Loki slew in a myth told elsewhere.30 – The central f igure is Baldr who is sometimes struck by the deadly mistletoe. – The third figure is Óðinn with his spear. – The animal sometimes depicted under Óðinn’s feet is a demon of death. 26 Hauck, Goldbrakteaten, pp. 184–188 et passim; cf. Hauck ‘Machttaten’, pp. 16–28. 27 Hauck, ‘Machttaten’, p. 19 et passim; cf. Wicker ‘Bracteate’, p. 28. 28 Most recently Hauck, ‘Machttaten’, pp. 18–22. 29 Ibn Fadlan was an Arabic envoy from Baghdad who in 921–922 travelled to the Muslim ruler of the Bulghars and encountered a group of Viking traders on the Volga south of where Kazan is now (Lunde and Stone, Ibn Fadlan, p. xiii). The ‘Angel of Death’ is a female ritual specialist mentioned in his account of a Viking funeral (Lunde and Stone, Ibn Fadlan, pp. 50–53); Ibn Fadlan says nothing about wings and the designation ‘Angel of Death’ appears to be his own Interpretatio Arabica, comparing the woman to Malak al-Mawt who in Islam is the angel responsible for transporting the souls of the dead. 30 This is an entirely different myth and bears no relation to Baldr’s death at all. The story of Loki slaying the otter is told in the prose introduction to the eddic poem Reginsmál (Neckel and Kuhn, Edda, p. 173) and in the legendary Vǫlsungasaga 14 (Grimstad, pp. 126–129).

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It is a bold and imaginative interpretation, which is widely accepted in scholarship.31 Unfortunately, it has many and serious shortcomings. It relies so heavily on the idea of iconographic shorthand that interpretation becomes a constant emendation of the depicted elements: while the myth tells us one thing, the bracteates show something else, and so we must explain away elements that are clearly (even consistently) depicted and belong to this image as a whole.32 Using his iconographic shorthand, Hauck ends up forcing a particular reading onto the imagery rather than allowing it to speak for itself, and we are, effectively, left chasing through a riddle using keys that are not suited for unlocking it. This seems an unfruitful approach. Instead of insisting that this must by hook or by crook be Baldr, a more sober view would concede that we are probably dealing with a different narrative altogether and that this is why the details make such a poor fit. Moreover, Hauck’s interpretation depends on one single detail, which – until Fuglsang/Sorte Muld was found in 2001 – was included only on the Fakse-bracteate, namely the twig-like item protruding from the belly of the central figure. With reference to the Fakse-bracteate only, many scholars have accepted that the motif is, indeed, a depiction of Baldr and have cited as conclusive evidence that the mistletoe is seen sticking out of his body.33 Without this detail, it seems unlikely that this interpretation would ever have been suggested. This dependence on one detail above all other details renders the argument unstable, because nothing else in the image clearly relates to Baldr. In other words, the majority of the evidence does not contain the one clue that associates to the known myth. If Baldr is the intended motif, then the myth must have been very different then. We must assume that the artist has included details central to the intended narrative – those that, in the eyes of anyone familiar with that narrative, would instantly make it recognisable. We should therefore be careful about assuming, for instance, that an animal featured in a depiction of one myth can be a reference to a completely different myth. It would correspond to including a Christmas tree or a Halloween symbol in a picture of Midsummer. The randomness of such an iconographic policy runs the risk of rendering the image as a whole illegible. Our first assumption must therefore be that all details included in our motif are relevant to the intended narrative. We 31 For example, Hedeager, Skygger, p. 95; Axboe and Källström, ‘Guldbrakteater’ p. 156; Axboe, Brakteatstudier, pp. 68–69 et passim; Grundy, God in Flames, pp. 9–14; Christensen, Lejre, pp. 210–211; Bonnetain, ‘Potentialities’, p. 327; Hauck, Goldbrakteaten, pp. 184–188. 32 Christensen, Lejre pp. 210–211, pursues the same convoluted argument. 33 Hedeager, Skygger, p. 95; Christensen Lejre, p. 210; Axboe, Brakteatstudier, p. 110.

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see this straightforward policy in use on the B-bracteate from Trollhättan (IK 190), which depicts a male figure whose hand is gripped between the jaws of a dog-like animal.34 The image is regarded, with almost complete consensus,35 as a depiction of the myth about the Norse god Týr, who loses his hand in the mouth of Fenrir, the monstrous wolf. A medieval Icelandic version of the myth is preserved in Gylfaginning 25 and 34,36 and it looks as if the bracteate-maker has selected exactly the most central figures and gestures to identify the narrative. The known myth is entirely recognizable in the motif. The same goes for the three Viking Age picture stones that show the Norse god Þórr catching Jǫrmundgandr, the great world serpent.37 These, too, show the central details: the boat, the serpent below, the fishing line with (or without) the gigantic bait, a figure holding a hammer, sometimes another figure (which in Hørdum is about to cut the line), and sometimes Þórr’s foot going through the bottom of the boat. These three depictions are closer in time to the literary sources by at least three centuries, but the point remains valid. The viewer who knows the myth will recognize it in these images. As for the Baldr myth, we obviously cannot tell what it might have looked like in the fifth and sixth centuries; it may well have been different from the medieval versions, but we have no way of knowing in what way or to what extent. The only known Viking Age iconography linked to Baldr portrays the giantess on the wolf and we have references to a lost depiction of the funeral procession (see above). So there is only the literary evidence to guide us and these sources emphasize the roles of the avenger, Váli, and the slayer, Hǫðr, where the former is said to carry out his deed at an extremely young age, while the latter is said (in Gylfaginning) to be blind and very strong. How such details might be represented iconographically I dare not venture to say, but I am not convinced by what I see on the bracteates.38 It may well be that the protruding and broken item is there to show that the central figure is wounded, possibly killed, but there are a great many other figures from Old Norse tradition who are also wounded and killed.39 It is only if 34 Axboe and Källström, ‘Guldbrakteater’. 35 See Axboe and Källström, ‘Guldbrakteater’, p. 155 for references; cf. Wicker ‘Bracteate’, p. 27. 36 Faulkes Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Prologue and Gylfaginning, pp. 25–29. 37 The Hørdum-stone in Denmark, dated c. 800–1000, the Altuna-stone in Sweden, from the early eleventh century, and the Gosforth-stone in Northumbria, from the tenth century, Meulengracht Sørensen ‘Þórr’s Fishing’, p. 123. 38 Cf. O’Donoghue, ‘What’, p. 102; Polomé ’Brakteaten’, pp. 101–102; Åkerström-Hougen ‘Adventus’, pp. 230–231; Wicker ‘Bracteate’, pp. 36–37. 39 Also other Norse figures are killed using odd weapons: The legendary King Víkarr is killed with a reed, King Dagr with a hayfork and the mythological figure Beli with a deer’s antler; the

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we limit ourselves to the mythology, and then limit ourselves yet again to believing that figures depicted in bracteates must be gods, that we end up with Baldr as the sole candidate. There is no reason why the bracteates cannot portray legendary heroes or other figures. An alternative interpretation has been suggested, which maintains that this is a depiction of Baldr and presents the myth, rather awkwardly, as a warrior initiation. 40 According to this view, the arrow-like extension pointing backwards from the head of the central figure is a symbol of breath or spirit, and it visualizes the soul leaving the body. The central figure is the initiation candidate while the figure behind is him after the initiation, with the spear indicative of his new status as warrior. The kilted and winged figure is a ritual specialist. This reading raises a whole new set of very difficult problems. For example, the ‘initiated’ Baldr is regarded as identical with Váli who in the literary sources is a completely separate character. 41 Several other aspects are equally problematic, not least because regarding Baldr’s death as an initiation ritual is in no way convincing. The very point of the story of Baldr, as we know it, is exactly that he does not return from the dead, no matter how much the gods try to make this happen. Nor do the literary sources support the notion that Baldr’s death should be understood as a carefully planned ritual instead of a tragic accident or a malicious murder. In short, this alternative interpretation lacks conviction. If we accept that the bracteates discussed here do, indeed, depict the Baldr myth, we have to make the following concessions – none of which have left any clear traces in the myth that has come down to us: – A bird once featured prominently. – One or more reptiles or aquatic animals played a role. – One of these bites the heel of ‘Baldr’ or attacks his foot. – An arrow-like object associated with ‘Baldr’s’ head strikes ‘Odin’. – ‘Baldr’ grasps ‘Odin’s’ arm with his hand in a gesture that suggests authority or control over him. 42 jǫtunn Hrungnir uses a whetstone while a head is mentioned as a weapon in connection with the god Heimdallr. 40 Wiker ‘Balders’, pp. 510–516 et passim. 41 Wiker, ‘Balders’, pp. 516–518. 42 The gesture resembles a number of illustrations in the medieval German law book Sachsenspiegel, for example a man holding a child for whom he is legally responsible in Book 3: 45, 9, as portrayed in the Dresden manuscript (MS 32, f. 44r) from c. 1350. There is a substantial time gap between the bracteates and Sachsenspiegel, but the iconography employed in legal, medieval contexts is likely to be highly conservative and to remain so for a long time, and the

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– Both ‘Baldr’ and ‘Óðinn’ have symbolically loaded thumbs, probably indicating prophetic abilities or special insight. 43 – A winged anthropomorphic character played a central role. – This figure had its feet tied up in a special way or they were severely disabled. 44 – The twig or weapon that strikes ‘Baldr’ breaks or is broken. These elements are repeatedly portrayed and were apparently considered necessary in order to properly represent the intended motif. Although it may not be entirely impossible that this is the Baldr-myth, it does seem unlikely. The evidence in favour of Baldr as key to these bracteates is extremely tenuous. In fact, the situation seems to be the very opposite of an Achilles’ heel: instead of having only one vulnerable point, there is only one supporting point – were it not for the broken twig protruding from the torso of the central figure on the bracteates from Fakse and Fuglsang/ Sorte Muld (Figs. 8.2 and 8.9), there would be no clear reference point to Baldr’s death. At the same time, there is a wealth of references pointing in other directions. The evidence seems to force us to concede that the Baldr-interpretation must be discarded. How, then, do we interpret the motif depicted on these intriguing bracteates? There are two routes to pursue and, in my opinion, we must rely on both if we are to hope that we may grasp something of the meaning of the motif. One is to consider the Roman coins that have from the very beginning been recognized as models and inspiration for bracteate motifs in general. The other is to study the elements actually depicted on this little group of B-bracteates. I will deal with these two routes of interpretation consecutively. There is little doubt that our twelve three-figure bracteates are inspired by Roman coins. Some scholars hold that the bracteates are simply misunderstood or poorly executed imitations of Roman motifs. 45 This theory is unsatisfactory; partly, it essentially regards the locally produced objects as failed attempts, a view that does justice neither to the bracteate-makers nor gestures do resemble each other closely; cf. Ratke and Simek, ‘Guldgubber’, pp. 262–263; Watt ‘Guldgubber’, pp. 48–50. 43 Davidson, ‘The Seer’s Thumb’. The tenacious link between the thumb and foreknowledge or insightfulness appears also in Shakespeare’s Macbeth (written c. 1606), Act IV, scene 1, where one of the witches says: ‘By the pricking of my thumbs | something wicked this way comes’ (Clark and Mason, p. 237). 44 This feature corresponds to the globe on which Victoria sometimes stands on Roman coins (cf. Pesch, Die Goldbrakteaten, p. 99), but on the bracteates the feature takes various forms. 45 For example, Mackeprang, De Nordiske, pp. 36–37.

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to their religio-political traditions and imagination; partly, it overlooks the fact that perfectly capable imitations of Roman coins were also produced.46 With this in mind, I would hesitate to see the bracteates as flawed imitations. Instead, the differences between Roman coins and bracteates must have been deliberate, and it therefore seems reasonable to regard the Roman coins as inspiration, a springboard, rather than as models for copying. However, there is no known Roman coin, which serves as the obvious model in the sense that it contains parallels to all of the elements on the bracteates; the bracteate motif is – in relation to Roman coins – a conglomerate.47 This in turn raises questions of whether the bracteate-makers knew the meaning of the Roman iconography, the extent to which they intended to draw on that symbolism and the extent to which they reinterpreted the images to suit their own tradition. 48 Especially the image of the goddess Victoria holding a wreath and sometimes a palm frond seems to have formed part of the inspiration for the B-bracteates in question. 49 A Roman coin whose obverse side shows the head of Jupiter while the reverse depicts the winged goddess of victory placing a wreath upon a trophy was issued in Republican times, from c. 211 BC.50 This coin, known as a Victoriatus, lapsed around 170 BC, but was later reintroduced, and the image of the winged Victoria granting a wreath to the emperor was used also on the reverse of coins during the reigns of Diocletian (284–305 AD) and Constantine the Great (306–337 AD). The later versions are sufficiently close in time to be relevant here.51 If we look at the bracteates with Roman imagery in mind, we see in the kilted figure the goddess of victory with wreath and palm frond – all of which symbolize success in battle. The figure behind holding a downwards pointing spear displays a fairly clear relationship to Mars Ultor (Mars the Avenger), depicted on some Roman coins up until the time of Constantine the Great.52 The central figure would then represent the emperor or at least a ruler. But whether the Iron Age Scandinavians saw Roman gods in 46 Axboe, Brakteatstudier, pp. 93–95. 47 Axboe Brakteatstudier, pp. 68–69; Stephens, ‘Tre Gemmer’, p. 56 48 Axboe and Källström, ‘Guldbrakteater’, pp. 155–156; cf. Watt, ‘The Gold-Figure Foils’, p. 217. 49 This was suggested already by Jürgensen Thomsen ‘Om Guldbracteaterne’, pp. 299–300; cf. Mackeprang, De Nordiske, p. 36; Polomé, ‘Brakteaten’, p. 101; Christensen, Lejre, p. 210; ÅkerströmHougen, ‘Adventus’, pp. 230–231; Axboe, Die Goldbrakteaten, p. 211; Stephens, ‘Tre Gemmer’, pp. 53–56; Bolin, ‘Till guldbrakteaternes’, p. 183, and Hauck, ‘Machttaten’, p. 19. 50 Crawford, Roman, p. 154 (illustrated in Plate IX, no. 44/1 and many others). 51 Cf. Åkerström-Hougen, ‘Adventus’, p. 230. 52 Axboe, Die Goldbrakteaten, p. 211; Axboe Brakteatstudier, pp. 68–69.

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this motif – an Interpretatio Septentrionalia of Victoria and Mars – we do not know. Roman coins did find their way into Scandinavia during the Iron Age, as is amply evidenced by, for instance, the so-called Brangstrup-find – a gold hoard discovered in 1865 near the village of Brangstrup in Denmark (near Gudme where one of our bracteates was later found) and which contained inter alia forty-six Roman coins from the period 249–351 AD.53 At least twelve of these depict Victoria with Jupiter, the emperor, a personification of Rome or other elements. The Brangstrup-hoard also contained an imitation of a coin from the reign of Constantine the Great where the reverse shows the emperor flanked by two female figures, both holding up a wreath. It has been suggested that this imitation coin is the model for our bracteates.54 The image, however, is in no way an exact fit and we have no competent way of assessing its relationship to the bracteate motif. If the bracteates reflect Roman symbolism, then they depict a scene of victory, triumph or the bestowal of honour upon an individual, who is probably a ruler.55 Yet a number of features on the bracteates complicate matters in such a way that we cannot regard the image as a direct transfer. For example, the reptile attacking the foot of the central figure and this figure’s grasp of the figure behind show that there is something going on here that we do not find on Roman coins. Even so, an interpretation of our motif based exclusively on Roman evidence and culture has been suggested, and this suggestion has the distinct advantage of taking as its point of departure the elements included on the bracteates. The idea is that they depict an adventus ceremony, which concerns the arrival of the emperor.56 According to this reading, the bracteates show Roman figures. The winged figure is Victoria, the figure behind is a soldier marching along, and the central figure is an aquilifer, whose task is to carry the legionary eagle,57 or the emperor, who in Roman depictions is often shown on horseback.58 The bird above is the eagle of Roman standards, the signa militaria.59 This is a rather better-founded suggestion for an interpretation than either of the Baldr interpretations. Yet, it is difficult to comprehend quite 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

Herbst, ‘Brangstrup-Fundet’, pp. 329–330, 334–342. Bolin, ‘Till guldbrakteaternes’, p. 185. Cf. Stephens, ‘Tre Gemmer’, p. 53. Åkerström-Hougen, ‘Adventus’ and Genesis, pp. 57–76. Åkerström-Hougen, ‘Adventus’, p. 241, and Genesis, p. 58. Åkerström-Hougen, ‘Adventus’, pp. 238–240, and Genesis, pp. 66–67. Åkerström-Hougen, ‘Adventus’, p. 241, and Genesis, p. 70.

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how it may have been understood when the emperor himself is missing – not necessarily from the motif,60 where he may be represented by the central figure, but from the real world. It is one thing that Scandinavians of the Iron Age may have travelled to Rome, served as soldiers in the legions or otherwise become acquainted with – and, undoubtedly, impressed by – Roman culture and rituals. But is it feasible that Scandinavians in their homelands, which were never occupied by Roman forces, would produce bracteates showing the arrival of the emperor? And if the image is, indeed, related to the adventus ceremony and came to Scandinavia with individuals returning home after visiting Rome or serving in the legions, are we then to understand this as a local adaptation of a Roman ritual celebrated in honour of a local ruler? Or is it more likely that the bracteate image has come about as a consequence of inspiration from Roman coins, but without associating to Roman ceremonies? The only response offered to such questions is that the ceremony was very popular, that it underwent many changes during the third century, and that it might mark a variety of occasions.61 This otherwise thorough and compelling interpretation of the image as a whole fails because it requires that both the iconography and its meaning must be understood with Rome in mind. In other words, it is ‘an attempt to imitate’ Roman iconography with hardly any local flavour.62 This interpretation also overlooks two features that are repeated with such consistency in the bracteates that they must be considered meaningful. These are the reptilian animal(s) and the central figure’s grasp of the arm of the figure behind. It seems clear that, although Roman depictions served as inspiration, there is no direct transfer; since no such details occur in Roman iconography of the adventus, the bracteate image probably developed to suit a locally orientated context and tradition, which may not have anything to do with the emperor. Moreover, the iconography supposedly showing a local interpretation of the adventus is deemed ‘devastatingly clumsy’ and ‘misunderstood’63 while the elements that do not relate to that ceremony are explained (away) as horror vacui and as details intended to ‘enliven’ the image.64 This is rather a harsh judgement, since it cannot be taken for granted that the intention is to copy or imitate Roman iconography. 60 Åkerström-Hougen herself nonetheless suggests that he is, in fact, missing from the motif (‘Adventus’, p. 243) because the central figure more likely represents a soldier carrying a signum militarium (Genesis, pp. 68–69). 61 Åkerström-Hougen, Genesis, p. 68. 62 Åkerström-Hougen, Genesis, pp. 74–76. 63 Åkerström-Hougen, ‘Adventus’, pp. 243–244. 64 Åkerström-Hougen, ‘Adventus’, p. 235, and Genesis, p. 60.

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Turning our gaze now to the bracteates’ motif, I would like to offer yet another attempt at an interpretation. My suggestion is that, although the iconography is inspired by Roman coins, the meaning attached to the locally produced motif was in all likelihood also local. My interest lies in the image and how its elements may be understood, and I am consciously – and at my peril – disregarding the runic inscriptions on some of the bracteates as well as their archaeological contexts. For the purposes of my interpretation, I am making the following assumptions: – The motif relates to a narrative, rather than a ritual. – The narrative may concern deities, humans or other anthropomorphic beings. – We do not necessarily know this narrative. – The iconography may be inspired by Roman tradition, but is likely to relate more immediately to local, Scandinavian tradition. The central figure is likely the hero of the story. He appears to have taken captive or in some other way be in control of the figure behind, as is suggested in the gesture of grasping the arm of the figure behind. Perhaps he has overcome him in a knowledge contest, since the prominence of the thumb on the figure behind may indicate his possession of wisdom or special knowledge.65 The corresponding prominence of the central figure’s thumb reveals that he possesses the same skill or ability.66 It is possible that the arrow-like feature extending from the central figure’s hair and pointing at the torso of the figure behind is somehow related to this.67 The hero also has an encounter with the kilted figure, and this involves a ring usually held up by the kilted figure, an oddly T-shaped item held up by the central figure and a twig-like object. The twig seems to pass from the kilted to the central figure. When the item appears with the kilted figure, it looks straight and complete, but with the central figure, it looks broken. It seems most likely that the exchange is in the direction from straight to broken. In 65 The idea of a knowledge contest is widely attested in Old Norse tradition, e.g. the eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál (Gks 2365 4to), where Óðinn competes with the jǫtunn Vafþrúðnir in mythic knowledge, and the sequence of riddles presented and solved in the legendary Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks konungs 9 (Tolkien, pp. 32–44) from c. 1310 (Tolkien, pp. xxix–xxxi). 66 Davidson, ‘The Seer’s Thumb’. This reading of the image of the thumb is supported by later Scandinavian iconography, such as the depiction of the legendary hero Sigurðr Fáfnisbani at Ramsundsberget in Sweden, dated c. 1000 (Meulengracht Sørensen and Steinsland, Menneske, p. 203). This clearly shows Sigurðr sticking his thumb into his mouth and the gesture represents his attainment of the ability to understand bird-speech. The story is told in the eddic poems Reginsmál and Fáfnismál and in the legendary Vǫlsungasaga 18–20 (Grimstad, pp. 136–147). 67 Åkerström-Hougen (Genesis, p. 59) interprets this as some emblem of dignity.

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some cases there are two or even three such items; one is the broken specimen sticking out of the central figure’s belly, one is sticking out of the kilted figure’s neck or possibly attached to his shoulder, and in one case a twig seems to be incorporated into the depiction of the central figure’s torso. This may well be a weapon of some sort and perhaps an improbable one since it does not look like an identifiable weapon. The fact that it appears broken when protruding from the torso of the central figure may be taken to indicate that the weapon was either ineffectual or that the wound it inflicted was not fatal. The kilted figure somewhat resembles Vǫlundr, the master blacksmith known from Norse, Germanic, and Old English tradition, who was captured and hamstrung by an evil king and forced to produce fine items for him (among these many rings), but who made himself artificial wings and escaped.68 The kilted figure on the bracteates looks like a male figure whose legs are either stunted or locked up and who is sometimes depicted with wings. However, there are no blacksmithing tools in the image; instead, the figure holds out a ring towards the central figure and no further details point in the direction of Vǫlundr. The idea that this could be Vǫlundr must thus be discarded for the same reason that the Baldr-interpretation must be discarded: Although one or two details provide a close parallel, the motif as a whole does not match the story as we know it. The role of the bird is unclear. When it appears, it is consistently represented as facing in the same direction as the central figure and this may be somehow construed as being ‘on the same side’ as him – perhaps a helper of sorts. Finally, the role of the reptile appears crucial to the whole affair, since it recalls rather strongly the story about Achilles’ small, but crucial, weakness. The animal (I refer to it as a reptile, although some depictions show a creature looking more like a platypus) attacks the hero’s foot or heel. We cannot know for sure what the consequence of this is, but since it is a detail considered important enough to include, we can assume that it was meaningful to the narrative as a whole. It is not impossible that we are looking at a figure whose only weak spot is located below his ankle.69 68 The Norse version is told in the eddic poem Vǫlundarkviða (Gks 2365 4to). A later iconographic representation of Vǫlundr is found on the Franks Casket from England, dated to 700–1000, with the end of that period being more likely (Vandersall, ‘The Date’, pp. 22–23). The left side of the front panel on this whalebone casket shows Vǫlundr interacting with the king’s daughter; he is depicted wearing a jacket and a kilt-like garment, he has a beard and holds tongs in one hand; one of his legs looks crooked. There are other tools around him. At the side, his brother is catching birds for him to make wings. 69 Cf. Christensen, Lejre, p. 211, who suggests a similarity to Achilles as well as to the biblical snake being crushed under men’s feet in Genesis 3:15.

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If this is correct, the hero of the story wins a knowledge contest against another man whom he thus gains control over; subsequently, he has an encounter with a third man who may be winged and this involves a ring and a twig-like object, which is possibly an unusual weapon. The hero seems to be triumphant also here, but is eventually brought down by an attack from an inconspicuous-looking animal. A bird also features in the story. In this sense, the narrative depicted on the three-figure B-bracteates seems to share the theme of ‘unique invulnerability’ with both Baldr and Achilles, although the bracteate-hero is identical with neither. I am aware that my suggestion for a reinterpretation is speculative, hard to prove and based on a number of assumptions. What I have attempted to do is to unlock the image by means of Old Norse narrative traditions, medieval iconography and the Roman coins that occur in similar f ind contexts from contemporary Scandinavia. The intention has been to replace a flawed interpretation with a hopefully better one. Although I have to conclude that we do not know the story depicted in the three-figure bracteates, I believe that what has been presented here is a more plausible suggestion.

Acknowledgement I am grateful to Morten Axboe of the National Museum of Denmark for alerting me to the three most recent finds (Snogskilden, Hvorslevgård and Dalshøj), for critical and constructive comments, and for disagreeing with me so courteously.

Bibliography Apollonius, Argonautica: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/830/830-h/830-h.htm (accessed 4 March 2020). Axboe, Morten, Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit: Herstellungsprobleme und Chronologie (Berlin and New York: Walter De Gruyter, 2004). Axboe, Morten, Brakteatstudier (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab, 2007). Axboe, Morten, ‘Gulbrakteater’, in Sorte Muld, ed. by Christian Adamsen (Rønne: Bornholms Museum, 2008), pp. 34–41. Axboe, Morten and Magnus Källström, ‘Guldbrakteater fra Trollhättan – 1844 og 2009’, Fornvännen 108 (2013), 153–171.

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Bolin, Sture, ‘Till guldbrakteaternes kronologi’, Scandia: Tidsskrift för historisk forskning 1.1 (1928), pp. 180–186. Bonnetain, Yvonne S., ‘Potentialities of Loki’, in Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives, ed. by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006), pp. 326–330. Bursche, Alexander, ‘Germanic Gold Bracteates from the Hoard in Zagórzyn near Kalisz’, in Byzantine Coins in Central Europe between the 5th and 10th Century, ed. by Marcin Wołoszyn (Krakow: Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2008), pp. 133–153. Christensen, Tom, Lejre bag Myten: De arkæologiske udgravninger (Højbjerg: Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab, 2015). Clark, Sandra and Pamela Mason, eds., Shakespeare – Macbeth (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). Crawford, Michael, Roman Republican Coinage, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). Davidson, Hilda R. Ellis, ‘The Seer’s Thumb’, in The Seer in Celtic and Other Traditions, ed. by Hilda R. Ellis Davidson (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1989), pp. 66–78. Faulkes, Anthony, ed., Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Skáldskaparmál 1: Introduction, Text and Notes (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998). Faulkes, Anthony, ed., Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Prologue and Gylfaginning (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2005). Friis-Jensen, Carsten, ed., and Peter Zeeberg, trans., Saxo Grammaticus. Gesta Danorum. Danmarkshistorien, 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab / Gads Forlag, 2005). Grimstad, Kaaren, ed., Vǫlsunga saga. The Saga of the Volsungs (Saarbrücken: AQ-Verlag, 2000). Grundy, Stephan, God in Flames – God in Fetters: Loki’s Role in the Northern Religions (New Haven, Connecticut: Troth Publications, 2015). Gunnar Skarpheðinsson, ‘Málsháttakvæði’, Són – Tímarit um óðfræði 2 (2004), 31–72. Hauck, Karl, Goldbrakteaten aus Sievern (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1970). Hauck, Karl, ‘Machttaten Odins. Die Chiffrenwelt der Brakteaten und die Methoden ihrer Auswertung’, in Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit – Auswertung und Neufunde, ed. by Morten Axboe and Wilhelm Heizmann (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), pp. 1–60. Hedeager, Lotte, Skygger af en anden virkelighed: Oldnordiske myter (København: Samleren, 1997). Herbst, C.F., ‘Brangstrup-Fundet’, Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1866), pp. 327–349

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ÍF 29 = Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sögum. Fagrskinna – Nóregs konunga tal, Íslenzk Fornrit 29, ed. by Bjarni Einarsson, 1984. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1984). IK = Morten Axboe, Klaus Düwel, Karl Hauck, and Lutz von Padberg, Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit. 1,3 Ikonographischer Katalog (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1986–1998). Jürgensen Thomsen, Christian, ‘Om Guldbracteaterne og Bracteaternes tidligste Brug som Mynt’, Annaler for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1855), pp. 265–347. Lunde, Paul, and Caroline Stone, eds., Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness. Arab Travellers in the Far North (London: Penguin, 2012). Mackeprang, Mogens B., De Nordiske Guldbrakteater (Århus: Universitetsforlaget i Aarhus, 1952). McKinnell, John, Meeting the Other in Norse Myth and Legend (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005). Meulengracht Sørensen, Preben, ‘Þorr’s Fishing Expedition’, in The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology, ed. by Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 119–137. Meulengracht Sørensen, Preben, and Gro Steinsland, Menneske og makter i vikingenes verden (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1994). Neckel, Gustav, ed., and Hans Kuhn, rev., Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1962). O’Donoghue, Heather, ‘What has Baldr to do with Lamech? The Lethal Shot of a Blind Man in Old Norse Myth and Jewish Exegetical Traditions’, Medium Ævum 72.1 (2003), pp. 82–107. ONP = Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. Registre (Copenhagen: Den Arnamagnæanske Kommission, 1989). Pesch, Alexandra, Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit: Thema und Variation (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007). Polomé, Edgar C., ‘Brakteaten und die germanische Religionsgeschichte – Probleme einer wechselseitigen Interpretation’, in Iconologia Sacra: Mythos, Bildkunst und Dichtung in der Religions- und Sozialgeschichte Alteuropas. Festschrift für Karl Hauck zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. by Hagen Keller and Nikolaus Staubach (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1994), pp. 91–102. Ratke, Sharon, and Rudolf Simek, ‘Guldgubber – Relics of Pre-Christian Law Rituals?’, in Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives, ed. by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006), pp. 259–264. Sachsenspiegel – Die Dresdner Bildhandschrift: https://digital.slub-dresden.de/ werkansicht/dlf/6439/95/ (accessed 6 March 2020).

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Statius, Achilleid: https://www.theoi.com/Text/StatiusAchilleid1A.html (accessed 4 March 2020). Stephens, George, ‘Tre “Barbarisk-Classiske” Gemmer, fundne i Danmark’, Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1873), pp. 50–56. Thompson, Stith, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955–1958). Tolkien, Christopher, ed., Saga Heiðreks konungs in vitra – The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise (London and Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Co., 1960). Vandersall, Amy L., ‘The Date and Provenance of the Franks Casket’, Gesta 11.2 (1972), 9–26. Watt, Margrethe, ‘The Gold-Figure Foils (“Guldgubber”) from Uppåkra’, in Continuity for Centuries: A Ceremonial Building and its Context at Uppåkra, Southern Sweden, ed. by Lars Larsson (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2004), pp. 167–221. Watt, Margrethe, ‘Guldgubber’, in Sorte Muld, ed. by Christian Adamsen (Rønne: Bornholms Museum, 2008), pp. 42–53. Wicker, Nancy L., ‘Bracteate Inscriptions and Context Analysis in the Light of Alternatives to Hauck’s Iconographic Interpretations’, Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies 5 (2014), 25–43. Wiker, Gry, ‘Balders død – en krigerinitiasjon? En ikonografisk tolkning av “DreiGötter-brakteaterne”’, in Facets of Archaeology: Essays in Honour of Lotte Hedeager on her 60th Birthday, ed. by Konstantinos Chilidis, Julie Lund, and Christopher Prescott (Oslo: Oslo Academic Press, 2008), pp. 509–525. Åkerström-Hougen, Gunilla, ‘Adventus travels North: A Note on the Iconography of some Scandinavian Gold Bracteates’, in Imperial Art as Christian Art – Christian Art as Imperial Art. Expression and Meaning in Art and Architecture from Constantine to Justinian, ed. by J. Rasmus Brandt and Olaf Steen (Rome: Bardi Editore, 2001), pp. 229–244. Åkerström-Hougen, Gunilla, Genesis och Metamorphosis. En studie i de nordiska guldbrakteaternas ikonografi (Göteborg: Göteborgs Universitet, 2010).

About the Author Karen Bek-Pedersen is an independent scholar who holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests include Icelandic sagas, Norse and Celtic mythology, and folklore, and she has published a book on the Norns in Old Norse mythology.

9

The Cult of Óðinn in the Early Scandinavian Warrior Aristocracy Joshua Rood

Abstract Medieval literary sources often portray the Norse deity Óðinn as being the ultimate sovereign, ruling over other gods and earthly rulers alike. This chapter compares the earliest evidence for the deity to the warrior-based aristocracy which was beginning to come to power during the period prior to the Viking Age, and attempts to shed new light on the relationship between the two. The chapter argues that many Óðinn’s features developed during this period and played a role in the identity formation of the early warrior rulers who worshipped him. Keywords: Norse gods, Vendel, rulership, iconography, horned figures

Óðinn was called Alfǫðr (‘Allfather’). From his seat, Hliðskjálf, set at the edge of heaven, he watched over the entire world. He had one eye, having traded one for wisdom. And he had a hall, Valhǫll, which was thatched with shields. In that hall he sat, flanked by two wolves, while two ravens whispered all the world’s news to him, and there he hosted an army made up of the greatest kings and warriors who have ever lived. In the world’s final battle, he will ride ahead of that army in a golden helm and shining armour, wielding a mighty spear.1 This is the description we are given of the Norse deity Óðinn by the Icelandic poet and chieftain, Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241). While Snorri’s accounts should be treated critically,2 many of the characteristics that he attributes to Óðinn are reflected in the remaining corpus of written material 1 Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, ed. Faulkes, pp. 7–50. 2 See, for example, Gunnell, ‘Pantheon? What Pantheon?’, pp. 55–56; DuBois, Nordic Religions, pp. 7–8, 10–12, 56–59, and Andrén, ‘Behind “Heathendom”’, pp. 105–138.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch09

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from which we derive our synthesis of the religion of heathen Scandinavia. These various sources portray him not only as a ruler, but also as a god of poetry and magic, fettering armies, raising the dead, and dealing out his favour, or taking it away.3 In these late sources it is clear that Óðinn was a god with many roles, and one with many masks. Behind all of his complexities, however, the Óðinn in the written material is always a god of kings, elite aristocrats, and of their sport: war. It was Óðinn who chose who won and who lost in battle, and who lived and who died.4 Throughout skaldic poetry, ravens and eagles are depicted feasting on fallen high-born warriors. The poetry often specifically connects these birds to Óðinn.5 Multiple preserved poems from the tenth century dedicated to such rulers regularly stress the importance of their relationship with Óðinn.6 This idea was something that was so deeply rooted that even the Christian king, Hákon góði, is described in Hákonarmál as grudgingly joining Óðinn in Valhǫll after his death.7 The connection between Óðinn and rulership seems to have become entrenched in the late Viking Age and in later medieval material. We can say with some certainty that on a general level these depictions reflect a great deal of truth about how Óðinn was perceived, at least by certain groups of people in the late Viking Age and during the centuries that followed. But what about during the centuries prior to this? They can tell us very little about the Óðinn of centuries before and during the early Viking Age, or in southern Scandinavia. They leave us wondering why and how Óðinn should have come to be seen as the god of rulers. It is well established that religion in Iron Age Northern Europe was both extremely heterogenous and also dynamic, changing as the communities, tribes, and later kingdoms that it was a part of changed and developed.8 We must accept that Óðinn, like the institutions he was associated with by the early Middle Ages, was not always the way he is presented to us. Accepting 3 See, for example, Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál, ed. Faulkes, pp. 11–13, Ynglinga saga, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, 1, 17; Hávamál, sts 104–107, 147–157 and Grímnismál, st. 3, in Eddadigte, ed. Jón Helgason; Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar, ed. Olsen, pp. 6–7, 25–26. 4 Darraðarljóð, sts 3, 6, in Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, pp. 454–458; and Hákonarmál, sts 1, 8, in Hákon saga góða, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, I, pp. 196–197. 5 See, for example, Háleygjatál, in Whaley, Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1, 195–212, st. 11. 6 See, for example, Háleygjatál, Hákonarmál, and Eiriksmál, in Whaley, Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1, 195–212, 171–194, 1003–1013. 7 See Hákonar saga góða, in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, 1, 196–197 8 For discussions on the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of Old Norse religion, see Brink, ‘Myth and Ritual’, Steinsland, Norrøn Religion, pp. 31–34; Gunnell, ‘Pantheon? What Pantheon?’, and Fabech and Näsman, ‘Ritual Landscapes’.

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these facts leaves us with very large questions about religion in Scandinavia beyond the literature. Can we say anything about what he or his cult were like during the early Viking Age, the Vendel Era, or prior, or how he developed to become the deity we recognize? Can we say anything about his relationship with warrior kings when warrior kings were the ‘new thing’? This chapter is based on a larger project in which I attempted to answer these questions.9 My approach was to analyse the relationship between the earliest evidence for the conceptual existence of a deity or being called ‘Óðinn’ and the evidence for what most researchers agree were the origins of the elite warrior milieu that would develop to become the warrior kings that later Medieval sources associate with Óðinn. Due to space restrictions, many supporting details for the development of a warrior aristocracy cannot be covered here, but I attempt to sufficiently underline the relevant points that relate to the early evidence for the worship of Óðinn. This chapter hopefully shows that researchers now have the theoretical and technological tools available to them today to contextually approach religion in Prehistoric times and places in Scandinavia in ways that can shed light on deities, myths, rituals, and religion that the later Medieval Icelandic material is simply incapable of. Perhaps my study can tell us something about an early manifestation of Óðinn, when he was yet to ascend to his throne on the edge of heaven and become the alfǫðr, when his visage was being fleshed out even as the mighty halls of Lejre and Uppsala were being constructed by the people who would become the legendary Ynglingar and Skjǫldingar of later Medieval sources.10

An Emerging Warrior Aristocracy Since the beginning of the 1990s, due to huge technological leaps and advances made in multidisciplinary approaches, researchers have been able to tease out an emerging story of Prehistoric Scandinavia.11 In doing so, a number of researchers have been able to show that gradual transformations regularly took place over time in Scandinavia, and especially between the fourth and eighth centuries, during which time Nordic society gradually 9 See Rood, ‘Ascending the Steps to Hliðskjálf ’’. 10 See, for example, Ynglinga saga in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla I, pp. 11–16 and 20–23. 11 For overviews of these developments, see Brink, ‘Political and Social Structures in Early Scandinavia I’; Andrén et al., ‘Old Norse Religion’, and Jørgensen, ‘Pre-Christian Cult’ and ‘Norse Religion and Ritual Sites in Scandinavia in the 6th–11th century’.

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developed from decentralized tribes into larger kingdoms, and eventually nation states. Within this process of stratification, it has been suggested that we can see the gradual emergence of a new elite milieu comprised of warrior rulers and their elite warriors who would come to dominate the upper tiers of Scandinavian society through the late Viking Age.12 By the end of the Roman Iron Age, Scandinavia was comprised primarily of smaller decentralized tribes and tribal confederacies. But with Rome’s collapse, much of its wealth, power, and institutions were inherited by emerging Germanic kingdoms such as the Merovingian Franks and moved northward.13 Here, new contacts and social networks began to be established between certain groups of people in Scandinavia and these southerly powers. Rich trade and extensive cultural exchange took place and around the middle of the first millennium there developed a network of ‘central places’.14 These were a new type of centre of political and religious power. Researchers have interpreted these developments as indicative of a stratifying society in which power shifted gradually from smaller, agrarian tribes and kinship-based social systems towards larger realms dominated by a newly emerging, warrior-based elite who belonged to wide-ranging networks of personal contacts, wealth, and power expanding beyond Scandinavia towards the south and towards England. According to researchers, the new form of aristocracy based much of its ability to rule on warfare.15 These elite networks increasingly consolidated society around their residences, which were dominated first and foremost by monumental halls and were consistently accompanied by a number of other features that are of a decidedly ritual nature. One of the most prominent features found are ‘cult-houses’, around which we find votive offerings consisting of massive weapon depositions, signs of human and animal sacrifice, and the production and distribution of new forms of prestige goods.16 Major examples of these locations that will be mentioned again in this article are Uppåkra in Southern Sweden, Uppsala in Uppland, Tissø, Gudme, and Lejre in Denmark.17 12 See Rood, ‘Ascending the Steps to Hliðskjálf’, pp. 54–114. See also Hedeager, Iron Age Societies, Näsman, ‘The Scandinavians’ View’, pp. 103–121, Hårdh, ‘The Contacts of the Central Place’, p. 29, and Fabech and Näsman, ‘Ritual Landscapes’. 13 Pohl, ‘The Barbarian Successor States’, pp. 40–41. 14 Defined in detail in Fabech and Näsman, ‘Ritual Landscapes’, p. 56. 15 Helgesson, ‘Uppåkra in the 5th to 7th Centuries’, p. 37, and Hedeager, Iron Age Societies. 16 For discussions on cult-houses, see Larsson and Lenntorp; ‘The Enigmatic House’, Larsson, ‘Uppåkra-Research’, pp. 26–28, and Jørgensen, ‘Pre-Christian Cult’, p. 336. 17 For discussion on the sites, for Uppåkra see Hårdh, ‘Uppåkra in the Migration and Merovingian Periods’ and ‘The Contacts of the Central Place’, Helgesson, ‘Tributes to be Spoken of’, and Larsson and Lenntorp, ‘The Enigmatic House’; for Gudme see Fabech and Näsman, ‘Ritual

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This is the emerging warrior elite whose dynasties and descendants later writers associate with Óðinn. The remainder of this chapter is an investigation of the evidence for the conceptual existence of a deity who can be definitively identified as Óðinn which might be correlated with the evidence of this newly-developing milieu of warrior aristocrats in Scandinavia. The evidence is broken into three overlapping segments. The first segment will survey the earliest conclusive evidence for a figure named Óðinn. The second segment will consider the place-name evidence, demonstrating the geographical distribution of a cult dedicated to Óðinn. The third and final segment will be dedicated to the iconography that can be arguably related to Óðinn and which hopefully sheds some light on the nature of the relationship between the deity and the early emerging warrior milieu.

Evidence for Óðinn Worship: The Earliest Dateable References The oldest reference to Óðinn is a runic inscription that had been carved onto the back of a brooch, found in Nordendorf, in southern Germany. It has been dated between the sixth century and the first half of the seventh century.18 The inscription reads: Logaþore Wodan WigiÞonar awaleubwinix.19 Wodan here is clearly a cognate of Óðinn. While the context and meaning of the runic inscription is unclear, the inscription allows us to establish with certainty that Wodan/Óðinn was conceptually extant among the Germanic people in the sixth century, even though it is impossible to say much about what that conception entailed. Óðinn appears in three textual sources dating to the seventh century.20 The Vita Sancti Columbani, written by Jonas of Bobbio,21 describes a ritual in which a group of Suebians give a sacrifice of beer to the god ‘Wodan’.22 While the account is at least partially fabricated, its dating, its naming of Landscapes’, Jørgensen, ‘Gudme-Lundeborg’, Hedeager, ‘Asgaard Reconstructed?’, and Sundqvist, ‘Gudme on Funen’; for Tissø see Bican, ‘Bulbrogård, the First Aristocratic Complex at Tissø’, Jørgensen, ‘Manor, Cult and Market’, and ‘Pre-Christian Cult’; for Lejre see Christensen, ‘Lejre Beyond Lejre’, ‘Lejre and Roskilde’, and Lejre bag Myten; and for Uppsala see Ljungkvist and Frölund, ‘Gamla Uppsala’. 18 MacLeod and Mees, Runic Amulets, pp. 17–18, and Krause, Die Runeninschriften, p. 294. 19 Shaw, Uses of Wodan, p. 106. 20 Shaw, Uses of Wodan, p. 106. 21 Krusch, Jonas of Bobbio. For the dating of Jonas of Bobbio’s account, see Wood, ‘The Vita Columbani’, p. 63, and O’Hara, ‘The Vita Columbani’, p. 126. 22 Shaw, Uses of Wodan, pp. 118–119; original Latin in Krusch, Jonas of Bobbio, p. 101.

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‘Wodan’, and its association with the Suebians are all important here. The two remaining references to Óðinn which are dated to the seventh century, Fredegar’s Chronicle,23 and the Origo Gentis Langobardorum,24 both tell of the ethnogenesis of a Germanic tribe called the Langobards who worship the god ‘Godan’ who decides the matter of their victory or defeat in combat. According to Philip Shaw, both accounts were later used in a retelling of their ethnogenesis by Paulus Diaconus in the eighth century in his Historia Langobardorum Book 1, Chapter 8.25 Evidently Paulus was also aware of the Vita Columbani.26 It is interesting to note that here Godan (who as Paulus notes elsewhere was also called Wodan) is associated with both the Langobards and the Alamanni, who both came from Scandinavia according to Paulus.27 As Shaw suggests, by the seventh century, the Alamanni were otherwise known as the Suebi, and the Langobards were identified in the first century by Strabo as one of the Suebic tribes.28 In this context, it is worth noting that the original location of the Nordendorf brooch was in an Alamannic row cemetery.29 As such, it is probable that an Alamannic individual owned it. Evidently the earliest references we have for Óðinn are ascribed to the Suebians/Alamanni, and south of Scandinavia. The earliest verifiable evidence for Óðinn in Scandinavia proper is dated to around 725, and is a runic text inscribed onto a fragment of human skull found at Ribe in southern Jutland in Denmark.30 The fragment seemed to serve as an amulet, and while the inscription is not well understood, the version that follows is the most accepted form:31 Ulfr auk Uþin auk Hutiur Hialbburis uiþr Þaimauiarkiauktuir kunig buur32 23 Krusch, Fredegar, p. 110. 24 Paulus Diaconus, ed. Waitz, p. 52. 25 For an overview of the manuscripts containing accounts of Paulus Diaconus and Origo gentis Langobardorum, see Waitz, p. 1. 26 Shaw, Uses of Wodan, pp. 73, 106. 27 Paulus Diaconus, trans. Foulke, p. 7. 28 Shaw, Uses of Wodan, p. 116; The Geography of Strabo, ed. Jones, pp. 111, 156. On the Suebi, see also Tacitus, Germania, ed. Mattingly and Handfor, pp. 38–46. 29 Shaw, ‘The Origins of the Theophoric Week’, p. 399. 30 MacLeod and Mees, Runic Amulets, p. 25. 31 See more details on the translation discussion in MacLeod and Mees, Runic Amulets, pp. 25–27; Moltke, Runes, pp. 151–153; and Shaw, Uses of Wodan, pp. 124–129. 32 Moltke, Runes, p. 151.

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While the possibility remains that the bone fragment was brought to Ribe from elsewhere (Ribe being a market-centre from an early period), here we have firm evidence that Óðinn was known in Denmark in the early eighth century. The first time Óðinn appears in Anglo-Saxon writings is in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written between 700 and 731.33 This confirms that the god was known in Christian circles in England by the eighth century, and suggests that the idea was older, perhaps dating back to the seventh century (and the Anglo-Saxon oral tradition). Of particular interest here is that Bede’s account is the first piece of evidence that directly connects Óðinn to kingship. It is thus worth more discussion. Bede in Book 1, Chapter 15 presents Óðinn (Woden) in euhemeristic (and Christianized) form, describing him as the mortal progenitor of the royal family of Kent. One should not necessarily give in to the temptation to read this as evidence that Óðinn’s presence in Kentish genealogies was something which preceded conversion, however. This has been addressed by various scholars and it is generally agreed that early royal genealogies were often changed and restructured, even to fit poetic meter.34 In addition to validating a ruler’s right to govern, their purpose was to express political relationships and connections with other royal powers at a given time.35 Shaw has suggested that Óðinn’s role in Bede’s work was intended to allow Anglo-Saxon rulers and power circles to argue that they were more developed than those who still worshipped Óðinn, underlining Christian dominance over heathendom, while emphasizing the place of the English within Germanic Europe as well as in wider Christendom.36 While there is some doubt that Bede’s account reflects an authentic, old tradition whereby English kings were descended from Óðinn, it still serves as a definite link between the god and aristocracy.

33 Colgrave et al., Bede, p. 242. 34 Hill, ‘Woden and The Pattern of Nine’, pp. 41–42. See, for example, John, ‘The Point of Woden’ and Shaw, Uses of Wodan. 35 Hill, ‘Woden and The Pattern of Nine’, pp. 41–42, and ‘Woden as “Ninth Father”’, pp. 161–174. 36 Shaw, Uses of Wodan, p. 102.

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The Place-Name Evidence for Óðinn We now have enough early, verifiable evidence for the worship of Óðinn during the sixth and seventh centuries in Germany and southern Scandinavia, and that he played a conceptual role among Christian Anglo-Saxons to apply theophoric place-name evidence. However, because the authenticity of place-names can be very difficult to determine, this section will focus on those which researchers are most certain relate to the worship of Óðinn.37 Based on Óðinn place-names, it can be stated with some certainty that the cult of Óðinn was most prevalent in southern Scandinavia, and most particularly in the Mälaren area of Sweden and in Denmark. Óðinn placenames also occur south of Scandinavia and throughout southern and central England.38 There are comparatively few in Norway, and they are severely lacking throughout western Norway in particular. It should also be noted that the distribution of Óðinnic place-names is distinct from those of the other deities with major theophoric place-name presences.39 Of all the deities associated with theophoric place-names in Scandinavia, Óðinn is the only one to have his name attached to a word connected to the concept of ‘the hall’, in the shape of the Old Norse word element salr. It is striking then, that Óðinn is connected to five such place-names: It is perhaps further striking that these place-names appear scattered over a wide range of territory. Óðinn place-names, in fact, are unique in that they are both widely and yet inconsistently spread. I suggest that since elite rulers were a part of a network that spanned long distances, but which operated out of very particular centres of power, their influence would not have permeated the landscape of the general populace around and between these places of power. As such, the placenames associated with a god worshipped in that milieu would be unevenly distributed geographically. If we were to see an even spread of place-names, that would more likely indicate a deity that was widely worshipped among the common populace, extending from community to community. This is exactly what we see with Þórr, for example, whose place-name distribution is evenly spread. 40 As such, we can say the wide ranging, yet sporadic 37 For detailed discussions of place-names, see Vikstrand, Gudarnas platser, pp. 31–32, 130, and Brink, ‘How Uniform was the Old Norse Religion?’, pp. 107–109. 38 Chaney, The Cult of Kingship, p. 36; Dickens, ‘English Names’, pp. 154–155; Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 99–100; Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Paganism, pp. 11–12. 39 See Brink, ‘How Uniform was the Old Norse Religion?’, pp. 105–135 for an overview of the theophoric place-names associated with major deities in Scandinavia. 40 See Brink, ‘How Uniform was the Old Norse Religion?’, p. 114.

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Figure 9.1 The distribution of theophoric place names in Scandinavia containing the name of the god Óðinn; open circles are uncertain. Based on Brink, ‘How Uniform was the Old Norse Religion?’, p. 112, with locations of sites using salr (‘hall’) added. By permission of Stefan Brink.

locations in which Óðinn place-names are found can be seen as evidence of their association with a very particular milieu which was both mobile and had a far-reaching network. His connection to the word element salr is a powerful indication that he was connected directly to developing central places and the structures immediately controlled and operated by the warrior aristocracy.

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The Iconography of Óðinn A number of images appear throughout the corpus of Iron Age Scandinavian physical culture whose features have resulted in researchers identifying them with Óðinn. 41 One particular motif-group comprising a number of horned figures (some with one eye), began appearing on a number of mediums during about the sixth century, in southern Scandinavia, England, and Germany, and continued into the Viking Age. Mikaela Helmbrecht recently constructed a comprehensive overview of the motif-group, with the conclusion that a connection must exist between these images and the figure of Óðinn.42 The same conclusion was also reached by Neil Price, who has argued that the horned figures with one eye can be placed alongside a variety of other items featuring an altered or damaged eye, including the Sutton Hoo and Valsgärde helmets, all of which, to his mind, also indicate Óðinn worship. 43 These items will be surveyed here.

Bird-Headed Terminals and Horned Figures The horned figures are found in a variety of contexts. Some, such as the famous Torslunda plates, seem to represent real life figures engaging in ritual dance. 44 Others seem to represent figures which cannot possibly be real human beings, such as the small, ‘helping figure’ on the Valsgärde helmets, which appear hovering behind warriors riding into combat and seem to help guide the warrior’s spear. 45 Several images appear as small figurines and have been found on the yards of cult-houses, such as at Tissø and Uppåkra.46 The horned figures are found throughout Southern Scandinavia, from Denmark up into Uppland. Some 41 Helmbrecht, ‘Figures, Foils and Faces’. Attempts to identify Óðinn in Iron Age imagery are widespread and the literature is too large to detail here. However, Migration Era bracteates should be mentioned. Karl Hauck has attempted to identify Óðinn in the imagery of the bracteates (see ‘Die Wiedergabe‘, pp. 474–512; ‘Die runenkundigen Erfinder’, p. 39). In the last twenty years, however, Hauck’s arguments have faced considerable criticism. A comprehensive overview of Hauck’s research and of the criticism it has faced is provided by Nancy Wicker in ‘Bracteate Inscriptions’, pp. 25–26. As Wicker shows, Hauck’s identif ications are too problematic to be relied upon. 42 Helmbrecht, ‘Figures with Horned Headgear’, pp. 31–54. 43 Price and Mortimer, ‘An Eye for Odin?’. 44 Bruce-Mitford, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, Plate 54c. 45 Helmbrecht, ‘Figures with Horned Headgear’, p. 34. 46 Helmbrecht, ‘Figures with Horned Headgear’, p. 38, and ‘Figures, Foils and Faces, p. 23.

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Figure 9.2 The ‘Helping Figure’, from Greta Arwidsson, Båtgravarna i Valsgärde, p. 58. By permission of Statens Historiska Museer.

are found as far south as Germany, while others are found in settlements as far east as Russia, or else in graves in England such as at Sutton Hoo. Some of the figures wear headgear with pointed horns, but others wear headgear featuring terminals that end in elaborate bird heads. Four of the horned figures found thus far have either one eye or have an eye that has been intentionally damaged using a tool. Óðinn’s fame for having one eye is mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, and the one-eyed figures mentioned above are not as isolated as they might appear, forming a part of a second, overlapping motif of one-eyed figures.

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Horned and Bird-Headed figures with One Eye The four horned figures with one eye are the ‘Torslunda Dancer’ (sixth to eighth century), the ‘Staraja Ladoga Horned Figure’ (eighth to ninth century), 47 the ‘Uppåkra Horned Figure’ (eighth to tenth century), 48 and the Ribe Horned Pendant (eighth to tenth century). 49 The Torslunda f igure and the Staraja Ladoga f igure both have bird terminals while the Uppåkra and Ribe figures have horns. The Torslunda Dancer is a part of a sheet-metal stamping matrix depicting a dancing figure with a horned headdress ending in bird terminals beside a second figure dressed in a wolfskin. The Uppåkra and Staraja Ladoga figures are both busts of a figure’s head. The Uppåkra figure was found not far from the cult-house, and close to the discarded eye-ridge of a helmet, discussed below. The Ribe figure was found at the same location as the previously discussed skull fragment with the Óðinnic runic inscription. All four images were manufactured with two identical eyes but afterwards a sharp object had been used to strike out and chisel away at one eye. All four acts of ocular destruction appear intentional.50

One-Eyed Figures Without Horns The Valsgärde helmet at Burial Site Seven, the Sutton Hoo helmet, and the Vendel Grave Twelve shield-grip all feature animal heads which had been manufactured with garnet eyes with one of them intentionally missing a gold-foil backing. This will be discussed further below but here it is worth pointing out that the stylistic effect is that one eye is darker and without the ‘shine’ of the other. Additionally, the silver-gilt tongue to a buckle found at Elsfleth, in northwest Germany is decorated with a mask-like face. Gouge marks are clearly visible, leaving a jagged hole where the left eye had once been.51

47 Roesdahl and Wilson, From Viking to Crusader, p. 298. 48 Helmbrecht, ‘Figures, Foils and Faces’, p. 23. 49 Helmbrecht, ‘Figures with Horned Headgear’, p. 43. 50 See Arrhenius and Freij, ‘“Pressbleck” Fragments’, pp. 76–81; Price and Mortimer, ‘An Eye for Odin?’, p. 525; Helmbrecht, ‘Figures with Horned Headgear’, pp. 35–43. 51 Price and Mortimer, ‘An Eye for Odin?’, p. 525.

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Figure 9.3 The ‘Torslunda Dancer’, from Knut Stjerna, Hjälmar och svärd i Beovulf, p. 103. By permission of Statens Historiska Museer.

The One-Eyed Masks Evidence also exists of Iron Age rulers or prominent aristocratic figures giving special attention to one eye on the facemask of their own ceremonial headgear. Either the masks of their helms would have been manufactured to give the impression that the wearer was one-eyed, or else altered as a means of emphasizing one eye over the other. There is also evidence to suggest that rulers could have ritually deposited one of the eye-guards of their helm. These items add weight to the idea that the images discussed above might depict a ruler utilizing the concept of being one-eyed in a ritualistic setting. The masked Sutton Hoo Helm from the early seventh century is the main item in this group.52 Not only is the helm crested with a one-eyed animal described above, as well as portraying dancing figures with bird-headed horns, the helm itself has been shown to be ‘one-eyed’, or at least to strongly feature one eye. Both eye-guards of the mask are lined with garnets, but while the garnets lining the right eye are backed with gold foils, the garnets of the left eye are curiously missing them. To put this into context, all garnet finds in the expansive Sutton Hoo burial have foil backings except for the left eye-guard of the helm, and one eye of the animal ridge on that helm.53 This could not be a coincidence, and the effect is that foil-backed gems (and 52 For details on this find see Bruce-Mitford, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, p. 24. 53 See Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, p. 169, and Marzinzik, The Sutton Hoo Helmet, pp. 29–30.

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eyes) shine while those missing them are dark and lustreless.54 The Sutton Hoo helm was almost certainly designed to appear with one shining eye and one dark eye. At least two decorative eye-guards belonging to helmets very much like those from Sutton Hoo, Valsgärde, and Vendel have been found in a context that suggests that they were intentionally removed from their helmet and deposited. The first was found just outside the cult-house at Uppåkra and is dated to the Vendel Era. A parallel to the find in Uppåkra has been found at Gevninge, just north of Lejre in Denmark, where an ocular ring belonging to a similar mask to those described above was found. Both the eye-guards in Uppåkra and at Gevninge have been argued to have been ritually deposited.55

The Worship of Óðinn in the Migration and Vendel Periods: Conclusion This chapter has shown that the concept of Óðinn existed in Germany, southern Scandinavia, and parts of Anglo-Saxon England in the sixth and seventh centuries. This is demonstrated in Óðinn place-names and the earliest references, the former also showing his prominence among an emerging aristocracy with widespread contacts and a connection to halls and central places. The iconographic evidence presented here, when considered alongside the fact that Óðinn in later times is described as being one-eyed, to have two birds that whispered into his ears, to use a spear, and to have connections with rulers and battle, gives further reason to consider that certain rulers were connecting themselves to the figure of Óðinn in one way or another. A comparison of the distribution of horned figures in Scandinavia with the mapping of Óðinn place-names as seen in Figure 9.1 shows that they are both found in similar environments,56 providing further support for 54 Price and Mortimer sum up the importance of cloisonné-technique garnet work as follows: ‘Although garnets can be quite bright, especially if cut thinly, when placed in this way against a solid background their lustre is substantially dimmed. Early Medieval jewel-smiths solved this problem by inserting wafer-thin foils of gold, or occasionally silver, at the base of the cells into which the garnets were set. Stamped with a cross-hatched pattern, the foils reflected light back through the stone to produce the gorgeous red glow for which the Sutton Hoo regalia is known. The use of gold foils in this way is virtually universal in Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian cloisonné garnet jewelry, and Sutton Hoo is no exception’ (Price and Mortimer, ‘An Eye for Odin?’, p. 521). 55 Christensen, ‘Kongens mand – guld og hjelm fra Gevninge’, p. 43; Price and Mortimer, ‘An Eye for Odin?’, p. 523. 56 See Rood, ‘Ascending the Steps to Hliðskjálf ’, p. 150.

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the idea that these figures might be associated with the figure of Óðinn. No other deity shares the same distribution pattern in theophoric place-names as Óðinn, whose distribution seems to mirror the areas in which the new breed of elite ruler seems to have been establishing monumental halls with closely attached cult-houses during the later Roman Iron Age and the Vendel Era. Indeed, objects that contain horned-figure imagery and one-eyed imagery have even been found near the cult-houses at Uppåkra and Tissø, and at and around Uppsala, and near Lejre. If, as implied above, these are in fact Óðinnic objects, then they demonstrate still further Óðinn’s apparent connection to the emerging milieu of warrior rulers which seem to have developed and operated out of these sites during the period in question. The artefacts presented in this chapter strongly suggest something much more complex than a mere association between Óðinn, horned helmets with bird-head terminals, and one-eyed f igures. The ‘helping f igures’ depicted on the Sutton Hoo and Valsgärde helms perhaps suggest the idea of a supernatural Óðinn guiding the spear of a chosen warrior in combat. Other images seem to reflect ceremonies associated with the god, such as images depicting pairs of weapon dancers and dancers alongside figures in wolf-skins.57 Such an idea is supported by the Sutton Hoo helmet which, as noted above, was obviously designed to make the wearer look one-eyed, in addition to being adorned with Óðinnic imagery. Indeed, the Valsgärde Grave Seven helmet was designed in a similar fashion to the Sutton Hoo helm, with the same sequence of scenes on its panels and a one-eyed beast on its brow. Price has gone as far as to suggest that the rulers using these masks were attempting to present themselves as Óðinn himself.58 He argues that the apparent sacrifice and deposition of the eye-ridge from Uppåkra and the ocular from Gevninge might seem to support this idea still further, reflecting a ritual ‘eye-offering’ by rulers. The dating of the items in question is also interesting in the present context. Price has noted that the one-eyed motif within a Germanic context seems to have begun around the sixth century, and Helmbrecht has observed the same with regard to the image of horned figures with bird terminals on the horns.59 As I have pointed out, the earliest references to Óðinn appear on runic inscriptions from Germany roughly at the same time and shortly 57 In fact, it has been suggested that the figure in a wolf costume might be another form of evidence for Óðinn-worship, through Óðinn’s potential connection with the berserkir and úlfheðnar; see further, Hauck, ‘Die runenkundigen Erfinder’. 58 Price and Mortimer, ‘An Eye for Odin?’, p. 533. 59 Price and Mortimer, ‘An Eye for Odin?’, p. 532, and Helmbrecht, ‘Figures with Horned Headgear’, p. 34.

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thereafter in Denmark. Helmsbrecht has noted that the earlier wave of horned and one-eyed figures demonstrate lively and dynamic variances and that they become standardized and ‘traditional’ by the Viking Age.60 She argues that this represents a transition from that of a ‘fresh, new concept’ during the Vendel period toward an established and customary one in the Viking Age. It is noteworthy then that these new and dynamic motifs are found almost entirely on the personal equipment of those people that seem to belong to the elite warrior milieu which was emerging at that same time. The implications are that as this milieu constructed and demonstrated their emerging and transforming identity, the figure of Óðinn also changed and transformed to reflect their dynamic uses of him. If the figure in question is Óðinn, then the Óðinn of the sixth and seventh centuries is not the same as the Óðinn that appears in western Scandinavian contexts after the Viking Age. Even where similarities can be seen, as in the single eye and the images of the birds, there is a good chance that they would have meant something contextually different at that time. Perhaps the reason the one-eyed images are not so overwhelmingly prevalent in the earlier period is because the concept of Óðinn as a one-eyed god was still developing across the area and had not yet become firmly rooted in tradition. We may even be seeing imagery and rituals which had not yet become a part of the Óðinn figure, and which would merge with his mythos later on. The Óðinn of the Vendel Era appears to have been a deity under construction, developing as part of the ideologies of a new elite warrior identity, which included concepts of ritual warfare and the rights implicit in rulership. Here we can see his association with kings, warfare, and the bestowal of victory which would continue into the later Icelandic sources. In that regard these features show a strong degree of continuity in time and space. But he would also continue to develop. It seems likely that Óðinn transitioned from a symbol of social identity for a new warrior milieu in the Vendel Era into a god that legitimized sovereign power during the Viking Age. As his worshippers institutionalized their authority, forming kingdoms and nations, he would have developed into a transnational god. It might be that, in this way, as the worship of Óðinn spread north and west and moved between cultures and social groups, he took on countless new roles, such as poetry and a search for wisdom, or else new contexts for those he already had, such as an association with birds, wolves, and one eye. By the end of the Viking Age, ruling from his high seat in Valhǫll, Óðinn was the cosmic equivalent of the sovereign warlord. He was also, in many 60 Helmbrecht, ‘Figures with Horned Headgear’, p. 41.

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ways, a manifestation of the turbulent changes and transitions that southern Scandinavian society experienced during the Vendel and early Viking Age. Just as the period in question witnessed a new type of warrior rulers rising to usurp the old tribal clan leaders, and reshaping society around themselves the same thing seems to have taken place in Ásgarðr. Óðinn ascended the steps to Hliðskjálf to become sovereign ruler of the heathen gods.

Bibliography Andrén, Anders, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere, ‘Old Norse Religion: Some Problems and Prospects’, in Old Norse Religion in Long Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions, ed. by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere, Vägar till Midgård 8 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006), pp. 11–14. Andrén, Anders, ‘Behind “Heathendom”: Archaeological Studies of Old Norse Religion’, Scottish Archaeological Journal 27.2 (2007), 105–138. Arrhenius, Birgit, and Henry Freij, ‘“Pressbleck” Fragments from the East Mound in Old Uppsala Analyzed with a Laser Scanner’, Laborativ arkeologi 6 (1992), 75–110. Arwidsson, Greta, ‘Båtgravarna i Valsgärde’, in Vendeltid, ed. by Ann Sandwall (Stockholm: Statens Historisk Museer, 1980), pp. 45–64. Bican, Josefine, ‘Bulbrogård, the First Aristocratic Complex at Tissø – and a New Approach to the Aristocratic Sites’, in Siedlungs- Und Küstenforschung Im Südlichen Nordseegebiet: Gedächtnis-kolloquium Werner Haarnagel (1907–1984), ed. by Erwin StrahlSiedlungs, Und Küstenforschung Im Südlichen Nordseegebiet 33. (Rahden: Marie Leidorf, 2010), pp. 147–154. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, ed. Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Íslenzk fornrit XXVI– XXVIII (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1941–1951). Brink, Stefan, ‘Political and Social Structures in Early Scandinavia I: A SettlementHistorical Pre-Study of the Central Place’, Tor 28 (1996), 235–282. Brink, Stefan, ‘How Uniform was the Old Norse Religion?’, in Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World: Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross, ed. by Judy Quinn, Kate Heslop, and Tarrin Wells (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 105–135. Brink, Stefan, ‘Myth and Ritual in Pre-Christian Scandinavian Landscape’, in Sacred Sites and Holy Places: Exploring the Sacralization of Landscape Through Time and Space, ed. by Sæbjørg Nordeide and Stefan Brink, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 33–51. Bruce-Mitford, Rupert, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology: Sutton Hoo and other Discoveries (New York: Harper’s Magazine Press, 1974).

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Bruce-Mitford, Rupert, The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial, Volume 2 (London: British Museum Publications, 1978). Chaney, William, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970). Christensen, Tom, ‘Lejre Beyond Lejre: The Archaeological Evidence’, Journal of Danish Archaeology 10 (1993), 163–185. Christensen, Tom, ‘Kongens mand – guld og hjelm fra Gevninge’ in Drik – og du vil leve skønt, ed John Pind (Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, 2002), pp. 41–45 Christensen, Tom, ‘Lejre and Roskilde’, in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink with Neil Price (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 121–125. Christensen, Tom, Lejre bag Myten: De arkæologiske udgravninger, Jysk Arkæologisk selskabs skrifter 87 (Højbjerg: Jysk Arkæologistk Selskab, 2015). Colgrave, Bertram, Roger Aubery, and Baskerville Mynors, ed. and trans., Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). Dickens, Bruce, ‘English Names and Old English Heathenism’, Essays and Studies 19 (1933), 148–160. DuBois, Thomas A., Nordic Religions in the Viking Age (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, ed., Brennu-Njáls saga, Íslenzk fornrit XII (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1954). Fabech, Charlotte, and Ulf Näsman, ‘Ritual Landscapes and Sacral Places in the First Millennium AD in South Scandinavia’, in Sacred Sites and Holy Places: Exploring the Sacralization of Landscape through Space and Time, ed. by Sæbjørg Nordeide and Stefan Brink, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 53–110. Faulkes, Anthony, ed., Snorri Sturluson, Edda: Skáldskaparmál 1: Introduction, Text and Notes (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998). Faulkes, Anthony, ed., Snorri Sturluson, Edda: Gylfaginning and Prologue, 2nd edition (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2005). Foulke, William Dudley, trans., Paulus Diaconus, History of the Langobards (Historia Langobardorum) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1907). Gunnell, Terry, ‘Pantheon? What Pantheon? Concepts of a Family of Gods in PreChristian Scandinavian Religions’, Scripta Islandica 66 (2015), 55–76. Hauck, Karl, ‘Die Wiedergabe von Göttersymbolen und Sinnzeichen der A-, B- und C- Brakteaten auf D- und F- brakteaten Exemplarisch erhellt mit Speer und Kreuz’, Zur Ikonologie der Goldbrakteaten 35, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 20 (1986), 474–512.

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Hauck, Karl, ‘Die runenkundigen Erfinder von den Bildchiffren der Goldbrakteaten’, Zur Ikonologie der Goldbrakteaten 7, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 32 (1998), 28–56. Hedeager, Lotte, trans. J. Hines, Iron Age Societies: From Tribe to State in Northern Europe, 500 BC to AD 700 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). Hedeager, Lotte, ‘Asgaard Reconstructed? Gudme – A “Central Place” in the North’, in Topographies of Power in the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Mayke de Jong, Frans Theuws, and Carine van Rhijn, Transformation of the Roman World 6 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), pp. 467–508. Helgesson, Bertil, ‘Uppåkra in the 5th to 7th Centuries. The Transformation of a Central Place and its Hinterland’, in Central Places in the Migration and Merovingian Periods: Papers from the 52nd Sachsensymposium, Lund, August 2001, ed. by Birgitta Hårdh and Lars Larsson, Acta Archaeological Lundensia Series 8, no. 39 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2002), pp. 31–40. Helgesson, Bertil, ‘Tributes to be Spoken of: Sacrifices and Warriors at Uppåkra’, in Continuity for Centuries: A Ceremonial Building and its Context at Uppåkra, Southern Sweden, ed. by Lars Larsson, pp. 223–239, Uppåkrastudier 10 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2004). Helmbrecht, Michaela, ‘Figures with Horned Headgear: A Case Study of Context Analysis and Social Significance of Pictures in Vendel and Viking Age Scandinavia’, Lund Archaeological Review 13–14 (2007–2008), 31–54. Helmbrecht, Michaela, ‘Figures, Foils and Faces: Fragments of a Pictorial World. Anthropomorphic Images from the Vendel Period and Viking Age Found at Uppåkra’, in Folk, fä och fynd. Uppåkrastudier 12, ed. by Lars Larsson and Birgitta Hårdh, Acta Archaeologica Lundensia Series 8, no. 64. (Lund: Institutionen för arkeologi och antikens historia, 2013), pp. 9–31. Hill, Thomas, ‘Woden and The Pattern of Nine: Numerical Symbolism in Some Old English Royal Genealogies’, Old English Newsletter 15.2 (1982), 41–42. Hill, Thomas, ‘Woden as “Ninth Father”: Numerical Patterning in Some Old English Royal Genealogies’, in Germania: Comparative Studies in the Old Germanic Languages and Literatures, ed. by Daniel Calder and T. Craig Christy (Cambridge: Brewer, 1988), pp. 161–174. Hårdh, Birgitta, ‘Uppåkra in the Migration and Merovingian Periods’, in Central Places in the Migration and Merovingian Periods: Papers from the 52nd Sachsensymposium, Lund, August 2001, ed. by Birgitta Hårdh and Lars Larsson, Acta Archaeological Lundensia Series 8, no. 39 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2002), pp. 41–54. Hårdh, Birgitta, ‘The Contacts of the Central Place’, in Centrality – Regionality: The Social Structure of Southern Sweden During the Iron Age, ed. by Lars Larsson and Birgitta Hårdh, Acta Archaeological Lundensia Series 8, no. 40 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2003), pp. 27–66.

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John, Eric, ‘The Point of Woden’, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 5 (1992), 127–134. Jón Helgason, ed., Eddadigte, vols. 1–3, (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1962). Jones, Horace Leonard, ed. and trans., The Geography of Strabo, 8 vols. The Loeb Classical Library (New York: Putnam, 1917–1932). Jørgensen, Lars, ‘Manor, Cult and Market at Lake Tissø’, in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink with Neil Price (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 77–82. Jørgensen, Lars, ‘Pre-Christian Cult at Aristocratic Residences and Settlement Complexes in Southern Scandinavia in the 3rd–10th Centuries AD’, in Glaube, Kult und Herrschaft: Phänomene des Religiösen im 1. Jahrtausend n. Chr. In Mittelöund Nordeuropa, ed. by Uta Freeden, Herwig Friesinger, and Egon Wamers (Bonn: Dr. Rudolf Habelt GMBH, 2009), pp. 329–354. Jørgensen, Lars, ‘Gudme-Lundeborg on Funen as a Model for Northern Europe?’, in The Gudme/Gudhem Phenomenon: Papers Presented at a Workshop Organized by the Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA), Schleswig, April 26th and 27th, 2010, ed. by Oliver Grimm and Alexandra Pesch (Neumünster: Wachholtz Verlag, 2011), pp. 77–89. Jørgensen, Lars, ‘Norse Religion and Ritual Sites in Scandinavia in the 6th–11th century’, in Northern Worlds – Landscapes, Interactions and Dynamics: Research at the National Museum of Denmark. Proceedings of the Northern Worlds Conference Copenhagen 28-30 November 2012, ed. by Hans Christian Gulløv, Studies in Archaeology and History 22 (Copenhagen: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2014), pp. 239–264. Krause, Wolfgang, Die Runeninschriften im älteren Futhark, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Philologisch-Historische Klass 3, no. 65 (Göttingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 1966). Krusch, Bruno, ed., Fredegar; Fredegarii et Aliorum Chronica: Vitae Sanctorum, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum 2 (Hanover: Hahn, 1888). Krusch, Bruno, ed., Jonas of Bobbio; Passiones vitaeque Sanctorum Merovingicarum. Monumenta Germaniae historica scriptorium rerum Merovingicarum 4 (Hanover: Hahn, 1902). Larsson, Lars, ‘Uppåkra-Research on a Central place. Recent Excavations and Results’, in Central Places in the Migration and Merovingian Periods: Papers from the 52nd Sachsensymposium, Lund, August 2001, ed. by Birgitta Hårdh and Lars Larsson, Acta Archaeological Lundensia Series 8, no. 39 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2002), pp. 19–30. Larsson, Lars, and Karl-Magnus Lenntorp, ‘The Enigmatic House’, in Continuity for Centuries: A Ceremonial Building and its Context at Uppåkra, Southern Sweden,

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ed. by Lars Larsson, Uppåkrastudier 10 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2004), pp. 3–48 Ljungkvist, John, and Per Frölund, ‘Gamla Uppsala – The Emergence of a Centre and a Magnate Complex’, Journal of Archaeology and Ancient History 16 (2015), 3–29. MacLeod, Mindy, and Bernard Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2006). Marzinzik, Sonja, The Sutton Hoo Helmet (London: British Museum Press, 2007). Mattingly, Harold, and S. A. Handfor, ed. and trans., Cornelius Tacitus, The Agricola and the Germania (New York: Penguin Books, 1977). Moltke, Erik, trans. Peter G. Foote, Runes and Their Origin: Denmark and Elsewhere (Copenhagen: National Museum, 1985). Näsman, Ulf, ‘The Scandinavians’ View of Europe in the Migration Period’, in The World-View of Prehistoric Man: Papers Presented at a Symposium in Lund, 5–7 May, 1997, ed. by Lars Larsson and Berta Stjernquist (Stockholm: Kungliga vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademien, 1998), pp. 103–121. O’Hara, Alexander, ‘The Vita Columbani in Merovingian Gaul’, Early Medieval Europe 17.2 (2009), 126–153. Olsen, Magnus, ed. Vǫlsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar, Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur (Copenhagen: S.L. Møllers, 1906–1908). Pohl, Walter, ‘The Barbarian Successor States’, in The Transformations of the Roman World AD 400–900, ed. by Leslie Webster and Michelle Brown (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 33–47. Price, Neil S., and Paul Mortimer, ‘An Eye for Odin? Divine Role-Playing in the Age of Sutton Hoo’, European Journal of Archaeology 17.3 (2014), 517–538). Roesdahl, Else and David Wilson, From Viking to Crusader: The Scandinavians and Europe 800–1200 (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1992). Rood, Joshua, ‘Ascending the Steps to Hliðskjálf: The Cult of Óðinn in Early Scandinavian Aristocracy’, Unpublished MA Thesis in Old Nordic Religions at the University of Iceland, 2017. Shaw, Philip Andrew, Uses of Wodan: The Development of his Cult and of Medieval Literary Responses to It (Leeds: University of Leeds, 2002). Shaw, Philip Andrew, ‘The Origins of the Theophoric Week in the Germanic Languages’, Early Medieval Europe 15.4 (2007), 386–401 Steinsland, Gro, Norrøn Religion: Myter, Riter, Samfunn (Oslo: Pax, 2005). Stenton, Frank, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford History of England 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Stjerna, Knut, ‘Hjälmar och svärd i Beovulf’, festskrift til Oscar Montelius (Stockholm, 1903). Sundqvist, Olof, Gudme on Funen: A Central Sanctuary with Cosmic Symbolism? In The Gudme/Gudhem Phenomenon: Papers Presented at a Workshop

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Organized by the Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA), Schleswig, April 26th and 27th, 2010 (Neumünster: Wachholtz Verlag, 2011), pp. 63–76. Vikstrand, Per, Gudarnas platser: Förkristna sakrala ortnamm i Mälarlandskapen, Studier till en svensk orgnammsatlas 17, no. 72 (Uppsala: Kungl Gustav Adolfs akademien för svensk folkkultur, 2001). Waitz, G., ed., Paulus Diaconus, Origo Gentis Langobardorum, Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum, Saec. VI–IX, Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Hanover: Hahn, 1878). Whaley, Diana, ed., Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas: From Mythical Times to c. 1035, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012). Wicker, Nancy, ‘Bracteate Inscriptions and Context Analysis in the Light of Alternatives to Hauck’s Iconographic Interpretations’, Futhark: International Journal of Runic Studies 5 (2014), 25–43. Wilson, David, Anglo-Saxon Paganism (London: Routledge, 1992). Wood, Ian, ‘The Vita Columbani and Merovingian Hagiography’, Peritia 1 (1982), 63–80.

About the Author Joshua Rood is a PhD candidate at the University of Iceland where he is researching Old Norse Religion in modern NeoPaganism. His research experience is in the study of Old Norse Religion, in which he completed his MA in 2017.

10 Myth to History in Saxo Morten Warmind Abstract Saxo Grammaticus composed his Gesta Danorum as a written monument to the ancient greatness of the Danes. To write his rather tedious work he used a varied mass of materials, including sagas and chronicles as well as mythological tales, which he historicizes. Georges Dumézil in Du mythe au roman demonstrated in his study of Saxo’s tale of Haddingus how the elements of the story could be related in detail to the story of Njord as recounted by Snorri Sturluson, Saxo’s younger Icelandic contemporary. This is only one of such instances. In my chapter I treat the visit to Geirrod and the sacrifice of King Vikar in order to demonstrate how Saxo used and historicized these materials of which he is sometimes our oldest source. Keywords: Danish legendary history, Danish exploration, giants, Edda, Thor, Odin

The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus wrote his Gesta Danorum, which was probably completed not long after 1208,1 as a monument to the ancient greatness of the Danes. It is easy to forget that he predates the Icelander Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241). Saxo is verbose and clumsy as a storyteller, always moralizing and always hammering home his points. In translation it is impossible to demonstrate the elegance of his Latin compositions – and even this elegance seems contrived and unappealing. It is no wonder that his work only survived in a single printed source, an edition published in 1514.2 His heavy-handed historicization is probably one reason that it is Snorri who has become the basis for most general introductions to, and retellings of, Nordic myths. Saxo is often disregarded completely, even though he is 1 2

Friis-Jensen, ed., and Fisher, trans., Saxo Grammaticus. Gesta Danorum, vol. 1, p. xxxiv. Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. li, lxiii.

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older and actually seems to know much of the same material as Snorri – a point that I find interesting and deserving of more attention than it usually gets. The great French historian of religion, Georges Dumézil, has treated the matter of how the brief episode of Skadi and Njord in Snorri could be shown to be similar in great detail to the story of Hadingus in Saxo.3 The title of Dumézil’s book – Du mythe au roman – demonstrates my point about the implied relationship between the two authors. Snorri is treated as the more faithful preserver of myths, whereas Saxo is seen as a distorter and a writer of fiction. It is my opinion that this view should be modified somewhat, and to show this I will firstly treat another instance where Saxo and Snorri work with the same material.

The Visit to Geirrod in Saxo and Snorri The visit of Thor to the giant Geirrod is one of the few stories which we know in several different versions, as John Lindow notes in his study of the story. 4 From an episode and a skaldic verse in the short story Sneglu-Halla tháttr, which is set during the reign of Harald Hardradi (1047–1066), Lindow shows that the story must have been well known. Beyond this, the verse adds little to our understanding of the story, so I will not examine it here, but refer to Lindow. The story is simple enough. Without his hammer, but with a staff called Griðarvölr instead, Thor and a companion cross a mighty river to meet the giant Geirrod. They are exposed to dangers, but overcome them, and kill first Geirrod’s daughters and then Geirrod himself. Eilíf: Thórsdrápa This story is f irst known from the poem Thórsdrápa by the skald Eilíf Gudrúnarson, who also composed a poem on the Norwegian Earl Hakon who died in 995. This is therefore a source which predates the versions of Snorri and Saxo by two hundred years. The sad fact that our knowledge of the poem and our means of understanding it depend on Snorri, who quotes it in his Edda,5 is a complicating factor. 3 Dumézil, Du mythe au roman: la Saga de Hadingus (Saxo Grammaticus, I, v–viii) et autres essais. 4 Lindow, ‘Mythic Narrative Modes’, p. 1. 5 Finnur Jónsson, Edda, pp. 107–110; Faulkes, Edda, pp. 83–86.

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The poem begins with Loki persuading Thor deceitfully to go to the home of Geirrod and tells how Thor and Thjalfi set off. They come to a river, and the next six stanzas describe the trouble they have wading it. A mention is made of the point that Thor declares his megin (divine strength) will grow to the sky, if the water does not diminish. They find out that a giantess causes the river to grow. Possibly she is killed with the Griðarvölr carried by Thor. They reach the other side and have a battle with giants. When they go into the giant’s dwelling there is uproar, and they are in danger from the head of a giantess, but we read that they employ swords against two giantesses whom they kill, and the backs of both the giantesses were broken. In Geirrod’s hall a piece of glowing iron is thrown at Thor’s mouth, but he catches it and throws it back at Geirrod, hitting him in the midriff, even though his head was behind a pillar of the hall. Then Thor and Thjalfi bravely fight and kill everybody. Saxo: Gesta Danorum The next version which we know is that of Saxo.6 His framework is quite different. He describes the visit as what must be the first Royal Danish Scientific Expedition to foreign shores – to see the dwelling of Geruth, his version of the name Geirrod. The king, called Gorm, participates himself, but plays absolutely no role. The leader of the expedition is a certain Thorkil, who is an expert guide. He knows that the seas up in the north-east are dangerous and require a type of armour against the ice-floes for the ships. Three hundred men sail out. They are tempted in various ways; in a scene, which parallels the Odyssey they eat some forbidden cattle and a man from each ship must pay with his life. Then they encounter the brother of Geruth, Guthmund. If you accept food or daughters from him, you will lose your sanity. He provides transport over a river. The dwelling of Geruth is inside a town filled with noisy deformed beings and his house is made of stone. Interestingly inside his house everything is dilapidated and covered in the dust and grime of centuries. The furniture is made of iron and lead and, even though the doorkeepers appear to be alive, the inhabitants appear to be dead. They see a broken rock and an old man who had been pierced. They are also aware of three women who looked as if they had no force in their backs. Thorkil the guide knows the reason: Thor had pierced Geruth with a glowing piece of iron, which had subsequently broken the rock. The women had been struck by lightning by the same god. 6 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. 598–613; viii. 14. 2–20.

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Though Thorkil had warned everyone not to touch anything, in the immense treasure chamber of the giant he himself is tempted to grasp a precious cloak. This causes the household to awaken from their slumber and attack the men. Only twenty escape, and of these one more is lost to a daughter of Guthmund on the way back. When they are in danger at sea on their homeward journey, the king calls on Ugarthilocus and at once receives a good wind. Saxo may not be good at telling a story, but he is certainly brilliant in conceiving an interesting angle for it. In this version, the pagan religion is long dead and the stories of that age are rusty remains of something old and decrepit. They can be visited like a ruin or a grave, covered in dust, and filth. They are not alive, even if they are not entirely dead. Snorri: Edda Not so with our third storyteller, Snorri. His narrative framework is often ignored, but we should note in passing, that this is a story told by someone in a story. In Chapter 27 (or Chapter 18 in some editions) of the Skáldskaparmál,7 Snorri begins the tale by relating how Loki was caught by Geirrod in the shape of a bird when he stuck to the wall of a building. Snorri – in his way of moralizing – describes it as an accident, based on Loki’s mischievousness. Loki wanted to tease the man climbing the wall to catch him. Loki was tortured until he promised to bring Thor to Geirrod without his hammer and belt of strength. Loki and Thor spent the night at the home of the giantess Grid, who disclosed to Thor that there was danger ahead and provided him with another belt of strength, a staff called Griðarvölr, and a pair of iron gloves. When they waded the river Vimur, they were in danger as it rose violently. Thor then declared: Vaxattu nú Vimur, alls mik thik vaða tíðir jötna garða í; veiztu ef thú vex at thá vex mér ásmegin jafnhátt upp sem himinn. (Don’t grow now Vimur, as I am wading you 7

Finnur Jónsson, Edda, pp.105–107; Faulkes, Edda, pp. 81–83.

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to the dwelling of the giant; know that if you grow then my ásmegin will grow equal to the sky.)8

It is discovered that Gjálp, a daughter of Geirrod, was standing astride the river and caused it to rise. Thor said that ‘at ósi skal á stemma’ (‘a river must be stopped at the source’), and threw a stone, which hit its mark. They came safely to land through the aid of a rowan, and Snorri says that this is the origin of the saying that ‘rowan saves Thor’ (‘reyner er björg Thors’). When they finally arrived, they were shown into a goathouse with one chair. Thor sat in it and it lifted him up into the roof. He used the staff from Grid to push up into the roof and press down and he heard a loud crack and a cry. The two daughters of Geirrod had lifted the chair and he had broken their backs. In the hall Thor was invited to a game and Geirrod, using tongs, threw a glowing mass of iron at him. Thor had his iron gloves and caught it and threw it back at Geirrod who hid behind an iron pillar. Thor threw the glowing mass of iron through the pillar, through Geirrod, and through the wall, and it lodged in the ground outside. End of story. Comparison I would suggest the schematic comparison in Table 10.1, which to my mind shows clearly how alike the three versions are. The events in brackets are possibly parallels but occur at different points in versions of the story. It should be noted, as Lindow does,9 that Saxo mentions the pierced Geirrod before he mentions the daughters. As there is no narrative flow in Saxo’s use of the story, I do not think it could be claimed that Saxo reverses the order of events; he simply points out Geirrod first because he is the most remarkable thing in the house. Apart from these exceptions, it can be seen that the story lines are surprisingly similar, given their different narrative frameworks. It seems to me that there are enough differences to make it unlikely that any one of these stories could be based on one of the others. The three motivations for going on the visit are different as the poem does not provide any reason for 8 Finnur Jónsson, Edda, p. 106; the translations of this and the following quotations are mine. The italics here are mine as well. 9 Lindow, ‘Mythic Narrative Modes’, p. 13.

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Table 10.1 A comparison of narratives in Thórsdrápa, Saxo, and Snorri Thórsdrápa

Saxo

Snorri

Loki lies. Thor and Thjalfi set out.

King Gorm is curious. Thorkil and 300 set out.

They have a lot of trouble wading a river. Giantesses cause the trouble.

[Gudmund must take them over a river.]

Loki is threatened into lying. Thor and Loki set out. Thor gets implements from Grid: a staff, gloves, and a belt. They wade the river Vimur with great difficulty. A giantess called Gjálp causes the trouble. Thor strikes her with a stone. Thor utters a verse declaring that his megin will grow with the river. Reason for a saying involving Thor.

They fight giants. We are told that Thor declared that his megin will grow with the river.

The men eat forbidden cattle and three die. They encounter Gudmund, helper and tempter. The dwelling is noisy, There is noise and they are dangerous, and filthy, in danger from the head of and the guards are a giantess pressed against a threatening. cave. They see three women They use swords, and both with broken backs, struck giantesses have their backs by lightning. broken. [Two of the guards throw a Now in the hall, a bolt of red-hot iron is thrown at Thor. goatskin at each other.] Thor catches the iron, throws it back, and kills Geirrod, although he is behind a pillar. Thor and Thjalfi bravely fight the giants.

In a goathouse, a chair with Thor rises dangerously to the rafters.

Using the staff of Grid, Thor breaks the backs of Gjálp and Greip. Thor is called in for a game and a glowing piece of iron is thrown at him. Thor has gloves, and catches Gerud had been struck with glowing iron by Thor, the iron. He throws it through a pillar, Geirrod, and the wall. who also split a rock. Taking the cloak and flight. [Loki got into the trouble Calling on Ugarthilocus. because he touched the giant’s wall]

Loki to lie. As a motivation, it is possible that Snorri was re-using the theme from the story of how Thjazi made Loki betray Idun;10 the moralizing tone behind Loki’s getting caught would point in that direction. It is of course just as possible that the capture of Loki is an original story, which may or may not have been related to the Geirrod story. 10 For this suggestion see Lindow, ‘Mythic Narrative Modes’, p. 10.

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It is only Snorri who knows – or pretends to know – the names of the giantesses. The names are found in kennings in other poems, but not in a way which indisputably connects them with this story or with Geirrod. In a stanza from Vetrlidi, quoted by Snorri,11 Thor has killed Gjálp, but that is all we learn. Her name, and that of Greip, can also be found in kennings with the meaning of ‘giantess’.12 The strange scene in the goathouse could be an attempt by Snorri to interpret the more obscure stanzas 13–14 of the poem but, even if it were so, it is so very different as to be its own version. The way Snorri describes it, as a room with a single chair that is dangerous, has no parallel in the poem. The poem hints at a story, which might or might not be somewhat similar – no more can be said, I think.13 Despite these differences, there is precise agreement on the method of death of a plurality of giantesses in the three versions. It could even be argued that if Snorri had not named the giantess who causes the river to rise, we would have assumed that there were three giantesses killed, as Saxo says, although in both Snorri and the Thórsdrápa one was killed first, in the river episode. In her quick summary of Snorri’s tale, Hilda Davidson actually implies that three giantesses were killed in this version, and Lindow also suggests this solution.14 Davidson further observes that Snorri has partly based his version on Thórsdrápa. That Snorri knew the poem is indisputable, but the many differences would suggest the opposite to me, namely that he regarded it as a parallel version, which could legitimize his own. The three versions are also in nearly total agreement on many details concerning the death of Geirrod. The glowing iron thrown by Thor goes through Geirrod and something very hard – a pillar or a wall – or, in Snorri, both. In the poem there is a play on food. Geirrod throws a ‘segi of the tongs’, which could mean a piece of meat, into the gaping mouth of Thor (stanza 15), who catches it with ‘the mouth of the hands’ (stanza 16). This play on words is completely absent from Snorri and Saxo. In the poem, the giant tries then to hide his head behind a pillar, but Thor hits him in the middle of his body (bígyrðil – ‘the place of the belt’). This last word corresponds nicely to Saxo’s praecordia (‘midriff’). Snorri just says the iron mass goes through Geirrod. 11 Skáldskaparmál Ch. 12 (or 4), Finnur Jónsson, Edda, p. 97; Faulkes, Edda, p. 74. 12 Skáldskaparmál ch. 31 (or 22) (Greip), Finnur Jónsson, Edda, p. 113; Faulkes, Edda, p. 88, plus Skáldskaparmál ch. 72 (or 58); (Gjálp), Finnur Jónsson, Edda, p. 168; Faulkes, Edda, p. 136. 13 See also the thorough discussion in Lindow, ‘Mythic Narrative Modes’, which includes the stanza pertaining to this in the Uppsala manuscript of the Edda. 14 Davidson, ‘Gudmund of Glasisvellir’, p. 172. Lindow, ‘Mythic Narrative Modes’, p. 13.

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Based on this large number of detailed similarities and differences it seems to me most reasonable to assume a common source for all three versions, though a more complicated relationship could also be imagined. Reconstruction and an Old Interpretation If we look at the elements shared by all three versions, we can see the bare skeleton of the story. An expedition to unknown parts in order to visit Geirrod is undertaken. Water must be crossed. Three giantesses are subjected to violence by Thor. At least two of these have their backs broken. Geirrod is killed by Thor with a glowing piece of iron, which is thrown through Geirrod and a pillar or a wall. In the Thórsdrápa, there are some allusions to food, in that Geirrod’s piece of glowing iron is called a segi and it is thrown at Thor’s mouth and he catches it with the mouth of the hands. In Snorri the river gets a name, Vimur, and only two giantesses actually die, here named Gjálp and Greip. Snorri quotes a stanza in eddic style, which mentions the name Vimur. In the Uppsala manuscript one more stanza is found which provides the names of Gjálp and Greip (who is called Gneip throughout the story). The Thórsdrápa seems to allude to the stanza concerning the ásmegin of Thor. None of the extraneous information in Saxo can be supported by either of the two other sources, and so this is as much as we can learn. As for the original source, it could well be an eddic-style poem, of which both Snorri and Eilíf then must have known fragments. Surely Snorri would have given the title if he had known it. The facts that Eilíf alludes to it and Snorri knew it attest to the importance of the quote, which is now lost to us. The Danish historian of religion Vilhelm Grønbech provided an interpretation in 1931 wherein he treated the story as a myth concerning a sacrifice in a cult-drama.15 The interpretation seems outdated now, but it does provide explanations based on linguistic observations. Grønbech saw the giants as mythical expressions of sacrificial animals. In stanza 4 Eilíf uses the kenning ‘the blood of the land of the sky-shield’16 for the river, right after he mentions that Thor and Thjalfi meet the giantesses there. In stanza 7 the river is called ‘the rash bloodstream of Thorn’s neck’ – Thorn being the name of a giant. Based on this argument, Grønbech understood the river as the mythical expression of the blood from the sacrifice. The peculiar equipment of Thor, the staff, could in his view be an implement used to 15 Grønbech, The Culture of the Teutons, vol. 2, pp. 273–278. 16 Sky-shield = the sun; the land of the sun = the sky; the blood of the sky = water

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direct the flow of the blood. The sacrificial animals had their backs broken, most likely, and they were goats, since the place of their death is a goathouse. The glowing iron, referred to by a word which could mean a piece of meat, could be the heart of one of the animals, he reasoned. Today such reasoning is regarded as somewhat too imaginative, and too reliant on the continuity from a (postulated) actual ritual to the choice of words of a skaldic poet. We should probably content ourselves with noting that here is yet another story, which is probably derived from a myth concerning Thor’s upholding the cosmos by killing giants. Historicization It is very clear that Saxo in this story wanted to write history and not fiction, but he still wished to incorporate the story of Thor’s visit to Geirrod. Interestingly he decided to tell the story as a myth and not as part of the historical events in or around Denmark. Certainly, in his version the events described in the myth have in a sense actually happened – far away and very long ago – and they have left dust-covered smelly traces, which men can discover and explore at their peril. The reader is witness to an archaeological expedition to ancient ruins in foreign lands. This is a very different use from several other examples, where the characters are supposed to be historical figures, only euhemeristically misunderstood as gods because of their great deeds. Most importantly, it shows that Saxo knew very well that the tales he was using in this way were mythological and not historical and thus we gain some insight into the way he was working with his material. His use of a theme from the Odyssey and his incorporation of the character Gudmund can probably be ascribed to his idea that a long story is better than a short one. Gudmund is completely irrelevant to the part of the story which concerns the actual visit to Geirrod. The heroes do not even receive any good advice from him. Annette Lassen has remarked that Saxo seems to have had stories very much like the later fornaldarsögur as his inspiration,17 and this is possible, but, as she notes, Saxo represents our oldest version. In the fornaldarsaga called Þorsteins þáttr bæjarmagns18 we are told a story of a visit to a giant called Geirrod, and it incorporates a character by the name of Godmund. Apart from a crossing of a dangerously cold river, and the throwing of a glowing object, a ball called a seal’s head, which misses 17 Lassen, ‘Saxo og Snorri’, p. 211. 18 ’Þorsteins Þáttr bæjarmagns’, ed. by Jónsson’; ‘Thorstein Mansion-Might’, trans. by Pálsson and Edwards.

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Geirrod, but kills two men behind him, breaks through a glass window and lands outside, none of the details from the other sources are found.19 Gudmund is known from other fornaldarsögur and Saxo seems to have used him to make his story longer. Hilda Davidson has thoroughly discussed the character Gudmund and his possible Celtic origins.20

The Death of King Vikar in Saxo and Gautrek’s Saga To reinforce my point, Saxo’s treatment of the death of King Vikar, which we also know from Gautrek’s Saga, can be seen as a useful contrast to the way he uses the story of Geirrod. Here a myth – or a legendary retelling of a myth – is used as a historical source in a more traditional way. The interesting feature is that Saxo is very much aware that the story is mythical, and he even says this quite explicitly. Gautrek’s Saga The story is told in Gautrek’s Saga,21 and even if it is not the oldest version which we have, Saxo himself declares that he diverges from something that must have been very like the version we have in Gautrek’s Saga. So we shall begin with it. Under the name of Horsehair Grani, Odin had fostered Starkad, and he was the most trusted of King Vikar’s men for many years. On one occasion when Vikar set out with his army they had contrary winds. They learned through divination that Odin required a human sacrifice, and when they drew lots to find out who should be sacrificed, the lots consistently pointed to the king. One night, during the period when this problem was being debated, Grani/Odin took Starkad aside to a clearing in a wood on a small island. Here, twelve gods were to decide on his fate in life. Thor was angry with Starkad, because Starkad’s mother had preferred a giant over Thor himself, and so a kind of promise-and-curse game between Odin and Thor ensued that included the following points. Odin promised that Starkad would have a threefold lifespan, victory and fame in every battle, the ability 19 Þorsteins Þáttr 7. Later (Ch. 10, and cf. Ch. 3) Geirrod is killed by a triangular stone and pointer, thrown into his eyes; motifs seem to have been mixed up here. For an interesting suggestion of the cosmic forces at play in these traditions, see Lyle, ‘Thor’s Return’, esp. pp. 129–130. 20 Davidson, ‘Gudmund of Glasisvellir’, p. 177. 21 ‘Gautreks saga’, ed. by Jónsson; ‘King Gautrek’, trans. by Pálsson and Edwards.

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to compose verses, and high esteem among the nobles. Thor countered that he would commit a foul deed in each lifespan, would be severely wounded in each of his battles, would be unable to remember his verses, and would be hated by the commoners. After this Grani/Odin demanded the sacrifice of King Vikar from Starkad in return for the help he had given him, and he gave him a spear which appeared to be a harmless reed-stalk. The next day Starkad said they should make a kind of mock-sacrifice to appease Odin. He prepared it, tying calf-guts to a slender branch and so making a noose. Then the king put his head in the noose and Starkad stabbed him with the reed-stalk saying: ‘Now I give you to Odin!’ At that moment the reed-stalk showed itself to be a spear, the calf-guts became a strong rope and the branch shot up into the foliage, so that the king died there. Saxo: Gesta Danorum Saxo tells his long tale of Starkad in Book 6.22 He gives a slightly different version from that in Gautrek’s tale. He has heard that Thor had torn off four of Starkad’s originally six arms, but declares that he does not believe in this, and apart from this story, Saxo does not include Thor in the tale. In a poem by Starkad quoted in Gautrek’s Saga he refers to Thor pulling off no less than eight of his arms. It was Odin who wanted King Vikar to die a miserable death and therefore he gave to Starkad bravery, and the art of composing poetry, so that for this he would kill the king. He further gave him three lifespans so that (ut) he could commit a foul deed in each. Starkad then came to serve the king, while waiting for an opportunity to kill him. When the army was weather-bound, the idea of a human sacrifice came up, and the lot fell on the king. Starkad then created an innocent-looking noose of withes (ex viminibus) which was stronger than it looked, so that it actually strangled the king. With his sword Starkad then dispatched him. Comparisons Since Gautrek’s Saga is obviously not based on Saxo, the two tales clearly have a common source. Saxo knows the detail of the originally six arms, and the giant origin of Starkad, but he is unaware of the strife over Starkad between Odin and Thor. 22 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. 378–383; vi. 5. 1–7.

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In his version Odin is behind both good and bad gifts, but he does know the idea that the killing of Vikar is in return for these gifts. It is difficult to decide whether one of these versions is better than the other, but it could be noted, that in the ‘battle’ between Odin and Thor, the distinction between them is similar to that in Hárbarðsljóð, where Thor also is the representative of the common people against the aristocratic Odin.23 Saxo’s version is also very rationalistic. There is no disguised spear, no sacrificial formula, and no sacrificial miraculous transformation. In short, there is no sacrificial Odinic death, but only a miserable one. Interpretation It can well be doubted whether the story of the visit to Geirrod is connected to a ritual drama, such as Grønbech claimed, but no such doubt exists in this case. The story of the death of King Vikar appears to be a reflection of a myth that was connected to the hanging-sacrifice. This is most famously known from Hávamál, stanza 138: Veit ek, at ek hekk vindgameiði á nætr allar nío, geiri undaðr ok gefinn Óðni, siálfr siálfum mér, á þeim meiði, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótum renn. (I know that I hung on a windswept tree full nine nights, wounded with a spear and given to Odin, myself to me myself, on that tree, of which it is unknown from what root it grew.)24 23 Neckel, Edda, pp. 78–87; Larrington, Poetic Edda, pp. 65–73. 24 Neckel, Edda, p. 40; Larrington, Poetic Edda, p. 32. My translation.

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In the verse, the sacrifice is Odin himself and the most probable interpretation of this is that whoever was sacrificed became Odin through the act. It is perhaps more interesting to see that the wording is ‘given to Odin’, just as in the transformative formula uttered by Starkad in Gautrek’s Saga. That the double death of being both hanged and stabbed should be regarded as a genuine Nordic rite of sacrif ice, is made manifest by the observations of the Arab diplomat Ahmad Ibn Fadlan who met people who were very probably Scandinavians among the Volga-Bulgarians. The precise identity and ethnicity of the people called Rus by Ibn Fadlan is still being debated.25 Although Hraundal is right to remind us that ethnic identities are fluid, that the Turkic element in the area has been downplayed, and that these people were influenced by the Bulgarians and other ethnic groups with whom they had close contacts, the description of details in Ibn Fadlan’s narrative would still make me regard these Rus as pagan Scandinavians. I note that Hraundal in his ‘coarse itemization’ of the events26 skips precisely those elements that I find important. In this context the death of the slave-girl is important. According to Ibn Fadlan, two men hold her legs, two her arms, and two strangle her by pulling a rope around her neck. At the same time the woman who is responsible for the ceremony stabs her with a dagger. That this method of dying corresponds precisely to the Odinic death of King Vikar has long been known.27 In my opinion these very different sources confirm the existence of a ritual where human beings were hanged and stabbed, probably as sacrifices to Odin. So here we have in Saxo a tale which seems almost certainly to be based on an actual myth concerning a method of sacrificing. Historicization In his description of the visit to Geirrod, Saxo used the mythical story as an object from the distant past, to be unearthed by his intrepid explorers. In this instance, he chooses an entirely different path. Starkad had lived. The story of Thor tearing off his arms was too good not to tell, but it is carefully stressed that it is unbelievable. Odin’s role in the story is minimal. For some unknown reason he wished that Vikar should suffer a miserable death and gave Starkad gifts so that he would be his agent. Starkad simply tricked the 25 For a thorough discussion see Thorir Jonsson Hraundal, ‘Integration and Disintegration’, pp. 279–293. 26 Hraundal, ‘Integration and Disintegration’, pp. 283–284. 27 Davidson, Gods and Myths, pp. 52–53.

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king, by making a weak-looking noose which was really very strong, and by killing him, as he was being strangled by the noose. That Saxo knew well what he was doing with his material is clear from his final statement: ‘Neque enim illa mihi recensenda videtur opinio, que viminum molliciem subitis solidatam complexibus ferrei morem laquei peregisse commemorat’ (‘For it does not seem to be worth telling the version, that the soft withes suddenly tightened their grip and became like a noose of iron’).28 With a slight twist, he lets the reader know, that he knows that he is reworking mythological material, and in declaring that he will not relate the mythical elements, he manages to do so anyway.

Conclusion In the first example the difference between the treatment of the material could give the impression that Snorri was telling a myth ‘as it was’ whereas Saxo had greatly altered it. On closer inspection, it can be seen that Saxo had taken the mythical part of the story out of his narrative and had presented it as mythology, whereas Snorri may or may not have altered the tale to provide motivations and context that are not extant in the poem, which is the oldest source. If Snorri used the poem for inspiration for his tale, he altered the events so much as to make them his own creations. My point is, that we should take Saxo a bit more seriously as a relater of mythological tales. The two very different authors seem to have had access to very much the same mythological material in such great detail as to warrant the suggestion that this material was in some fixed form. It could have been a series of poems or a collection of mythological tales. A closer examination of all their common tales could either disprove or support this idea but, even without such a thorough study, I would claim that both authors were very conscious of the way they used their materials. Notwithstanding his sometimes crude historicization, Saxo should not be regarded as a less accurate source of the mythical elements in the materials he relates.

Acknowledgement I owe many thanks to Emily Lyle for her invaluable help with this chapter.

28 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, p. 382; my translation.

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Bibliography Davidson, Hilda R. Ellis, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1977). Davidson, Hilda R. Ellis, ‘Gudmund of Glasisvellir: Did He Originate in Ireland?’, Arv: Nordic Yearbook of Folklore 47 (1991), 167–178. Dumézil, Georges, Du mythe au roman : la Saga de Hadingus (Saxo Grammaticus, I, v–viii) et autres essais, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1983). Faulkes, Anthony, ed. and trans., Snorri Sturluson, Edda (London: J.M. Dent, 1995). Faulkes, Anthony, ed., Snorri Sturluson, Edda: Skáldskaparmál. 1, Introduction, Text and Notes (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998). Finnnur Jónsson, ed., Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: udgivet efter Håndskrifterne af Kommissionen for Det Arnamagnæanske Legat (Copenhagen: Nordisk Forlag, 1931). Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed., and Peter Fisher, trans., Saxo Grammaticus. Gesta Danorum (The History of the Danes), 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Gautreks Saga, in Fornaldar Sögur Norðurlanda IV, ed. by Guðni Jónsson (Reykjavik: Islendingasagnaútgáfan, 1954), pp. 1–50. Grønbech, Vilhelm, The Culture of the Teutons (London: Humphrey Milford, 1931). Hraundal, Thorir Jonsson, ‘Integration and Disintegration. The “Norse” in Descriptions of the Early Rus’, in Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage: Exchange of Cultures in the ‘Norman’ Peripheries of Medieval Europe, ed. by Stefan Burkhardt and Thomas Foerster (Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 279–293. King Gautrek, in Seven Viking Romances, trans. by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), pp. 138–170. Larrington, Carolyne, ed. and trans., The Poetic Edda, rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Lassen, Annette, ‘Saxo og Snorri som mytografer: Hedenskaben i Gesta Danorum og Heimskringla’, in Saxo og Snorre, ed. by Karsten Friis-Jensen and Else Mundal (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2010), pp. 209–230. Lindow, John, ‘Mythic Narrative Modes as Exemplif ied in the Story of Thórr’s Journey to Geirrøðr (and His Daughters)’, in Nordic Mythologies: Interpretations, Intersections and Institutions, ed. by Timothy R. Tangherlini (Berkeley, CA: North Pinehurst Press, 2014), pp. 1–18. Lyle, Emily, ‘Thor’s Return of the Giant Geirrod’s Red-Hot Missile Seen in a Cosmic Context’, in Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 55.1 (2019), 121–136. Neckel, Gustav, Edda: die Lieder des Codex regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universtitätsverlag, 1962). Thorstein Mansion-Might, in Seven Viking Romances, trans. by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), pp. 258–275.

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Þorsteins Þáttr Bæjarmagns, in Fornaldar Sögur Norðurlanda IV, ed. by Guðni Jónsson (Reykjavik: Islendingasagnaútgáfan, 1954), pp. 319–344.

About the Author Morten Warmind, PhD, is Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion at Copenhagen University. He works primarily with pre-Christian religions in Northern Europe and two topics of special interest are religious legitimation of power and religious change.

11

The Scylding Dynasty in Saxo and Beowulf as Disguised Theogony Emily Lyle

Abstract The common ground between the representations of the Scylding dynasty in Saxo’s Gesta Danorum and Beowulf consists of four generations and this set has already been explored in the legendary context. There is, however, a hidden intervening generation between the third and fourth generations which becomes visible when attention is paid to the succeeding reigns of Balder and Høther, taken along with the birth of Rolf Krake from father-daughter incest in Saxo which means that Rolf’s mother belongs to the generation after his father. This chapter argues that this intervening generation corresponds to that of the young gods in a proposed Indo-European theogony and is that of the death of Balder, while the fifth generation is that of the mortal avenger. Keywords: Indo-European myth, Scandinavian pagan gods, fratricide, Odin, Thor, Freyja

The Old English epic Beowulf is found in a unique manuscript dated to c. 1001–1010, and it was probably composed in or about the first half of the eighth century.1 Its action is set in the fifth to sixth centuries. The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus composed his Gesta Danorum between c. 1188 and c. 1208.2 The relevant earliest part of the chronicle is date-free but is set before the reign of Augustus Caesar, which is said to be contemporary with the reign of Frothi III treated by Saxo in his fifth book.3 1 2 3

Neidorf, ‘Introduction’, in Dating of Beowulf, esp. p. 17. Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, vol. 1, pp. xxxiii–xxxv. Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. xxxvii–xxxviii, 250–251, n. 1.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch11

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Both Beowulf and the corresponding section of Saxo’s Gesta Danorum include directly or indirectly the story of the killing of Balder, one of the key episodes in Old Norse mythology. The direct account is in Saxo, with the human hero, Høther, attacking the demigod, Balder, the son of Odin, with his sword and bringing about his death a few days later. 4 The account in Beowulf can be spoken of as indirect since the characters involved have the different names, Herebeald and Hæðcyn, and are human brothers, so that myth dealing with supernatural beings is not directly invoked. However, it has long been recognized in the scholarly literature that the brothers can be seen as equivalent to the Balder and Høther of Saxo and also to the Baldr and Höðr of Snorri’s Edda, who are both gods. As Andy Orchard has indicated, this identification implies an alignment of their father, Hreðel, with Odin: Many critics have pointed to the resemblances between the account of the killing of Herebeald by his brother Hæthcyn and that of the Norse god Baldr by his brother Höðr; the similarities between the name-elements (Baldr / -beald; Höðr / Hæth-) certainly underline such an identification, which would then align Hrethel with the Norse god Óðinn, who was the father of both Baldr and Höðr.5

Saxo, as a chronicler, treats the reigns of a series of human kings, but he also introduces the gods without any disguise as a different order of beings who at one point engage in battle with a human army led by Høther.6 He also includes certain humans who have been thought to be disguised gods, as, for example, by Georges Dumézil, as indicated by Morten Warmind in this volume.7 The argument that I am employing here treats a disguising of the gods in a more holistic way. It takes the section of the chronicle that includes the myth of the killing of Balder and explores this as a theogony. I have already considered as a theogony the Pishdadian dynasty which opens the king list in the Persian Shahnameh (Book of Kings) of c. 1000 CE,8 and hold that the Indo-European dimension can usefully be drawn upon to illuminate the Germanic branch of the Indo-European mythological 4 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. 160–161 ; iii. 3. 7. 5 Orchard, Critical Companion to ‘Beowulf’, p. 117. The episode in Beowulf is at lines 2425–2471. See further, Frank, ‘Germanic Legend in Old English Literature’, p. 101, O’Donoghue, ‘What Has Baldr to Do with Lamech?’, pp. 82–86, 99–102, and Fulk et al., ‘The Baldr Myth’, in Klaeber’s Beowulf. 6 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. 152–153; iii. 2. 10. 7 Warmind, ‘Myth to History in Saxo’. 8 Lyle, ‘Baldr and Iraj’.

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heritage. Conversely, I find that the Germanic branch has much to offer to our overall understanding of Indo-European myth. One advantage of taking the Indo-European perspective is that it enables the use of a model based on study of all the available structural evidence, and I shall be making use of a model of this sort, which can be called the Lyle model.9 This model is not confined to any one branch but is held to have a general application since it belongs primarily to the proto-myths that formed part of the cosmology of the originating tribal community in the remote past in which the gods were first predicated on the basis of that community’s organization of society and thought.10 A major difference between such an oral society and societies with writing is the constraint enforced by the limit of biological memory which means that only a relatively small portion of chronological time is available to the community. The model accordingly applies to a structuring in terms of kinship over the limited period of four generations, with the most recent being that of the young gods and the three previous ones being those of the old gods. It is possible to explore the relationship between gods and humans in a chronicle without recourse to this model, but it seems much more fruitful to apply it, and I refer below to the categories of the old and young gods. As Triin Laidoner has recently demonstrated in the Old Norse context, the gods are the royal ancestors of a human dynasty – superior ancestors who relate to all the people under this royal rule.11 Since the divine kin group is a royal one, it is based both on descent as a series of births and on succession as a series of reigns. After the completion of the series of gods in the theogony comes the first generation of mortals descended from them and it may be useful here, in connection with the transition from divine to human, to recall the explicit statement of Tacitus who describes the first human king, Mannus, the forefather of the Germanic tribes he mentions, as the son of a non-human progenitor, Tuisto, a god sprung from the earth.12

The Generations in the Scylding King List The first generation of a theogony is that of the apical founding figure, who would normally be a goddess or giantess in mythic terms. Since females 9 Lyle, Ten Gods. 10 Allen, Categories and Classifications, pp. 39–60. 11 Laidoner, Ancestor Worship, esp. Ch. 3. 12 Tacitus, Germania 2.2, in Mattingly and Handfor.

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cannot be represented in a king list, it is to be expected that, when a theogony is conveyed as chronicle, this founding figure will be male, and it is proposed that the first divine generation is represented by the king named Scyld/ Skiold.13 Beowulf marks the point of origin sharply since Scyld in this context is presented as a foundling with no known antecedents.14 Beowulf covers five generations of Danish kings from this starting-point: those of Scyld, Beow, Healfdene, Hroðgar and Halga (brothers), and Hroðulf. Saxo’s list runs from Dan and has the nine generations of Dan, Humbli and Lother (brothers), Skiold, Gram, Hading, Frothi, Haldan, Roi and Helgi (brothers and joint rulers), and Rolf Krake. When the two lists are compared, it is apparent that the names in four of the generations correspond and it is argued here that these are the four that can be understood in terms of a theogony. The relevant generations are those of Scyld/Skiold, Healfdene/ Haldan, Hroðgar/Roi with Halga/Helgi, and Hroðulf/Rolf Krake. John D. Niles gives a sense of the self-contained structure of this section of the Danish chronicle. In his study of the Scylding legend in relation to its geographical focus at Lejre in the island of Zealand in Denmark, Niles notes the necessity of slimming down the material in order to arrive at what he refers to, with due caution, as the primitive ‘legend of Lejre’. He brings out the point that the material falls into four generations. In my formulation below the quotations are from Niles.15 1. The generation of the founding figure. The founding figure may be named Dan as in Saxo but in Beowulf ‘this figure is Skjold (or Scyld), the founder of the Skjöldung (or Scylding) dynasty’. 2. The Haldan or Frothi generation. ‘The founder is succeeded, whether immediately or not, by two sons who are rival claimants to the throne at Lejre.’ These are Haldan and Frothi, one of whom kills the other and becomes king. 3. The Roi and Helgi generation. The king of the previous generation has two sons who rule jointly. ‘One of these (Ro) rules over the land and the other (Helgi) over the sea.’ Roi is the Hroðgar of Beowulf. 4. The Rolf generation. ‘The more powerful brother (Helgi) begets a famous son, Rolf, who is the product of an incestuous union.’ Rolf is the Hroðulf of Beowulf and the Hrolf Kraki of the Icelandic saga devoted to him.16 13 See Anderson, ‘Scyld Scyldinga’, for discussion of the name. 14 Klaeber, p. 1, lines 3–11. 15 Niles, ‘Was There a “Legend of Lejre”?’, pp. 260–261. See also the coverage of legendary material in Niles, ‘On the Danish Origins of the Beowulf Story’. 16 Byock, Saga of King Hrolf Kraki.

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These are the same royal generations as are presented by Saxo’s contemporary, Sven Aggesen, in his Short History of the Kings of Denmark (Brevis Historia Regum Dacii), written between 1185 and 1202, and perhaps datable to c. 1188.17 Sven Aggesen states that Skiold was ‘the first man to rule over the Danes’. The next ruler was his son, Halfdan, who had killed his brother Frothi. Halfdan was succeeded by his son Helghi and Helghi was succeeded by his son, Rolf Kraki.18 This four-generation set gives a basis for discussion, but it is argued below that there is an important fifth generation to be taken into account that has previously been obscured.

The Generation of Yrsa before the Fourth Generation of the King List Beowulf is exceptional in the corpus of related narratives in making no mention of the birth of Hroðulf (Rolf) from an incestuous union, and the probability is that the incest theme was present in the story available to the poet and was deliberately omitted by him.19 When the incest theme is present, as in Saxo, Rolf is an ambiguous figure who is the representative of the fourth generation in the scheme above (on the side of his father, Helgi) but is also the representative of a fifth generation (on the side of his mother, Yrsa, who is the daughter of Helgi). The generation of Yrsa stands between those of her father and her son. Table 11.1 shows the four generations in Beowulf with Hroðulf as son of Halga, and the five generations in Saxo with Rolf Krake as son of Yrsa and grandson of Helgi. They are shown in relation to the four-generation model for the gods. Two connections are made in the literature when Rolf’s exceptional birth is mentioned: Rolf had a shameful conception and yet became a great king and Rolf had a shameful conception and was a prophesied avenger. Saxo observes that ‘Yrsa’s son Rolf rescued his birth from discredit by striking and meritorious deeds’ and adds that ‘their remarkable splendour was proclaimed and trumpeted by all succeeding ages’.20 The single reference to Rolf as an avenger occurs at verse 22 in Grottasöngr (‘The Song of Grotti’ or ‘The Quern Song’) which is quoted in Snorri’s Edda.21 Grotti is 17 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, p. xxxv. Christiansen, Works of Sven Aggesen, p. 26. 18 Gertz, ‘Brevis historia’, and translation in Christiansen, Works, p. 49. 19 Earl, ‘Forbidden Beowulf ’’. 20 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. 108–109; ii. 5. 4. 21 Faulkes, Edda, pp. 107–109.

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Table 11.1. The four-generation divine model showing Helga/Helgi as the father or grandfather of Hroðulf/Rolf Krake Beowulf Old Gods

Scyld Healfdene Hroðgar Halga Hroðulf

1 2 3

Skiold Haldan Roi Helgi Yrsa Rolf Krake

1 2 3 4 5

Saxo Old Gods Young Gods Mortals

the name of the mill worked by two giant prophetesses. They have been forced into unceasing labour by Frothi (noted above as rival to Haldan) for whom they magically grind out gold and other treasures. They rebel against their slavery and prophesy Frothi’s doom in the song they sing.22 Although the Old Norse verse, as it stands, says that Frothi will be avenged by the son of Yrsa, it is apparent from the context that the giantesses are looking forward to Frothi’s downfall and are prophesying that Rolf will take revenge on him.23 The importance of the verse for the present discussion is that Rolf, who is called both the son and brother of Yrsa, is known as an avenger. Yrsa belongs to the generation that precedes Rolf’s and follows that of her father, Helgi, and it will be argued in the next section that the killing of Balder takes place in this generation.

Restoring the Generation of Yrsa Saxo completes the story of Rolf Krake in Book 2 and takes up the story of Høther in Book 3, but there are two points implying that the placement of Høther’s reign after Rolf’s is out of keeping with internal considerations which indicate that it precedes Rolf’s reign. The f irst point is that Helgi killed Høther’s father, Hothbrod, and so these two 22 Osborn, ‘Grottasongr’, pp. 306–307. 23 Osborn, ‘Legends of Lejre’, pp. 238–240; Olrik, Heroic Legends, p. 270.

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kings were contemporaries and the generation of Hothbrod’s son, Høther, corresponds to that of Helgi’s daughter, Yrsa. The second point is that Høther’s brother, Athisl, marries Yrsa, Rolf’s mother. 24 A table in the Friis-Jensen and Fisher edition of Saxo which presents the legendary part of ‘Saxo’s royal line’ shows Athisl of Sweden and Høther before Rolf Krake.25 When the generation of Høther and Athisl is treated at the point where it belongs in the chronicle, the key episode of the killing of Balder takes place before the reign of Rolf Krake in the generation of Rolf’s mother, Yrsa. In Beowulf, Herebeald and Hæðcyn are sons of the Geatish king, Hreðel, and their genealogical placement in relation to the Danes is affected by the recognition of the generation of Yrsa. In Klaeber, Hroðulf in the Danish line and Beowulf in the Geatish line are represented as being in the same generation. The preceding generation is represented in Klaeber as consisting of the Danes Heorogar, Hroðgar, Halga, and their unnamed sister, and of the Geats Herebeald, Hæðcyn, Hygelac, and their unnamed sister (Beowulf’s mother), which places Hreðel at the same genealogical point as Healfdene, as shown in the upper part of Table 11.2.26 However, when the generation of Rolf’s mother Yrsa (as following that of his father) is included in the Danish series, it is this generation that corresponds to the generation of Beowulf’s mother and her brothers and so places Hreðel in the same generation as Halga, as shown in the lower part of Table 11.2. The killing of Herebeald by Hæðcyn can then be seen as taking place in the generation corresponding to that of Yrsa. The inclusion of the Yrsa generation brings together narrative elements that have previously been separated and makes the equivalence of the Danish and Geatish episodes much more evident. It appears likely that the story of Yrsa’s incestuous union with her father, Helgi, leading to the birth of Rolf Krake, is a variant form of the second part of the Balder story where the rape of Rinda by Odin leads to the birth of the avenger, Bo.27 It seems that Saxo tells the story twice, the Yrsa-Rolf Krake version giving only the second part, while the Balder-Rinda-Bo version includes also a first part treating the killing. The poet of Beowulf tells only the earlier part of the 24 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. 108–111; ii. 5. 6 – ii. 6. 1. 25 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, p. xii. 26 Klaeber, Beowulf, pp. xxxi and xxxviii; cf. the genealogical tables in Fulk et al., Klaeber’s Beowulf. Both Klaeber and Fulk et al. speak of Hreðel as the contemporary of Healfdene. 27 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. 106–109; ii. 5. 2–4, and pp. 162–171; iii. 4. 1–15. For a parallel at the divine level in the runes on the Rök stone where the avenger is Þórr, see Harris, ‘Myth and Meaning in the Rök Inscription’.

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Table 11.2. The effect of the inclusion of the Yrsa generation on the parallels between the Danish and Geatish royal lines Healfdene Heorogar Hroðgar Halga sister Hroðulf

Hreðel Herebeald Hæðcyn Hygelac sister Beowulf

Healfdene Heorogar Hroðgar Halga sister [Yrsa] Hroðulf

Hreðel Herebeald Hæðcyn Hygelac sister Beowulf

Table 11.3. Illicit intercourse present in Saxo and absent from Beowulf Saxo

Beowulf

Danes/Swedes/Russians

Danes

Geats

Danes

Hothbrod (Odin)

Helgi

Hreðel

Halga Hroðulf

Athisl (Balder) Høther Rinda Bo RAPE

Herebeald Hæðcyn Yrsa Rolf Krake INCEST

Balder-Rinda-Bo story and does not include Yrsa. When the protagonists in the three generations beginning with that of Helgi/Halga are shown in parallel (Table 11.3), the rape and incest narratives can potentially be seen as variations on the theme of illicit intercourse resulting in the birth of a special son. In the human generations Athisl, the brother of Høther, has the position as son of Hothbrod that corresponds to that of Herebeald as son of Hreðel. Both accounts of illicit intercourse are absent from Beowulf and it seems probable that they were omitted because they were out of keeping with the tone of the poem, as James Earl has argued.28 Despite this absence, Beowulf is important in reinforcing the placement of these episodes within the chronicle of Danish history which reflects the theogony.

28 Earl, Forbidden Beowulf.

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The Gods in Snorri in Relation to the Theogony in Saxo The special importance of Saxo’s Gesta Danorum for the study of the theogony lies in its structured nature as the chronicle of a series of kings, but the gods are much better known through their scattered treatment in Snorri and the relevant gods, as named by Snorri, are introduced here in relation to the equivalent characters in Saxo, discussed above. A theogony involves relationships within a family and this concept is not alien to the accepted view of the Old Norse gods, which draws widely on Snorri. As Jonas Wellendorf has written recently: [T]he mythological sources generally present the gods as linked in various ways by relations of blood, Þórr being the son of Óðinn, Freyja the daughter of Njǫrðr, etc. Indeed, the mythological ties of kinship are often the major key to understanding Scandinavian mythology as we know it.29

The divine family as theogony has been overshadowed in the Old Norse context by the interesting cosmological events envisaged at the points of creation and dissolution,30 but these can be regarded as supplementary to the theogony which is an all-inclusive and independent system. Since a theogony is a series of births, the beginning of the series is a primal being who, as a birth-giver, will be female. In the Old Norse cosmogony, the first female to give birth is Bestla, who accordingly provides the theogonic starting-point, and she is said to bear three sons: Vé, Oðinn, and Víli (or Vílir), whose names had earlier formed an alliterative set when the Oðinn name began with V (cf. Old English Woden).31 This group of three males and the mother who bore them can be seen as the ‘old gods’. A side-light can be thrown on the nature of the three male old gods by consideration of the Irish story of the king called Lugaid of the Red Stripes, which has been recognized as being a cosmological one first by Dumézil and later by Lincoln and McCone, as well as myself.32 The story is that of three brothers, Nár, Bres, and Lothar, who lie in the one night with their sister, Clothru, with the result that she bears a son to all of them. He is called Lugaid of the Red Stripes since his threefold paternity is indicated 29 Wellendorf, Gods and Humans, p. 2. 30 See Wellendorf, ‘Ymir, Baldr, and the Grand Narrative Arc’, in this volume. 31 Faulkes, Edda, p. 11; De Vries, Altgermanische Religions-geschichte, vol. 2, p. 280, § 517. 32 Dumézil, Destiny of a King, p. 105, Lincoln, Myth, Cosmos and Society, pp. 160–161, McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present, p. 119, and Lyle, Ten Gods, pp. 62–63.

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by his division into three parts by red lines at the neck and waist. His head is like that of Nár, his upper body like that of Bres, and his lower body like that of Lothar. This has been understood in the scholarship as a threefold set that can be expressed in terms of Dumézil’s three functions. There are two hierarchically superior entities (above the mid-point at the waist) and one inferior one. Dumézil expressed them as: first function – the sacred, represented by priests; second function – physical force, represented by warriors; and third function – fertility and prosperity, represented by cultivators and herders. McCone and I have argued that behind the social groupings Dumézil worked with lies another set consisting of the stages of life and their characteristics: first, wise and magically powerful old men; second, vigorous and fierce young men; and third, prosperous and fertile married mature men.33 Returning to the Old Norse set, the names of the three brothers have senses that align them with the three functions as sketched above. First, Vé, sacred place; second, Óðinn, fury; and third, Víli, desire.34 Like Nár, Bres, and Lothar, these three brothers all have intercourse with the one female, since Vé and Víli take advantage of Óðinn’s absence to lie with his wife, Frigg.35 The narrative expectation is that this is a conception story and that some wonderful birth will follow but there is no birth in the Old Norse case. This lack can be explained since there is no explicitly identified young king like Lugaid (corresponding to the god Lug) in the Old Norse context, and there could not be one in a narrative complex which makes the old god Óðinn the sole sovereign. It makes good sense of the material to argue that the most powerful of the young gods, Þórr, once had the role of king..36 The episodes treating the three old gods named Vé, Óðinn, and Víli are mainly limited to contexts where they occur as a set. Óðinn appears independently in many other contexts, and it can be argued that the gods named Vé and Víli in the old-god triad are also to be found separately but under other names. It is proposed here that they may be called Týr and Njörðr. Týr can be placed among the old gods through the equivalence of his hand/arm loss with that of Nuada, who is the first king in an Irish 33 McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present, pp. 117, 209–211; Lyle, Ten Gods, pp. 21–27. 34 Bek-Pedersen, ‘Interpretations of Ynglingasaga and the Mabinogi’, p. 332; Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology, pp. 244, 355, 362; De Vries, Altgermanische Religions-geschichte, vol. 2, p. 280, § 517. 35 Finlay and Faulkes, Heimskringla, vol. 1, p. 7. 36 The underlying place of Þórr as cosmic hero and king is discussed in Lyle, ‘The Uppsala Temple Triad’, and ‘Thor’s Return’.

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Table 11.4. The Old Norse gods in Snorri who have equivalents in the postulated theogonic sequence in Saxo

Old Gods

Young Gods

Bestla / Frigg (= Skiold) Vé / Týr (= Haldan) Víli / Njörðr (= Roi)  Óðinn (= Helgi) Baldr (= Athisl) Þórr (= Høther) Freyja (= Yrsa / Rinda)

divine succession sequence.37 Njörðr, like Óðinn, is said to be a father and so is appropriately placed among the old gods.38 As god of the sea he clearly belongs to the below in the hierarchical up/down duality. The set of three old gods is complemented by the one old goddess who is Bestla in her cosmic dimension as primal source and is Frigg in her social one as wife of Óðinn. The young-woman role exemplified in Saxo by Yrsa and Rinda is expressed at the divine level by the goddess, Freyja, daughter of Njörðr. The Balder of Saxo is the Baldr of Snorri and is a son of Oðinn; his human counterpart is Athisl. The Høther of Saxo is the Höðr of Snorri, who is also said to be a son of Óðinn,39 but his status as a separate god is questionable. Margaret Clunies Ross suggested that he might be a hypostasis of Loki or Óðinn, 40 and he is understood here as a primarily human hypostasis of Þórr. See Table 11.4 for a presentation of the proposed equivalents in Snorri of the characters in Saxo. The key act of the killing of Baldr in Snorri is unintentional, since Höðr unknowingly throws a lethal missile at Baldr which had been transformed by Loki from a harmless sprig of mistletoe, 41 and, similarly, in Beowulf, Hæthcyn accidentally kills his elder brother, Herebeald, with an arrow. 42 These killings are unmotivated, but in Saxo the motive is spelt out as the elimination of a rival.43 The winning of sovereignty could not be attributed to 37 Lyle, Ten Gods, pp. 70–71; Faulkes, Edda, p. 25. 38 Faulkes, Edda, pp. 23–24. 39 Faulkes, Edda, p. 76. On the question of how strongly this relationship has textual support, see O’Donoghue, ‘What Has Baldr to Do with Lamech?’, pp. 84, 100–101, and Gade, ‘Höðr … sonr Óðins’. 40 Clunies Ross, ‘Mythic Narrative’. 41 Faulkes, Edda, pp. 48–49. 42 See discussion in Jurasinski, Ancient Privileges, pp. 86–88, 113–148. 43 Friis-Jensen and Fisher, Saxo, vol. 1, pp. 146–149, iii. 2. 5–6; vol. 1, pp. 154–161, iii. 3. 1–2 and 6–7.

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a young god in Snorri since the old god, Oðinn, is presented as the sovereign figure. It could, however, be attributed to a human actor in the Scandinavian context and Saxo’s account of the killing may prove to be a useful guide to an understanding of the myth; his chronicle certainly has an internal consistency in this respect.

Conclusion The stories of the kings found in both Saxo and Beowulf are mainly told about humans but the presence of Balder and Odin in Saxo breaks the mould and signals action at the divine level. Treating the human narrative as parallel to the divine theogony allows the Balder story to be seen not as an isolated case of the divine but as a visible point of connection with the divine which otherwise generally occurs in disguised form throughout the four-generation sequence. The pivotal figure is that of Odin who appears under his divine name in the Saxo killing-and-rape story (engendering Bo) but as Hreðel in the equivalent story in Beowulf, and who corresponds to Helgi in Saxo in the incest story (engendering Rolf Krake). The human-level treatment of the theogony in chronicle placed in an Indo-European context offers a new strand to be explored in conjunction with explicit treatments of the gods.

Bibliography Allen, Nicholas J., Categories and Classifications: Maussian Reflections on the Social (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000). Anderson, Carl Edlund, ‘Scyld Scyldinga: Intercultural innovation at the interface of West and North Germanic’, Neophilogus 100.3 (2016), 461–476. Bek-Pedersen, Karen, ‘Interpretations of Ynglingasaga and the Mabinogi: Some Norse–Celtic Correspondences’, in Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions, ed. by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere, Vägar till Midgård 8 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006), pp. 331–335. Byock, Jesse L., trans., The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki (London: Penguin, 1998). Christiansen, Eric, trans., The Works of Sven Aggesen, Twelfth-Century Danish Historian (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1992). Clunies Ross, Margaret, ‘Mythic Narrative in Saxo Grammaticus and Snorri Sturluson’ in Saxo Grammaticus tra storiografia e letterature, ed. by Carlo Santini (Rome: Il Calamo, 1992), pp. 47–59.

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De Vries, Jan, Altgermanische Religions-geschichte, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1970). Dumézil, Georges, The Destiny of a King (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1973). Earl, James W., ‘The Forbidden Beowulf: Haunted by Incest’, PMLA 125.2 (March 2010), 289–305, 511. Faulkes, Anthony, trans. and ed., Snorri Sturluson: Edda (London: J.M. Dent, 1995). Finlay, Alison, and Anthony Faulkes, trans. and ed., Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla. 3 vols., 2nd ed. (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2011–2016). Frank, Roberta, ‘Germanic Legend in Old English Literature’, in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. by Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 82–100. Friis-Jensen, Karsten, ed., and Peter Fisher, trans., Saxo Grammaticus. Gesta Danorum (The History of the Danes), 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Fulk, R.D., Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles, eds., Klaeber’s Beowulf (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). Gade, Kari Ellen, ‘Höðr … sonr Óðins – But Did Snorri Know That?’, in The Fantastic in Old Norse/Icelandic Literature, Sagas and the British Isles. Preprints of the Thirteenth International Saga Conference, Durham and York, 6th – 12th August, 2006, ed. by John McKinnell, David Ashurst, and Donata Kick (Durham: University of Durham, Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006), pp. 268–277. Gertz, Martin Clarentius, ed., ‘Svenonis Aggonis Filii Opuscula Historica ii. Brevis historia regum Dacie’, in Scriptores Minores Historiæ Danice, 2 vols. (Copenhagen: G.E.C. Gad, 1917–1922), vol. 1, pp. 94–143. Harris, Joseph, ‘Myth and Meaning in the Rök Inscription’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 2 (2006), 45–109. Jurasinski, Stefan, Ancient Privileges: Beowulf, Law, and the Making of Germanic Antiquity, Medieval European Studies 6 (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2006). Klaeber, Frederick, ed., Beowulf, 3rd ed. (Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1950). Laidoner, Triin. Ancestor Worship and the Elite in Late Iron Age Scandinavia: A Grave Matter, Studies in Medieval History and Culture (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020). Lincoln, Bruce, Myth, Cosmos and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 1986). Lyle, Emily, Ten Gods: A New Approach to Defining the Mythological Structures of the Indo-Europeans (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012). Lyle, Emily, ‘Baldr and Iraj: Murdered and Avenged’, in Old Norse Religion – Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Pernille Herman, Stephen A. Mitchell, and Jens Peter

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Schjødt, with Amber J. Rose (Cambridge, MA: The Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature, Harvard University, 2017), pp. 341–361. Lyle, Emily, ‘The Uppsala Temple Triad: A Possible Descent Sequence?’, Ollodagos 34 (2018), 141–154. Lyle, Emily, ‘Thor’s Return of Geirrod’s Red-Hot Missile’, Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 55.1 (2019), pp. 125–147. Mattingly, Harold, and S.A. Handfor, ed. and trans., Cornelius Tacitus, The Agricola and the Germania (New York: Penguin Books, 1977). McCone, Kim, Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1990). Neidorf, Leonard, ‘Introduction’, in The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment, ed. by Leonard Neidorf (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2014), pp. 1–18. Niles, John D., ‘Beowulf ’’ and Lejre (Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007). Niles, John D., ‘Was There a “Legend of Lejre”?’, in ‘Beowulf’ and Lejre, ed. by John D. Niles (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), pp. 255–265. Niles, John D., ‘On the Danish Origins of the Beowulf Story’, in Anglo-Saxon England and the Continent, ed. by Hans Sauer and Joanna Story, with Gaby Waxenberger, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Studies 3 ( (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011), pp. 41–62. O’Donoghue, Heather, ‘What Has Baldr To Do with Lamech? The Lethal Shot of a Blind Man in Old Norse Myth and Jewish Exegetical Traditions’, Medium Ævum 72.1 (2003), 82–107. Olrik, Axel, The Heroic Legends of Denmark, trans. by Lee M. Hollander (New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1919). Orchard, Andy, A Critical Companion to ‘Beowulf’ (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003). Osborn, Marijane, ‘Grottasongr (“The Mill Song”, “The Quern Song”): Old Norse Eddic Poem of Uncertain Date’, in ‘Beowulf ’’ and Lejre, ed. John D. Niles (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), pp. 301–309. Osborn, Marijane, ‘Legends of Lejre, Home of Kings’, in ‘Beowulf ’’ and Lejre, ed. John D. Niles (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007), pp. 235–254. Simek, Rudolf, Dictionary of Northern Mythology (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1996). Warmind, Morten, ‘Myth to History in Saxo’, in this volume. Wellendorf, Jonas, Gods and Humans in Medieval Scandinavia: Retying the Bonds, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 103 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). Wellendorf, Jonas, ‘Ymir, Baldr and the Grand Narrative Arc of Mythological History’, in this volume.

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About the Author Emily Lyle in an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Her publications include the monograph Ten Gods (2012) and the edited collection Celtic Myth in the 21st Century (2018).

12 Loki the Slandered God?Selective Omission of Skaldic Citations in Snorri Sturluson’s Edda James Parkhouse

Abstract Despite widespread acknowledgment of the complexity of Loki’s nature and function in Old Norse mythology, many critical approaches nonetheless begin from an implicit foundational assumption that he is in essence a negative and antagonistic figure. Conversely, some scholars have interpreted Loki as a culture hero, whilst it is widely agreed that aspects of his negative characterization developed under the influence of traditions about the Christian Devil. This chapter considers the extent to which the thirteenth-century Icelandic historian and mythographer Snorri Sturluson actively contributed in his Edda to the ‘demonization of Loki’ (John Lindow, Norse Mythology [2001], 303), through an analysis of the lists of kennings (poetic periphrases, quoted from older skaldic verse) which Snorri provides for major mythological entities. Keywords: Icelandic poetry, Christianization, polarity, pagan gods

The attempt to understand the nature and function of Loki has represented one of the most enduring challenges to scholars of Old Norse mythology. He has been variously identified as a fire-god,1 a spider-god,2 a chthonic god of the dead,3 a hypostasis of Óðinn, 4 and as a version of Lucifer transplanted 1 Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 1, pp. 241–243. 2 Rooth, Loki in Scandinavian Mythology. 3 Liberman, ‘Snorri and Saxo on Útgarðaloki’. 4 Ström, Loki: Ein mythologisches Problem.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch12

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from the Christian tradition.5 Recent specialist studies of Loki have sought to reconcile the disparate and often contradictory evidence of medieval literature and later folklore into a unified conception of Loki which recognizes his multifaceted nature.6 However, there remains a tendency in non-specialist scholarship and in popular culture to represent Loki as a predominantly antagonistic figure, reflecting the influence of his portrayal in the Edda, a thirteenth-century mythographic work by the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, often treated as the locus classicus for Old Norse myth. Scholars of Old Norse mythology recognize that Snorri’s text cannot be used straightforwardly as a reliable guide to pre-Christian traditions;7 what is less certain is the extent to which the negative characterization of Loki is the product of Snorri’s own authorial initiative. In what follows, I aim to show that Snorri’s selective use of Viking-Age poetic source-material provides clear evidence of his familiarity with a more nuanced conception of Loki, which he consciously suppressed or rejected. Snorri Sturluson was a prominent Icelandic politician, historian, and poet, active in the first half of the thirteenth century until his death in 1241 CE. His best-known work, the Edda, is a treatise on mythology and poetic composition in three parts, compiled around 1220.8 The first part, Gylfaginning, gives a narrative account of Old Norse Mythology, beginning with the creation of the cosmos and ending with a prophecy of Ragnarǫk, the apocalyptic battle between the Æsir and the Jǫtnar in which the world will be consumed by fire and reborn. The second part, Skáldskaparmál, explains the forms of diction employed in skaldic poetry, in particular the kenning or compound periphrasis. Several more mythological episodes are 5 Bugge, Studier, vol. 1, pp. 70–79. For a survey of earlier theories, see de Vries, The Problem of Loki, pp. 10–22. For more recent bibliography see Lindow, Norse Mythology, pp. 219–220. In his monograph, de Vries offers a persuasive framework for explaining the contradictions in Loki’s nature as characteristic of the trickster/culture-hero found in Native American and Pacif ic Island religions. 6 See, for instance, Heide, ‘Loki, the Vätte, and the Ash Lad’, who considers the Old NorseIcelandic sources in the light of post-medieval Scandinavian folk traditions; Liberman, ‘Snorri and Saxo on Útgarðaloki’, for a synthesis of the medieval Icelandic and Danish traditions; and Laidoner, ‘The Flying Noaidi’, who explains puzzling aspects of Loki’s mythic character as vestiges of Sámi shamanic traditions. 7 Abram, Myths of the Pagan North, p. 25; Snorri Sturluson, Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning, ed. Faulkes, p. xxvi; von Schnurbein, ‘The Function of Loki’, p. 111. 8 The title Edda properly belongs to Snorri’s text, but was erroneously applied also to the anthology of poems in the Codex Regius (GkS 2365 4to), when the manuscript was discovered in the seventeenth century. The two works are therefore distinguished as respectively the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, and poetry of the sort preserved in the Codex Regius and related manuscripts is labelled ‘eddic’.

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recounted to illustrate the origins of particular kennings. The third part, Háttatal, exemplifies the different metrical forms used in skaldic verse. The study of Old Norse mythology is heavily reliant on the Edda. Often, Snorri is our only source for a given mythological datum; in instances where other sources are extant, they are frequently so abstruse as to require recourse to Snorri’s text in order to interpret them.9 Because of its value as a detailed and systematized source for the mythology, it has at times been treated too uncritically in non-specialist scholarship and in popular culture as a fully reliable witness to Viking-Age myth and religion.10 Specialist scholars of Old Norse literature have long been well aware of the need for caution in using a thirteenth-century Christian text as a source for earlier pagan beliefs.11 In particular, it is widely recognized that the malevolent aspect of Loki’s character became more pronounced under the influence of Christian ideas about the Devil.12 In his programmatic introduction of Loki in Gylfaginning, Snorri describes him in the following terms: Sa er enn talðr með Ásum er sumir kalla rógbera Ásanna ok frumkveða flærðanna ok vǫmm allra goða ok manna. Sá er nefndr Loki eða Loptr […] Loki er fríðr ok fagr sýnum, illr í skaplyndi, mjǫk fjǫlbreytinn at háttum. Hann hafði þá speki um fram apra menn er slœgð heitir, ok vælar til allra hluta. (That one is also counted amongst the Æsir, whom some call the slanderer of the gods, the originator of falsehoods and the disgrace of all gods and men. He is named Loki or Loptr […] Loki is beautiful and fair to look at, evil in nature, very capricious in his behaviour, he had more than other men that kind of intelligence called cunning, and wiles for every occasion.)13

This passage echoes several commonplaces in medieval conceptions of Satan. The expression frumkveða flærðanna (originator of falsehoods) recalls the 9 Abram, Myths of the Pagan North, p. 24. 10 See, for instance, the casual use of myths only attested in Snorri’s Edda in the reconstruction of Indo-European prototypes by West, Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Roger Scruton, The Ring of Truth, p. 27, places the composition of Snorra Edda a century earlier than the true date, ostensibly seeking to bolster its authenticity as a record of pagan myth. Cf. also nn. 17–19 below. 11 Abram, Myths of the Pagan North, pp. 26–27; Orchard, Cassell Dictionary, p. 152; Simek, Lexikon, pp. 366–367; O’Donoghue, ‘What Has Baldr To Do with Lamech?’, pp. 82–83. 12 Davidson, Gods and Myths, pp. 176–178; Abram, Myths of the Pagan North, p. 156; Bonnetain, ‘Potentialities of Loki’. 13 Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 33, ed. Faulkes, pp. 26–27. Translations are my own, unless otherwise stated.

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biblical description of Satan as ‘Father of lies’.14 The contrast between fair appearance and foul nature is particularly striking, and the same adjectives fríðr (beautiful) and fagr (fair) are also collocated in the description of Lucifer in the thirteenth-century Icelandic Maríu saga.15 However, many continue in spite of this to take Snorri’s portrayal of Loki as an essentially reliable guide to his nature and function in pre-Christian religion and myth.16 The popular image of Loki is best exemplif ied by his portrayal as a primary villain in the Marvel Comics series centred on the character of Thor, and the cinematic adaptations.17 Such conceptions are also particularly prevalent in non-specialist scholarship: for instance, Arthur Cotterell in a brief entry in his Dictionary of World Mythology cites only Loki’s negative attributes,18 as does David Leeming;19 Christopher Fee emphasizes Loki’s antagonistic role in the extant mythic narratives.20 It is surely no coincidence that Fee and Cotterell both additionally perpetuate the debunked identification of Loki as a fire-god, a theory which depends substantially on the pairing of Loki with Logi (flame) in a myth probably invented by Snorri.21 The tendency is also occasionally apparent in specialist scholarship. William Sayers, for example, whilst acknowledging that Snorri is separated temporally and ideologically from the myths he records, contends: ‘the portrait of Loki in Snorri Sturluson’s Skálskaparmál [sic] […] may be thought to summarize an essential identity of Loki’.22 The tendency to take Snorri’s depiction of Loki at face value can also be seen in the way numerous scholars assess the evidence for Viking-Age cult activity. It has consistently been assumed that no cult of Loki ever existed. Georges Dumézil, struggling to account for Loki in his tripartite system, labelled him ‘un dieu sans culte, autant dire un dieu sans function’ (‘a god without a cult, which is to say a god without a function’).23 Few of Dumézil’s theories are now accepted without considerable modification,24 yet this 14 John 8:44. 15 Bugge, Studier, vol. 1, p. 75. 16 Orchard, Cassell Dictionary, p. 105; Lindow, Norse Mythology, p. 216. 17 Nuttall, ‘I Am the Monster’, pp. 62–73; Bassil-Morozow, ‘Loki Then and Now’. 18 Cotterell, Dictionary, p. 168. 19 Leeming, Oxford Companion, p. 240. 20 Fee, Gods, Heroes, and Kings, pp. 58–81. 21 Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 46, ed. Faulkes, pp. 39–40. Cf. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 1, p. 241. 22 Sayers, ‘Norse Loki as Praxonym’, p. 17. 23 Dumézil, Loki, p. 9. 24 Frakes, ‘Loki’s Mythological Function’, pp. 161–163; Miller, ‘Georges Dumézil’, pp. 27–40; Allen, ‘Miller on Dumézil’, pp. 293–294.

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assessment of Loki’s religious function remains the orthodoxy presented in numerous influential reference works. Rudolph Simek states that ‘L[oki] ist ein funktionsloser Gott. Es gab auch keinen L.-kult, Ortsnamen auf L. sind unbekannt’ (‘Loki is a functionless god. There was no cult of Loki, and place-names based on Loki are unknown’).25 Yet he makes no mention of the lack of toponymic or other evidence for the worship either of Heimdallr or of Baldr, and his designation of the latter as ‘einer der bedeutenderen german[ischen] Götter’ (‘one of the more important Germanic gods’) indeed seems to take his importance in religious practice for granted.26 Stephanie von Schnurbein likewise foregrounds the evidence of toponymy in rejecting the possibility of Loki-cult: ‘Proof of [the non-existence of Loki-cult] is evidenced by the absence of place names that can be traced to Loki in Scandinavia’.27 As Triin Laidoner has pointed out, there is in fact a small number of place-names possibly named for Loki, the distribution of which is consistent with literary and iconographic evidence for the circulation of Loki myths;28 however, these have rarely been addressed in recent work on theophoric toponyms in Scandinavia.29 The possibility of place-names bearing Loki’s name has therefore not been examined on a level with those of other gods. ‘Everyone agrees that there was never any cult of Loki’, states John Lindow, but again he does not discuss the difficulties in proving the existence of cults of other figures.30 Gabriel Turville-Petre is particularly forthright: ‘There is nothing to suggest that Loki was ever worshipped, and it would be hard to believe that he was ever the object of a cult’ (my emphasis).31 As with Simek, Turville-Petre’s discussions of Baldr and Heimdallr assume cultic importance for which the evidence has regrettably been lost.32 In a similar vein, in his discussion of Frigg he expresses surprise at the lack of evidence for her worship, evincing an expectation that such evidence should be abundant.33 Whilst these assertions are taken predominantly from general reference works rather than specialist studies of Loki, these works remain highly 25 Simek, Lexikon, p. 241. 26 Simek, Lexikon, p. 34. 27 von Schnurbein, ‘The Function of Loki’, p. 110. See e.g. Brink, ‘How Uniform Was the Old Norse Religion?’; Vikstrand, ‘Place Names and Viking Age Religion’. 28 Laidoner, ‘The Flying Noaidi’, pp. 61–62. 29 See e.g. Brink, ‘How Uniform’ and Vikstrand, ‘Place Names’. 30 Lindow, Norse Mythology, p. 219. Cf. pp. 65–69 for Baldr and 167–172 for Heimdallr. 31 Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion, p. 126. 32 Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion, pp. 116–120; 148–155. 33 Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion, p. 189.

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influential resources for the study of Old Norse myth. Moreover, similar assertions are frequently found in specialist treatments as well. In addition to von Schnurbein’s article already cited, several recent studies dealing specifically with Loki have denied altogether the existence of Loki-cult.34 It is not the object of this chapter to argue that Loki did have a cult in Viking-Age Scandinavia, or indeed that Baldr, Heimdallr or Frigg did not. Prominence in mythic narratives does not entail cultic importance, and there remains an absence of firm positive evidence for the latter.35 What these comments show, however, is that this lack of evidence is evaluated differently in the case of Loki.36 This reflects scholars’ preconceptions, first regarding the kinds of deities which are considered ‘worshippable’, and second regarding Loki’s nature in pre-Christian belief. Preconceptions of the latter derive to a substantial degree from Loki’s portrayal by Snorri, whether directly or via prior scholarship. The quote from Turville-Petre in particular reveals the unstated premises at work in many scholarly assessments of Loki: there is nothing intrinsically implausible about the notion of Loki as a cult object, unless one supposes that Snorri has accurately represented the Loki of pre-Christian traditions throughout Viking-Age Scandinavia.37 Nor is it my intention to suggest that Snorri was without precedent in depicting Loki as a malevolent f igure. We have noted the influence of Christianity on the conception of Loki exemplif ied by his portrayal in Snorri’s Edda; what is less clear is the extent to which Snorri contributed to the shaping of this conception. As Jan de Vries has observed, Loki must have been in some way predisposed to a comparison with Satan in order for this alignment to have taken place.38 Indeed, the early tenth-century poem Haustlǫng by the Norwegian skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir makes references to Loki’s future role as the enemy of the Æsir at Ragnarǫk. At around the same time as Þjóðólfr composed the poem, a sculptor in Anglo-Scandinavian Cumbria carved a cross shaft depicting Loki’s binding and punishment, 34 Wanner, ‘Cunning Intelligence in Norse Myth’, p. 237; Frakes, ‘Loki’s Mythological Function’, p. 164. 35 However, see Heide, ‘Loki, the Vätte, and the Ash Lad’ for a discussion of Loki’s possible connection to the vættir (spirits) of the hearth, to whom ritual offerings were likely made. 36 Cf. de Vries, The Problem of Loki, pp. 203–204, who similarly warns against drawing selective conclusions about cult worship from comparable evidence. 37 It is instructive to note the similarities between Loki and the Titan Prometheus in Greek myth (who had a cult at Athens from the fifth century BCE) as well as Hermes (who was worshipped in the Greek and Roman worlds at least from the Archaic Period onwards). For the comparisons with Prometheus and Hermes as evidence of Loki’s capacity as a trickster and culture-hero, see de Vries, The Problem of Loki, pp. 265–281. 38 de Vries, The Problem of Loki, pp. 199–200. Cf. Laidoner, ‘The Flying Noaidi’, pp. 80–81.

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much as Snorri would describe it three centuries later: Loki is pictured with his hands and feet bound; suspended over his head is a serpent, which as Snorri tells us drips venom onto Loki’s face. A female figure holding a driking vessel is identified as Sigyn, Loki’s wife, who in Gylfaginning tries to collect the venom to spare her husband from torment.39 Additional scenes from the Ragnarǫk myth appear on the cross. Most clearly, an illustration of an armed figure with a hand on the upper jaw and a foot on the lower jaw of a wolf closely matches Snorri’s account of the death of the wolf Fenrir: Óðinn’s son Víðarr kills the wolf by ripping its jaws apart. 40 These scenes from pagan myth are juxtaposed with Christian images in a sophisticated typological scheme.41 In the eddic poem Vǫluspá, composed in the late tenth century as paganism in Iceland was beginning to cede to Christianity, the vǫlva (seeress), who narrates the poem, calls Loki ‘lægjarn’ (‘malicious’), and describes how he will lead the enemy forces at Ragnarok. 42 These aspects of Loki may reflect pre-Conversion influence of Christianity, or they may have been established in the native Scandinavian tradition prior to contact with Christendom. The salient point is that the demonic aspect of Loki’s character was not Snorri’s invention. On the other hand, the sources do not bear out Turville-Petre’s contention that ‘The character of Loki, as we know it from later sources, was largely formed by the early tenth century’.43 Whilst Þjóðólfr makes allusions to Loki’s antagonistic role in the mythic future, his depiction in Haustlǫng illustrates that Loki could be regarded with considerable affection in the Viking-Age, a notion quite alien to Snorri’s portrayal. 44 Indeed, some scholars have felt that Snorri emphasizes or exaggerates the negative aspects of Loki’s character, at the expense of his more positive traits and actions. 45 Yet whilst it is possible to gain this impression simply from a reading of the myths Snorri relates, arguments to this effect are inevitably subjective. One might suspect, for example, that Snorri has marginalized Loki’s function as a culture-hero in recounting his acquisition of artefacts for the Æsir and in his invention of the fishing net. But in the absence of comparanda in Viking-Age sources, we cannot be certain to what extent, if at all, Snorri has altered these myths. In some instances, there is clear 39 Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 50, ed. Faulkes, p. 49. 40 Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 50, ed. Faulkes, pp. 50–51. 41 Bailey, Viking-Age Sculpture, pp. 125–321; Kopár, Gods and Settlers, pp. 90–104. 42 Vǫluspá 34/1–4: Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, pp. 299–300. 43 Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion, p. 128; cf. Davidson, Gods and Myths, p. 176. 44 Haustlo̜ ng, ed. and trans. North, p. xvi. 45 Davidson, Gods and Myths, p. 176; Cawley, ‘The Figure of Loki’, p. 317.

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evidence of Snorri’s learned Christian perspective on the myths he records. For instance, Snorri foregrounds Loki’s malevolent role in the death of Baldr, the Christ-like son of Óðinn, and his account of this mythic episode has been noted for its Judeo-Christian accretions. 46 Similarly, Snorri’s account of Loki’s capture and punishment by the Æsir echoes the biblical and exegetical topos of the sinner caught in a snare of his own making.47 Yet in neither case can these observations prove that Snorri has invented or even substantially modified the myth, rather than simply interpreting it through a typological lens. 48 A consideration of Snorri’s use of skaldic poetry may offer a more fruitful approach. Skaldic verse comprises occasional poetry composed for performance at royal courts. The extant corpus is mostly preserved as isolated stanzas embedded in prose narratives, though as we shall see, some longer sequences of stanzas have been transmitted. Unlike eddic poems, skaldic poems are usually attributed to named poets, and in many instances are also attached to a specific performance context. Since the intricate metrical requirements of skaldic verse-forms make corruption during transmission easy to detect, it is therefore often possible to date skaldic stanzas with some certainty, even though they are preserved only in later prose texts. 49 Some extant skaldic poems deal directly with mythological themes, but a great deal of mythological information is also alluded to in the form of kennings.50 The kenning is a poetic periphrasis characteristic of skaldic diction, whereby a given noun can be denoted by the combination of a different noun with a determinant. For instance, 46 O’Donoghue, ‘What Has Baldr To Do with Lamech?’. 47 Turco, ‘Nets and Snares’, pp. 205–213. 48 Loki does not feature in other versions of Baldr’s death, in Vǫluspá 31–33 (Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsoson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, p. 299); Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum III, ed. Friis-Jensen and trans. Zeeberg, vol.1, pp.190–235; and Beowulf lines 2432–2471, ed. Fulk, et al., pp. 83–85; the prose epilogue to the eddic poem Lokasenna moreover implies that Loki was punished for a separate offence (Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsoson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, p. 421). On the other hand, the allusive style of the Vǫluspá account does not rule out Loki’s involvement, and the segue into reporting his binding and torture (Vǫluspá 34: Eddukvæði, vol. 1, pp. 421–422) may be taken to illustrate a causal link. Loki appears to claim responsibility for Baldr’s death at Lokasenna 28/4–6 (Eddukvæði, vol. 1, p. 414). In the second part of his monograph Loki, Dumézil pointed out a parallel to Loki’s role in Baldr’s death in the Ossetian legend of Syrdon, which may indicate an Indo-European prototype, though Dumézil himself vacillated on the matter. 49 Abram, Myths of the Pagan North, pp. 11–13; also O’Donoghue, Old Norse-Icelandic Literature, pp. 62–70, with some caveats. 50 For a survey of skaldic kennings categorized thematically, see Meissner, Die Kenningar der Skalden.

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a ship might be called a steed of the sea. In skaldic verse, the form is often extended beyond two terms: thus, the sea can be referred to as the whale-land, so a ship by extension can be a steed of the whale-land. In Háttatal, Snorri advises that kennings of more than f ive terms are no longer tolerated.51 In Skáldskaparmál, as part of his instruction in the art of poetic composition, Snorri provides lists of kennings which poets can use to refer to the principal gods and goddesses, as well as other prominent mythological beings and artefacts.52 For many of the kennings he lists, he quotes skaldic verses in corroboration. In other instances, kennings may be confirmed as authentic with recourse to extant skaldic verse, even where Snorri has not cited a source. Some kennings are known only from Snorri’s text; it is plausible that these were invented by Snorri, though this is difficult to prove, since it is virtually certain that Snorri had access to a larger corpus of skaldic poetry than is now extant. Conversely, there are a number of kennings that occur in extant skaldic verse, but which are absent from Snorri’s lists. A closer consideration of these missing kennings demonstrates a principle of conscious selectivity on Snorri’s part, whereby he has omitted kennings which refer to Loki in overtly positive terms. In Þjóðólfr’s Haustlǫng, Loki is called ‘Hœnis vinr’ (‘Hœnir’s friend’),53 and ‘hugreynandi Hœnis’ (‘Hœnir’s courage-tester’), which may be considered as a variation on the same theme.54 He is also labelled ‘hrafnásar vinr’ (‘raven-god’s [=Óðinn’s] friend’),55 and ‘Þórs of rúni’ (‘Þórr’s confidant’).56 In Þórsdrápa, composed in the late tenth century by the Icelander Eilífr Goðrúnarson, Þórr is referred to as ‘bǫlkveitir Loka’ (‘Loki’s trouble-averter’).57 In another late tenth-century poem, Einarr skálaglamm Helgason’s Vellekla, Óðinn is called ‘vinr Lopts’ (‘friend of Loptr’).58 Loptr is a known heiti or byname for Loki, noted as such by Snorri in his introduction of Loki in Gylfaginning; it is attested also in Þjoðolfr’s Haustlǫng, in Eilífr Góðrunarson’s 51 Snorri Sturluson, Háttatal, 8. 27, ed. Faulkes, p. 8. 52 Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál 1–32, ed. Faulkes, pp. 5–40. 53 Þjóðólfr, Haustlǫng 3/7 and 7/7, ed. Clunies Ross, in Poetry from Treatises on Poetics, ed. Gade and Marold, pp. 435, 441. 54 Þjóðólfr, Haustlǫng 12/3, ed. Clunies Ross, p. 449. 55 Þjóðólfr, Haustlǫng 4/4, ed. Clunies Ross, p. 437. 56 Þjóðólfr, Haustlǫng 8/5, ed. Clunies Ross, p. 443. 57 Eilífr Góðrunarson, Þórsdrápa 5/5–6, ed. Marold, in Poetry from Treatises on Poetics, ed. Gade and Marold, p. 75. 58 Einar Helgason, Vellekla 12/2, ed. Marold, in Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas, ed. Whaley, vol. 1, p. 297.

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Þórsdrápa, and in Lokasenna, as well as in a late eddic poem, Hyndluljóð, which is not included in the Codex Regius manuscript.59 In Háleygjatal by the Norwegian skald Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnson, also of the tenth century, Óðinn is called ‘vinr Lóðurs’ (‘Lóðurr’s friend’).60 The same kenning is used in the twelfth- or thirteenth-century poem Íslendingadrápa (1/2) by Haukr Valdísarson.61 Lóðurr is otherwise mentioned only once in Old Norse literature: In the eddic poem Vǫluspá, he, Óðinn and Hœnir create the first humans, Askr and Embla, out of driftwood.62 Several scholars have suggested that Lóðurr is an additional byname for Loki;63 this is corroborated by the fact that the divine triad of Lóðurr-Óðinn-Hœnir parallels that of Loki-Óðinn-Hœnir attested in other sources, including Þjóðólfr’s Haustlǫng, and the prose preface to the eddic poem Reginsmál, which tells how Óðinn, Hœnir and Loki were forced to pay a wergild after Loki killed Ótr, a dwarf in otter-form.64 The triad also features in Loka Táttur, a late medieval ballad from the Faroe Islands (Corpus Carminum Færoensium 13).65 The identification has been much disputed, often because the creator-role is deemed inconsistent with Loki’s nature. Jan de Vries, for instance, having posited Lóðurr as a fertility god, concludes that as such, ‘his identity with Loki […] becomes wellnigh impossible’.66 Rudolph Simek similarly objects that ‘in der Rolle eines Lebensspenders ist Loki jedoch schwer vorstellbar’ (‘Loki, however, is difficult to imagine in the role of a giver of life’).67 However, Loki is associated with fertility elsewhere in myth: as well as fathering Fenrir, Hel and the Miðgarðsormr, he bears offspring himself on multiple occasions. Snorri relates that he adopted the form of a mare and gave birth to Óðinn’s horse Sleipnir;68 the late eddic poem Hyndluljóð tells an obscure myth of how Loki was impregnated after eating a heart;69 and in Lokasenna 59 Þjóðólfr, Haustlǫng 8/6, ed. Clunies Ross, p. 443; Eilífr Góðrunarson, Þórsdrápa 1/3, ed. Marold, p. 85; Lokasenna 6/3: Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, p. 409; Hyndluljóð 41/5: Eddukvæði, vol. 1, p. 465. 60 Eyvindr Finnsson, Háleygjatal 8/7, ed. Poole, in Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas, ed. Whaley, vol. 1, p. 206. 61 Haukr Valdísarson, Íslendingadrápa 1/2, Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning, ed. by Finnur Jónsson, p. 539. 62 Vǫluspá 18/1–8: Eddukvæði, ed. by Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, p. 295. 63 Poetic Edda II, ed. Dronke, p. 125. 64 Reginsmál prose: Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 2, p. 296. 65 Føroya Kvæði, ed. Djurhuus and Matras, vol. 1, part 3, pp. 365–375. 66 de Vries, The Problem of Loki, p. 53. 67 Simek, Lexikon, p. 233. 68 Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 42, ed. Faulkes, pp. 34–35. 69 Hyndluljóð 41/1–8: Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, p. 467.

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Óðinn asserts that Loki bore children whilst living as a milkmaid.70 Simek’s conclusion once again relies on highly questionable assumptions – firstly that creator-gods must neccessarily conform to our standards of morality, and secondly that Snorri’s portrayal of Loki faithfully reflects his nature in pre-Christian religion and myth. De Vries additionally questions the value of the other evidence for LokiÓðinn-Hœnir as a traditional triad. He discards the prose introduction to Reginsmál and the testimony of the later Faroese material, accepting only Þjóðólfr’s Haustlǫng.71 Even of the latter he argues that ‘[Hœnir’s] only task is to make complete the sacred number of three’.72 Yet this fails to explain why Þjóðólfr selected Hœnir as his box-ticker, if he were not drawing on a traditional connection between these three gods. Similarly, de Vries is rightly cautious of accepting the prose preceding Reginsmál as a genuinely ancient myth (although certain elements of the episode are depicted in stone carvings from the tenth and eleventh centuries in Sweden and the Isle of Man).73 But it is a moot question whether or not this account of the slaying of Ótr is itself authentic, since the fact that the prose author attaches the story to the same divine triad indicates that the combination was well-established. In order to explain away the correspondence, de Vries argues that the author of the Reginsmál prose borrowed the triad directly from Haustlǫng.74 Nothing else corroborates this supposition, which sits ill with de Vries’s own admonition that the extant literary sources are only a fraction of what once existed.75 Furthermore, Haukur Þorgeirsson has observed that Loki and Lóðurr are considered identical in Icelandic rímur cycles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in particular the Lokrur cycle which recounts the journey to the hall of the giant Útgarða-Loki.76 Due to their late date, these are largely either disparaged or ignored as sources for Viking-Age myth; but as Haukur points out, unless we take the unlikely view that the composers made the identification on the basis of the same materials we have, they must either have had access to now-lost textual sources in which the identification was made, or – the more economical explanation – they must have drawn 70 71 72 73 31. 74 75 76

Lokasenna 23/4–8: Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, pp. 412–413. de Vries, The Problem of Loki, p. 50. de Vries, The Problem of Loki, p. 41. de Vries, The Problem of Loki, pp. 41–45; for the iconography, Kopár, Gods and Settlers, pp. 27, de Vries, The Problem of Loki, p. 45. de Vries, The Problem of Loki, p. 36. Haukur Þorgeirsson, ‘Lokrur’, pp. 37–40.

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directly from a continuous oral tradition. In either case, the identity must have been well established. To recapitulate, we have identified seven kennings missing from Snorri’s prose, all of which refer to Loki’s interpersonal relationships with other gods: ‘Hœnis vinr’ (Loki); ‘hugreynandi Hœnis’ (Loki); ‘hrafnásar vinr’ (Loki); ‘Þórs rúni’ (Loki); ‘bǫlkveitir Loka’ (Þórr); ‘vinr Lopts’ (Óðinn); and ‘vinr Lóðurs’ (Óðinn). It should be noted that Snorri’s kenning-list for Loki does include ‘sinna ok sessa Óðins ok Ása’ (‘companion and bench-mate of Óðinn and the Æsir’), which may be argued to account for the first three of these omissions. Sinni (companion) is used three further times to describe interpersonal relationships between the Æsir: Baldr and Hǫðr can each be denoted by the kenning ‘Heljar sinni’ (‘Hel’s companion’), and Hœnir’s kennings include ‘sinna eða sessa eða mála Óðins’ (‘companion or bench-mate or confidant of Óðinn’). The first two of these hardly give sinni a positive colouring. Hel is the monstrous daughter of Loki and guardian of the realm of the dead; Baldr is her companion because Loki deceived Hǫðr into killing him, and Hǫðr in turn was killed in order to avenge Baldr. In the case of Hœnir, the combination of sinni and sessi (bench-mate) is qualified by the addition of the overtly positive máli (friend, confidant), which is missing from Snorri’s description of Loki. In isolation, then, sinni ok sessi suggests a more neutral dynamic of companionship than is denoted by vinr in the Loki-kennings from Haustlǫng which Snorri omits. There remains no certain instance of Snorri offering a positive kenning for Loki,77 and there remain several authentic kennings which Snorri omits from his lists. Most of these kennings suggest a close connection between Loki, Óðinn, and Hœnir – a connection which, as we have seen, is corroborated by their appearance as a divine triad in the prologue to Reginsmál and probably in the creation myth in Vǫluspá. Þórs rúni and bǫlkveitir Loka both testifiy to a companionship between Loki and Þórr, which may seem surprising given Loki’s alignment with the Jǫtnar (giants), of whom Þórr is the principal 77 It is also notable that in the Codex Upsaliensis (DG 11) – the oldest extant manuscript of the Edda and the basis for its attribution to Snorri – the passage in question reads ‘varsinna ok sessa Óðins ok Ása’: Snorri Sturluson, Uppsala Edda, ed. Heimir Pálsson, p. 148. (The edited text gives vársinna, but as Heimir acknowledges in his introduction, p. lxiii, the length of the first vowel is not indicated in the manuscript.) The term varsinni is a hapax, and scribes of other manuscripts evidently did not understand it and substituted the familiar sinni, lending support for ‘varsinna’ as the original reading. Conceivably, this represents a coinage combining sinni with the negativizing prefixed particle var- (un-); cf. The Prose Edda, trans. Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, p. 114, who translated this passage as ‘evil companion […] of Odin and the Æsir’. This would provide further evidence for Snorri’s conscious alteration of his source materials, though the suggestion must remain speculation given the paucity of linguistic evidence.

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adversary;78 but in fact the two are reported to have journeyed together on several occasions. Snorri reports that Loki accompanies Þórr on his journey to Útgarða-Loki’s hall; an episode attached to this story, in which Þórr and his companions hide in a giant’s glove, is alluded to in the eddic poem Lokasenna.79 A stanza of another eddic poem, Hymiskviða, likewise hints that the pair have travelled together, and the skaldic poem Þórsdrápa tells how Loki accompanied Þórr to the hall of the giant Geirrǫðr.80 It is moreover tempting, in view of the particular sense of rúni (confidant), to draw a connection between this kenning from Haustlǫng and the myth related in the eddic poem Þrymskviða.81 The poem notably opens with Þórr confiding in Loki that his hammer Mjǫllnir has gone missing. Loki discovers that it has been stolen by the giant Þrymr, who will return it in exchange for Freyja’s hand in marriage. Þórr is disguised as Freyja and Loki as a handmaid, and the two travel to Jǫtunheim in order to retrieve the hammer. Snorri’s lists make no claim to be comprehensive; these are by no means the only known kennings that Snorri does not include in his lists, and several explanations might be offered for their absence. It is not inconceivable that he was simply unaware of some skaldic poems we know from other sources. This is in general a risky stance to take, since Snorri surely knew more skaldic verse than we do; in any case, he certainly knew Eyvindr Finnson’s Háleygjatal, because he quotes it (indeed, this very passage) in Haralds saga ins Hárfagra, part of his Heimskringla collection of sagas, and also mentions the poem by name in the prologue of his Edda.82 He also knew Haustlǫng, since he is our source for the poem in the first place, and likewise the work of Einarr Helgason, some of which he also quotes in Skáldskaparmál.83 Guðrún Nordal has observed that Snorri throughout his writings ‘judged skaldic verse according to a historical yardstick’, citing only known, respected 78 The Æsir are ultimately descended from the Jǫtnar, since Óðinn and his brothers are the children of Borr by the giantess Bestla (Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 6, ed. Faulkes, p. 11). Loki is more closely associated with the giants, however, because he allies with them at Ragnarǫk, and because he is the son of a giant father; his birth thus violates the principles governing the exchange of women between the Æsir and other kinship groups: Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, pp. 64–65 and n. 22. 79 Lokasenna 60/1–6 and 62/1–6: Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, p. 420. 80 Hymiskviða 37: Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, 407; Þórsdrápa, ed. Marold, pp. 75–124. 81 Eddukvæði, ed. Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, vol. 1, pp. 422–427. 82 Haralds saga ins Hárfagra XII: Heimskringla, ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, vol. 1, p. 108; Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning, ed. Faulkes, p. 6. 83 Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál, ed. Faulkes, pp. 10–13, 61–62, 67–68, 71, 83–84, 91.

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court poets; in contrast, his nephew Ólafr Þórðarson was guided ‘rather by aesthetic preferences than by the authenticity of the poetry’ in choosing illustrative examples for his Third Grammatical Treatise.84 Snorri’s preference for a canonical body of poetry does not explain his selectivity in this instance, however, because as we have seen, he is happy to cite these same poets elsewhere in his work. Snorri furthermore refrains from listing variations on the same idea. For instance, he notes that Óðinn may be referred to as ‘Hangatýr’ (the Hanged God), but he does not list every permutation of kennings in which Óðinn is associated with hanging or with gallows.85 Likewise, the Þórr-kennings ‘dólgr ok bani jǫtna’ (‘enemy and bane of giants’) are to be understood as encompassing extended variations on this theme, such as ‘fjǫrspillir Belja bǫlverðungar’ (‘life-destroyer of Beli’s evil troops [=giants]’), or ‘herði nauðar hauðrs áss runkykva’ (‘increaser of the distress of the ridge-land’s [mountains’] swift runners [=giants]’). Yet this does not justify the omission of the kennings with which we are concerned, since the mythological data underpinning these are not referred to in any form in Snorri’s prose. Finally, it might be countered that Snorri left these particular kennings out of the lists precisely because he quotes Haustlǫng and Þórsdrápa at length elsewhere in his Edda, and did not want to repeat himself. However, several other kennings used in Haustlǫng are included in Snorri’s lists: Þjóðólfr refers to Loki variously as ‘Fárbauta mǫg’ (Farbauti’s boy), ‘ulfs faðir’ (wolf’s father) ‘farmr Sigynjar arma’ (burden of Sigyn’s arms), and ‘Brisings góða girðiþjófr’ (thief of the gods’ Brising-girdle), whilst Þórr is ‘Jarðar sunr’ (Jǫrðr’s son) and ‘Ullar magi’ (Ullr’s father-in-law); all of these are noted in some form by Snorri in his kenning lists. Likewise, in Þórsdrápa Loki is ‘lǫgseims faðir’ (father of the sea-band, i.e. father of the Miðgarðr-Serpent), and Þórr is ‘þrámóðnir Þrúðr’ (he who longs for Þrúðr); yet Snorri nonetheless lists ‘fǫður Jǫrmungands, þat er Miðgarðsormr’ (father of Jǫrmungandr. that is the Miðgarðr-Serpent) as a kenning for Loki, whilst Þórr’s list includes ‘faðir Þrúðar’ (Þrúðr’s father). Furthermore, there are several instances in which Snorri reuses skaldic verses he has already quoted in a separate context, including stanzas from Haustlǫng. Evidently, then, he had no particular concern to avoid repetition of mythological data encoded in kennings. The highlighted omissions thus remain unaccounted for by these considerations. Snorri knew these kennings to be authentic, yet made no mention of them in his prose. They also notably vitiate the conception of 84 Guðrún Nordal, ‘Skaldic Citations’, p. 197. 85 Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál 2, ed. Faulkes, p. 7

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Loki as a wholly malevolent figure, linking him in positive terms with a nexus of other gods and implicitly with myths in which he plays an overtly positive role – the anthropogeny and the Þrymskviða narrative. We might also note at this juncture that in Snorri’s account of the creation, Óðinn is accompanied not by Lóðurr and Hœnir but by Vili and Vé, whilst the total absence of the Þrymskviða myth from Snorri’s text has even prompted the far-fetched suggestion that he wrote the poem himself.86 Naturally, innocent explanations are conceivable. Snorri’s account of the anthropogeny could have been drawn from an alternative tradition. Yet even on this assumption, we can be certain that he also knew the version recorded in Vǫluspá, a poem he elsewhere treats as authoritative, whilst the identity of Loki and Lóðurr in the later rímur tradition indicates a continuous awareness of this facet of Loki’s persona. We must therefore ask why he has deviated from Vǫluspá on this particular point. Similarly, Snorri may simply not have known the Þrymskviða myth. The poem is often regarded as a late composition, though the grounds for this have been challenged on several fronts. In any case, there is no proof that its composition postdates Snorri, and in the absence of supporting evidence it is unsound to assume ignorance on the part of a writer who had access to more sources than we do. Terry Gunnell considers that Snorri ‘was obviously aware of the myths behind Hymiskviða and Þrymskviða’, if not necessarily of the poems themselves.87 John McKinnell, on the other hand, has argued that Snorri did know Þrymskviða itself, identifying several elements incorporated into his Edda that appear to be borrowed from the poem.88 The narrative of the poem is an example of the tale type ATU 1148b, ‘The Theft of the Thunder-Instrument’, with analogues in particular from elsewhere in the circum-Baltic region.89 The prevalence of the tale type in the region provides additional support for the traditionality of the myth. Of course, the existence of the tale type does not prove that Loki’s involvement was an original feature, but it does show that the myth cannot be casually dismissed as the wholesale invention of the Þrymskviða poet. Snorri’s divergence from the other literary sources in these instances is therefore best explained in conjunction with the missing kennings, as part of a broader strategy of excising unwanted mythological data. 86 Hallberg, ‘Om Þrymskviða’, pp. 51–77; criticized by Lindblad, ‘Snorre Sturlasson och eddadiktningen’, pp. 17–34. 87 Gunnell, Origins of Drama, p. 219. 88 McKinnell, ‘Eddic Poetry’, p. 334 and n. 5. Conversely, for a confessedly speculative argument for the influence of Snorra Edda on Þrymskviða, see Frog, ‘Snorri Sturluson qua Fulcrum’, pp. 23–25. 89 Frog, ‘Circum-Baltic Mythology?’, pp. 78–98; Shaw, ‘The Dagda, Thor and ATU 1148B’.

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Any primary source naturally reflects the socio-historical conditions under which it was produced, and it is hardly surprising to find that a text composed centuries after the conversion of Iceland reflects a medieval Christian worldview. Yet in discussing Loki, some scholars, particularly in disciplines outside of Old Norse literature, dutifully recite the caveats whilst continuing to take Snorri’s portrayal at face value. Snorri’s Edda remains a valuable source for the study of pre-Christian Scandinavian mythology and for its reception in medieval Christian Iceland, but only provided we remain alert to his agency as a literary artist, working in a particular sociohistorical context. Whilst Snorri undoubtedly inherited a tradition in which Loki’s negative traits had started to come to the fore, the evidence adduced above demonstrates that the malevolent and demonic figure depicted in Snorra Edda owes a great deal to Snorri’s own authorial choices. In multiple instances, the source materials used in the compilation of the Edda evince a continued acknowledgment of a more nuanced conception of Loki and an awareness of his positive attributes: several authentic skaldic kennings testify to Loki’s integration into the community of the Æsir, in contrast with his more marginal status in Snorra Edda, and several of these kennings implicitly evoke two mythic narratives, also excluded from Snorri’s account, in which Loki’s role is wholly positive. The absence of these kennings from Snorri’s text can only be explained as the consequence of deliberate omission, and Snorri’s silence on Loki’s role in the anthropogeny and the recovery of Mjǫllnir is best explained as part of the same policy of suppression.

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Føroya Kvæði: Corpus Carminum Færoensium a Sv. Grundtvig et J. Bloch Comparatum, ed. Napoleon Djurhuus and Christian Matras, 6 vols. (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1941–1972). Gade, Kari Ellen, and Edith Marold, eds., Poetry from Treatises on Poetics (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017). Grimm, Jacob, Teutonic Mythology, trans. by J.S. Stallybrass, 4 vols. (London: George Bell and Sons, 1882–1888). Guðrún Nordal, ‘Skaldic Citations and Settlement Narratives as Parameters for Saga Dating’, in Dating the Sagas: Reviews and Revisions, ed. by Else Mundal (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2013), pp. 195–212. Gunnell, Terry, The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994). Hallberg, Peter, ‘Om Þrymskviða’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 69 (1954), 51–77. Haukur Þorgeirsson, ‘Lokrur, Lóðurr and Late Evidence’, The Retrospective Methods Network Newsletter 2 (2011), 37–40. Heide, Eldar, ‘Loki, the Vätte, and the Ash Lad: A Study Combining Old Scandinavian and Late Evidence’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 7 (2011), 63–106. Jónas Kristjánsson, and Vésteinn Ólason, eds. Eddukvæði, 2 vols. (Rekjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornritafélag, 2014). Kopár, Lilla, Gods and Settlers: The Iconography of Norse Mythology in AngloScandinavian Sculpture (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012). Laidoner, Triin, ‘The Flying Noaidi of the North: Sámi Tradition Reflected in the Figure Loki Laufeyjarson in Old Norse Mythology’, Scripta Islandica 63 (2012), 59–91. Leeming, David A., Oxford Companion to World Mythology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Liberman, Anatoly, ‘Snorri and Saxo on Útgarðaloki, with Notes on Loki Laufeyjarson’s Character, Career, and Name’, in Saxo Grammaticus: Tra Storiografia e Letteretura, ed. by Carlo Santini (Rome: Il Calamo, 1992), pp. 91–158. Lindblad, Gustav, ‘Snorre Sturlasson och eddadiktningen’, Saga och sed (1978), 17–34. Lindow, John, Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals and Beliefs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). McKinnell, John, ‘Eddic Poetry in Anglo-Scandinavian Northern England’, in Vikings and the Danelaw: Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Thirteenth Viking Congress, ed. by James Graham-Campbell, Richard Hall, Judith Jesch, and David N. Parsons (Oxford: Oxbow, 2001), pp. 327–342. Meissner, Rudolf, Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur skaldischen Poetik (Leipzig: Kurt Schroeder, 1921). Miller, Dean A., ‘Georges Dumézil: Theories, Critiques and Theoretical Extensions’, Religion 30.1 (2000), 27–40.

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North, Richard, ed. and trans., The Haustlo̜ ng of Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (Enfield Lock: Hisarlik, 1997). Nuttall, Alice, ‘“I Am the Monster Parents Tell their Children About at Night”: The Marvel Films’ Loki as Gothic Antagonist’, Gothic Studies 18.2 (2016), 62–73. O’Donoghue, Heather, ‘What Has Baldr To Do with Lamech? The Lethal Shot of a Blind Man in Old Norse Myth and Jewish Exegetical Traditions’, Medium Ævum 72.1 (2003): 82–107. O’Donoghue, Heather, Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004). Orchard, Andy, Cassell Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend (London: Cassell, 1997). Pálsson, Heimir, ed., and Anthony Faulkes, trans. The Uppsala Edda (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2012). Rooth, Anna Birgitta, Loki in Scandinavian Mythology (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1969). Sayers, William, ‘Norse Loki as Praxonym’, Journal of Literary Onomastics 5.1 (2016), 17–28. Schnurbein, Stefanie von, ‘The Function of Loki in Snorri Sturluson’s Edda’, History of Religions 20.2 (2000), 109–124. Scruton, Roger, The Ring of Truth: The Wisdom of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung (London: Allen Lane, 2016). Shaw, John, ‘The Dagda, Thor and ATU 1148B: Analogues, Parallels, or Correspondences?’, Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 55.1 (2019), 97–120. Simek, Rudolf, Lexikon der germanischen Mythologie (Stuttgart: Kröner, 1984). Ström, Folke, Loki: Ein mythologisches Problem (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1956). Turco, Jeffrey, ‘Nets and Snares: The Loki of Snorri’s Edda and the Christian Tradition’, History of Religions 56.2 (2016), 198–231. Turville-Petre, E.O.G., Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1964). Vikstrand, Per, ‘Place Names and Viking Age Religion’, in (eds.), Names and Their Environment: Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, Glasgow, 25–29 August 2014, ed. by Carol Hough and Daria Izdebska (Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 2016), vol. 2, pp. 177–184. Vries, Jan de, The Problem of Loki, Folklore Fellows Communications 110 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1933). Wanner, Kevin J., ‘Cunning Intelligence in Norse Myth: Loki, Óðinn, and the Limits of Sovereignty’, History of Religions 48.3 (2009), 211–246. West, Martin Litchfield, Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Whaley, Diane, ed., Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas I: From Mythical Times to c. 1035 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012).

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About the Author James Parkhouse completed his doctoral research on ‘Preliterary Classical Influences on Early Germanic Heroic Legends’ at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, in 2020. He is currently pursuing postdoctoral research on alliterative collocations in Old Norse poetry at the University of California, Berkeley.

13 Ymir, Baldr, and the Grand Narrative Arc of Mythological History Jonas Wellendorf

Abstract The Baldr story is now often linked with the killing of Ymir and seen as the pivotal point in a great mythological narrative that outlines the history of the flawed order of Óðinn from creation to destruction. This article discusses two related points with a bearing on the foundations of this theory. The first deals with the interpretation of the killing of Ymir and its significance for subsequent mythological events. Rather than seeing the killing of Ymir as a foundational crime, it is argued that the sources present it as a benign creative act. The second main point deals with the interpretation of the Baldr story as a murder within the family which, it is argued, is a story about the inevitability of fate. Keywords: Ragnarøk, mythological history, sacrifice, primordial murder

The Baldr story is counted among the most celebrated tales in the corpus of Norse mythological corpus and countless studies have been devoted to the elucidation of its meaning and origin. Following interpretations by Margaret Clunies Ross and John Lindow,1 who both prioritize meaning over origin, the Baldr story is now generally seen as the pivotal point in a great mythological narrative that outlines the history of the flawed order of Óðinn from creation to destruction. This article will discuss two related points with a bearing on the foundations of this theory. The first deals with the interpretation of the killing of Ymir and its significance for subsequent mythological events. The second deals with the interpretation of the Baldr story as a murder within the family. 1

Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, and Lindow, Murder and Vengeance.

Lyle, E., Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789463729055_ch13

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Summing up the history of research on the Baldr story some twenty years ago, Lindow wrote as follows: ‘It may be that the search for a unified Baldr theory is ultimately too grand an endeavor and should be scaled back to a series of attempts to interpret various texts or traditions’.2 And this is indeed what he does throughout most of his meticulous study of the Baldr myth Murder and Vengeance among the Gods: Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology. Toward the end of his monograph, he nevertheless proposes a well-reasoned overarching interpretation of the Baldr material as it has been recorded in writing in thirteenth-century Iceland. Myth offers, in his view, ‘a means of dealing with and sometimes working out problems of society and the human condition’.3 In the particular case of Norse mythology – and it is fair to say that his interpretation encompasses most of the mythological materials that have been preserved – ‘the mythology expresses the failure of a system organized patrilineally when faced with one kind of crisis, namely a slaying within a family […] Odin’s solution is to sire an avenger from outside the system, but as long as patrilines define membership, the vengeance extracted will still be no more than another slaying within the family’. 4 Parts of Lindow’s interpretation echo and develop Clunies Ross’s now classic study Prolonged Echoes where she argues that the Baldr myth highlights ‘the inability of Baldr’s kin, and his father in particular, to take vengeance for his death. The chosen method of solving this problem was predictable enough, when the gods’ devaluation of their kinship with the giants is remembered: a half-brother begotten for the sole purpose of vengeance is the thin end of the wedge of sifjaslit, “breaking the bonds of affinity”, something the gods had committed before when they killed Ymir’.5 Clunies Ross and Lindow both envision a great and grim narrative arc in a mythological history characterized by a primordial crime and its abiding repercussions. However, for all its bleakness, it is not one that is bereft of a certain sense of poetic justice. Óðinn’s order begins with and is only made possible by a foundational killing, the murder of the primordial giant Ymir. Out of Ymir’s dead dismembered body, the gods fashion cosmos. In the Gylfaginning section of the thirteenth-century Prose Edda, Hár, a part of the Odinic trinity relates: 2 Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, p. 38. 3 Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, p. 178 4 Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, p. 178. 5 Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, p. 273.

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They [Óðinn and his brothers] took Ymir and placed him in the middle of Ginnungagap, ‘the great void’, and made the world out of him, from his blood they made the sea and the waters. The earth was made from his flesh and the mountains from his bones, they made the rocks and the stones from the teeth and molars and of the bones that had broken […] and on the inner part of the earth they made a fortification around heimr, ‘the inhabited part of the world’ against the enmity of the giants, and for that fortification they used the brows of Ymir the giant, and they called that fortification Miðgarðr. They also took his brains and threw them into the skies and made thereof the clouds, as it is said here:6

At this point, Hár cites some lines of traditional cosmogonic poetry as corroboration. Out of Ymir’s flesh, the world was shaped, and from his sweat the sea, mountains from bones, trees from hair and from the skull the sky. | And from his brows, the kind rulers made Middle Earth for the sons of men, and from his brains were all the hard-minded clouds shaped.7

This primordial act of carnage is a creative one, but from the perspective of Old Norse ideology it is also, and this point is of particular importance to Clunies Ross and Lindow, a transgressive one: a murder within the family. The miasma-like consequences of this atrocity affect the gods throughout mythological history until the main players are destroyed at Ragnarøk. Óðinn’s creation, as a consequence, is a flawed order. Lindow writes: The old order was flawed from the start. Odin and his brothers could only create the cosmos by means of the slaying and dismemberment of Ymir the progenitor of the race of their mother […]. The killing and dismemberment of Ymir […] is in Scandinavian mythology a killing within 6 ‘Þeir tóku Ymi ok fluttu í mitt Ginnungagap, ok gerðu af honum jǫrðina, af blóði hans sæinn ok vǫtnin. Jǫrðin var gǫr af holdinu en bjǫrgin af beinunum, grjót ok urðir gerðu þeir af tǫnnum ok jǫxlum ok af þeim beinum er brotin váru […] En fyrir innan á jǫrðunni gerðu þeir borg umhverfis heim fyrir ófriði jǫtna, en til þeirar borgar hǫfðu þeir brár Ymis jǫtuns, ok kǫlluðu þá borg Miðgarð. Þeir tóku ok heila hans ok kǫstuðu í lopt ok gerðu af skýin, svá sem hér segir:’ (Faulkes, Prologue and Gylfaginning, pp. 11–12). Translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. 7 ‘Ór Ymis holdi | var jǫrð of skǫpuð, | en ór sveita sjár, | bjǫrg ór beinum, | baðmr ór hári, | en ór hausi himinn; || En ór hans brám | gerðu blíð regin | Miðgarð manna sonum, | en ór hans heila | váru þau hin harðmóðgu | ský ǫll of skǫpuð’ (Faulkes, Prologue and Gylfaginning, p. 12). These lines are also independently preserved as stanzas 40 and 41 of the Eddic poem Grímnismál (Neckel and Kuhn, Edda, p. 65).

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a family […]. The cosmos that is created is flawed […]. The Æsir themselves are flawed […]. The world of humans is also flawed […]. Ragnarǫk purges these flaws […]. The flawed Æsir […] are swept away, to be replaced by a younger generation presumably lacking the blemishes of Odin and Thor.8

Although an ultimate redemption awaits and a new world, purified and absolved of the crime of Óðinn, will rise from the sea, Lindow does paint a very gloomy view of a tainted mythological present which, it should be stressed, is generally conceived of as coeval with our age, that is, the age in which humans live. This powerful vison of mythological history has a pleasing structure. It progresses from a situation of initial perfection where gods and giants co-exist, harmoniously as far as one can tell. Some mythic event brings about a rupture, ending this happy age and causing the miseries of the present era. But a restoration of the initial happy state of affairs awaits in the future. Although one may observe parallels with Christian visions of history here, the developmental model seems to be much more widespread. Mircea Eliade once discussed it in terms of a Nostalgia for Paradise9 and more recently Bruce Lincoln has illustrated, while also distancing himself from Eliade, how different modulations of this theme are present in Scythian legend (as reported by Herodotus) and in Old and Middle Persian sources.10 Parallels between the Baldr story and Christian myth are reinforced by making the death of a god, Baldr the son of the all-father god Óðinn, the nave around which everything revolves and whose death, while a crime, makes possible redemption and a return to the initial happy state.11 But the parallels with Christianity should not be overemphasized, and it may also be worthwhile to point out that a crucial difference between the vision of Norse mythological history and the more typical configurations of the theme of Nostalgia for Paradise is that in Norse tradition it is the gods, the startlingly human divinities of the pre-Christian Scandinavians, rather than humanity that have fallen. This structure of fall and redemption gives a pleasing sense of wholeness and coherence to the mythology and I have made good use of it when teaching and presenting papers on Norse mythology. I have also come to realize that it has some weak points. From a typological perspective one may discuss whether such an ethical view of mythological history with an 8 Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, pp. 170–172. 9 Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries, pp. 59–72. 10 Lincoln, ‘The One and the Many in Iranian Creation Myths’. 11 The parallels between the Baldr story and biblical traditions have been repeatedly examined in scholarship; for an example, see O’Donoghue, ‘What Has Baldr To Do with Lamech?’, pp. 90–91. The most exuberant example is that of Bugge (Studier, pp. 32–78).

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inherited sin, caused by an initial kin-slaying, is appropriate for a religious system like the one in question, but I would like to focus more narrowly on the Scandinavian texts and sources rather than grander issues of typology.12

Ymir Since the killing of Baldr is considered to somehow correspond to, or parallel, or be a consequence of the somewhat analogous killing of Ymir, it will be advantageous to look at the killing of Ymir before turning to the Baldr story. The questions that will be discussed are in succession: 1) How are Óðinn and Ymir related? 2) How do we know? 3) How can the killing of Ymir be valorized? 1) The first question is fairly easily answered with the help of Gylfaginning. Since patrilines are of particular importance to Lindow’s case, one may begin by considering this part of the genealogy: Óðinn and his two brothers Vili and Vé are said to be the sons of Borr, who is the son of Búri. Búri has neither biological father nor mother; rather he was licked out of a rime-stone by the primordial cow Auðhumla, who also nourished Ymir with her milk. Búri is described as being ‘handsome to look at, great and mighty’.13 Although Búri is said to have been a ‘man’ (maðr), this cannot be interpreted to mean that he was conceived of as a human rather than as a giant, for the first two frost-giants said to have grown from Ymir’s left armpit are also said to have been ‘a man and a woman’. In this connection, therefore, maðr should be taken to mean ‘male’, rather than ‘man, human’. The name of Borr is derived from the Proto-Germanic verb *beran (‘bear’) and means ‘born [one], son’.14 The name of Borr’s father, Búri, is often understood to derive from the same verb and is hence taken to mean ‘bearer, father’. It seems, however, that this would require a short root vowel, that is, Buri rather than Búri.15 Von See, La Farge, and Schulz follow older 12 Scholarship has been willing to see traces of Christian thought in Gylfaginning and its main source Vǫluspá. But scholars diverge on the question of how these traces of Christian thought should be interpreted. On Gylfaginning, see Wellendorf (Gods and Humans in Medieval Scandinavia, pp. 84–108); on Vǫluspá, see von See et al. (Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, pp. 31–40). 13 ‘Fagr álitum, mikill ok máttugr’ (Faulkes, Prologue and Gylfaginning, p. 11). 14 Borr, spelled Burr, is also named as the oldest of Jarl’s sons in Rígsþula (st. 41, Neckel and Kuhn, Edda, p. 286). On the variations in the representation of the root vowel, see Noreen, Altisländische Grammatik, § 61, 1. 15 Cf. de Vries, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 65, s.v. ‘Buri’. That the root vowel of Búri’s name was indeed long is, according to Finnur Jónsson (LexPoet., p. 71, s.v. Búri), shown by

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literature in suggesting that Búri is derived from búa (‘live, dwell’, 2019, 1/II, 1509).16 His name would thus mean ‘dweller’ or something along those lines. Turning to their mother’s side, it can first be observed that no female being is mentioned as being involved in the conception of Borr, and that Búri, therefore, as it has been known to happen in mythology, may have been conceived through monogenesis. The mother of Óðinn and his brothers is, on the other hand, identified as Bestla, a daughter of a giant and hence probably to be considered a giant as well, or rather a giantess. The etymology of Bestla’s name is uncertain and debated, but one suggestion that has the advantage of making sense in the context in which the name occurs is that it designates her role in relation to Borr and thus means ‘spouse’.17 As names of a primordial couple, ‘born [one]’ and ‘spouse’ make good sense, and one may see these names as giving expression to the same general idea as the signifying names of Rígsþula. No mention is made of Bestla’s mother, but her giant father’s name is given as Bǫlþorn, ‘damage thorn’. Bǫlþorn’s father is not mentioned but, given that he is explicitly said to be a giant and that Gylfaginning quotes Vǫluspá in skamma for the factoid that ‘all giants are descended from Ymir’,18 one can assume that this is also the case for Bǫlþorn. The etymology of the name of Ymir is disputed. Comparativists have seen parallels in the Vedic Yama, the Avestan Yima and, perhaps, the Roman Remus. Therefore, they derive the name from PIE *yemós ‘twin’ and see Ymir’s ability to procreate on his own as an indication of a hermaphroditic nature; Ymir hence is a twin.19 Scholars who consider the name in an ON context on the other hand note that Ymir’s name could be cognate with the ON noun ymr (m. ‘noise’) and the verb ymja, ‘make noise’. The meaning the stanza by Þorvaldr Blönduskáld (cited in note 20 below). The form Burri, given in Flateyjarbók, also cited in note 20, also points to an older form with a long root vowel (see e.g. Björn K. Þórólfsson, Um íslenskar orðmyndir, pp. xxx–xxxi). 16 Von See et al. in Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda add Schröder’s suggestion that Búri may also be cognate with Greek φύω ‘beget, bring forth’ (‘Germanische Schöpfungsmythen II’, p. 89). This suggestion seems superfluous given that búa and φύω both are held to derive from the same PIE root *bheh2u- (see Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, pp. 1597–1598, s.v. φύομαι and Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, p. 71, s.v. *bōan- ~ *būan-). 17 See McKinnell (‘Wisdom from Dead Relatives’, p. 133) and von See et al. (Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, vol. 1, pp. 894–895). For the meaning ‘spouse’, compare Old Frisian bōst ‘marriage’, derived from the verb *bindan ‘to bind’ (Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of ProtoGermanic, sv. *bans(t)a-). 18 ‘[Eru] allir jǫtnar | frá Ymi komnir’ (Faulkes, Prologue and Gylfaginning, p. 10). 19 See e.g. West, Indo-European Poetry and Myth, pp. 256–259; see below for further discussions of comparative materials.

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A rimestone

Ymir

Búri

Bolþorn

Borr

Bestla

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Óðinn, Víli and Vé Figure 13.1. The genealogy of Óðinn and his brothers according to the Prose Edda, drawn by the author.

‘screamer’ is consistent with a number of giant names that similarly seem to refer to noise.20 It is thus clear that Óðinn and his brothers are not descendants of Ymir in the all-important paternal line (see Figure 13.1). Rather, in a world primarily populated by descendants of Ymir and created by the dismemberment of the dead giant, Óðinn and his brothers stand out as exceptional in that their familial connection to Ymir is only partial, their paternal line having been licked out of a rime-stone. 2) As regards the sources of our knowledge, all the information presented above was drawn from the Gylfaginning section of the Prose Edda, a thirteenth-century handbook on mythology and poetics ascribed to Snorri Sturluson. What exactly Snorri contributed to the work in the forms in which it is now preserved is uncertain, and in the following Snorri’s name is only used as a shorthand for the person or persons responsible for the texts as 20 E.g. the trio Bergelmir, Þrúðgelmir, and Aurgelmir in Vafþrúðnismál (st. 29, Neckel and Kuhn, Edda, p. 50), whose names all contain the element -gelmir which is cognate with gala ‘scream’.

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they are now available to scholarship in manuscripts and in the various scholarly editions. Snorri was, among other things, a great systematizer of mythological lore and his work draws on and combines information from a number of sources, many of which are preserved in various forms. It is thus often, but by no means always, possible to trace the facts he presents back to some other source. However, the agnatic line Óðinn < Borr < Búri is first found in a skaldic fragment quoted in the Skáldskaparmál section of the Prose Edda (i.e. also by Snorri), where it is attributed to the twelfth-century poet Þorvaldr Blǫnduskáld: ‘Now I have dug deep inside the mead of the son of Borr, the heir Búri’.21 One must assume that the names of Borr and Búri and these characters’ relation to Óðinn were well known to the original audience of the poem. In spite of its late attestation, general scholarly consensus holds that the patriline is traditional and of high age.22 The general parallel as regards naming patterns in Rígsþula could strengthen this supposition, but the evidence is weak. The fraternal relation of the three brothers Óðinn, Víli and Vé is less certainly attested outside of Gylfaginning, but stanza 23 of Sonatorrek by the Viking Age poet Egill Skallagrímsson does include the kenning bróður Vílis (‘the brother of Vílir’) for Óðinn;23 Vílir would then have to be taken as a variant form of the name Víli.24 Óðinn’s maternal line rests on a half-stanza by the pre-Christian skáld Einarr skálaglamm (tenth 21 ‘Nú hefi ek mart | í miði greipat | burar Bors | Búra arfa’ (Faulkes, Skáldskaparmál, vol. 1, p. 11). The stanza is attributed to the obscure poet Þorvaldr Blǫnduskáld, who appears to have been associated with the Norwegian king Sigurðr Jórsalafari. See Busch (‘Þorvaldr Blǫnduskáld, p. 487) for further details. Busch translates the stanza: ‘Now I have included many things in the mead of the son of Borr […], the heir of Búri […]’ (‘Þorvaldr Blǫnduskáld’, p. 489). A similar line of descent, albeit with what appears to be slightly garbled names, is given in the genealogy of Haraldr hárfagri as presented in Flateyjarbók (which traces Haraldr’s ancestors back to Adam): ‘[Goðolfr] hans son Burri er vér kǫllum Finn, hans son Frjálafr er vér kǫllum Bors, hans son Voden er vér kǫllum Óðin’ (Unger and Guðbrandur Vigfússon, Flateyjarbok, vol. 1, p. 27): ‘Godolfr, his son Burri whom we call Finnr, his son Frjálafr whom we call Bors, his son Voden whom we call Óðinn’. 22 Tacitus’s mention of the agnatic genealogy from the earthborn Tuisto > Mannus > three sons (Germania 2.2) is generally held up as a parallel (see Schröder, ‘Germanische Schöpfungsmythen II’, pp. 89–91 for a discussion with additional parallels). If this parallel is accepted, the earth-born god Tuisto (deus terra editus) would correspond to the rime-stone-born Búri. Other arguments have been proposed in favour of seeing Tuisto as a parallel to Ymir (see Güntert, Der arische Weltkönig und Heiland, pp. 315–343). Philippson dissents and an early date would not fit well into his view of the development of Germanic religion (Die Genealogie der Götter in germanischer Religion, pp. 69–70). 23 Skjaldedigtning B I, 37. 24 See the discussion by von See et al. of Burs synir (Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, vol. 1, pp. 97–99).

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century), which refers to Óðinn as the son of Bestla,25 and stanza 140 of Hávamál in which Bestla’s father is named Bǫlþórr (rather than Bǫlþorn as in Gylfaginning). Neither Bestla nor Bǫlþorn/Bǫlþórr are explicitly said to be giants in these texts, nor are they said to descend from Ymir, but the ominous-sounding name of Bestla’s father does indicate that he was indeed thought of as a giant.26 So although Óðinn’s genealogy, as presented in the Prose Edda, f inds some support in the other mythological sources, the link to Ymir is not made outside of Gylfaginning (which is not particularly explicit in this regard), but given the fragmentary nature of the materials this may be too much to ask. 3) The issue of the valorization of the killing of Ymir is more critical. As mentioned above, Clunies Ross and Lindow valorize it negatively as a killing within the family and see all the flaws of Óðinn’s order as a direct consequence of this murder. Gylfaginning is the only text that unequivocally states that Óðinn and his brothers killed Ymir: The sons of Borr killed [drápu] Ymir the giant. But when he fell so much blood ran from his wounds that they drowned the entire race of frostgiants with it, except one who escaped with his household.27

The verb used to designate the killing, drepa (‘kill’), is the usual one. It implies that violence is used, but it is a neutral verb semantically speaking and can designate a killing resulting in outlawry for the killer as well as the killing of the Antichrist at the end of times (see ONP s.v.). The older texts dealing with cosmogony also describe how the gods created the world out of Ymir’s body, but none of these texts mention how he died. Vǫluspá does not mention the killing and dismemberment of Ymir in connection with the cosmogony. Rather, this poem skips directly from mentioning Ymir living in a time when there was neither ‘earth nor heaven above’ but only Ginnungagap (st. 3) to describing how ‘the sons of Burr | lifted the lands’ (st. 4).28 While it could be argued that this knowledge is 25 Stanza 25, Faulkes, Skáldskaparmál, p. 11. 26 See McKinnell (‘Wisdom from Dead Relatives’, pp. 131–135) on the Hávamál context and its interpretation. 27 ‘Synir Bors drápu Ymi jǫtun. En er hann fell, þá hljóp svá mikit blóð ór sárum hans at með því drektu þeir allri ætt Hrímþursa, nema einn komsk undan með sínu hýski’ (Faulkes, Prologue and Gylfaginning, p. 11). 28 ‘jǫrð fannsk æva | né upphiminn | gap var ginnunga […] Áðr Burs synir | bjǫðum um ýppðu’ (Neckel and Kuhn, Edda, p. 1). The meaning and etymology of bjǫðr is uncertain; see von See et al. (Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, vol. 1, pp. 99–100).

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presupposed by the poet,29 the apparent cyclical nature of the poem could also indicate that a primordial cosmogonic dismemberment is redundant. Rather than being constructed out of a dead giant, the world in Vǫluspá appears to be lifted up from a primordial sea. Later, when the main gods have perished in the great battle at Ragnarǫk, the earth sinks back into the sea only to rise again purified a few stanzas later.30 In an older article, Schier presented a large number of typological parallels from other mythological traditions, in which one (or more) gods lifts the world out of a primordial ocean (or sends a bird down into the sea to lift up the world).31 On the strengths of these parallels, it would seem that there is no need to posit a primordial dismemberment of Ymir for Vǫluspá.32 The Eddic texts that describe the gods’ creation and guardianship of the world and its order generally refer to them in positive terms. Grímnismál mentions the gods, blíð regin (‘the kind gods’), as the agents of creation fashioning the world out of Ymir’s body (sts 40–41). Vafþrúðnismál calls them nýt regin (‘the useful/helpful gods’, st. 25).33 Vafþrúðnismál also presents the creation of the world out of Ymir’s body in the passive voice without mentioning any agents (st. 21), although nýt regin (‘the helpful/useful gods’) are said to establish time a few stanzas later (st. 25). However, this poem also complicates the narrative somewhat by mentioning two primordial figures: Ymir, out of whose body the world was created, and Aurgelmir, who spawned the giants from his armpit (sts 29–33). Snorri, systematizing, resolves this difficulty by stating that Ymir is called Aurgelmir in the language of the giants, but this does not seem to reflect the linguistic usage of the giant Vafþrúðnir in the poem, who uses these names to refer to different characters. Considering Vafþrúðnismál as an independent mythological 29 As does Lönnroth, ‘The Founding of Miðgarðr (Vǫluspá 1–8)’, p. 11. 30 ‘Sól tér sortna, | sígr fold í mar, | hverfa af himni | heiðar stjǫrnur’ (‘The sun turns black, the earth sinks into the sea, the bright stars vanish from the sky’; st. 57, Neckel and Kuhn, Edda, p. 13). ‘Sér hon upp koma | ǫðru sinni | jǫrð ór ægi | iðjagrœna’ (‘She sees the earth rising from the sea, green again, a second time’; st. 59, Neckel and Kuhn, Edda, p. 14). 31 Schier, ‘Die Erdschöpfung aus dem Urmeer und die Kosmogonie der Vǫluspá’. 32 This, however, does not necessarily mean that Vǫluspá skips this motif completely, for it may be employed in a different form a few stanzas later, in stanza 9, in connection with the creation of the dwarfs. This is a difficult passage in the poem and the exact sequence of events, the causality and the motivations of the characters are hard to pin down. I hope to discuss this in another context. 33 A collective of gods are also characterized as nýt in Vafþrúðnismál stanzas 13–14, while Freyr is characterized as nýtr in Grímnismál stanza 43. The gods are characterized as blíð in Grímnismál stanzas 6, 37, 41. Lokasenna stanza 32 appears to use the phrase blíð regin in a more general way as ‘cheerful gods’.

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text, the most obvious interpretation would be to see Ymir and Aurgelmir as two different characters. Some indication of Ymir’s character or his general disposition may be gleaned from the Grímnismál stanza cited in note 7 above where mention is made of the in harðmóðgu ský (‘the hard-minded [i.e. cruel] clouds’) which were created from his brains.34 This seems to characterize him negatively, although Old Norse texts generally appear to situate emotions and an individual’s general spirit or disposition in the chest rather than in the head/brain.35 Vafþrúðnismál points in the same direction when it describes Ymir as inn hrímkaldi jǫtunn (‘the frost-cold giant’, st. 21).36 On the basis of these characterizations, it seems reasonable to take Gylfaginning at face value when it has Hár state that Ymir and all his giant kin were evil.37 Having summed up the internal testimonies, it seems clear that the evidence for seeing the killing of Ymir as a monumental, foundational crime and a murder within the family is not well supported by the Old Norse textual sources. On the contrary, they appear to describe the creative acts of the gods in positive terms; the gods being benign and kind and Ymir as evil and hard-minded. While some religious traditions, such as Manicheanism and some gnostic traditions, take a negative view of the world and sees it as an inherently flawed creation only made possible by evil, it does not seem that the Old Norse tradition, in the form in which it is now known to us, should be counted among them. 34 The Poetic Edda also uses the adjective harðmóðugr to describe Gunnarr and Hǫgni in Atlamál (st. 13) as they set off to Atli’s court ignoring the entreaties and warnings of their household. 35 Þrymskviða stanza 31 provides one clear example: ‘Hló Hlórriða | hugr í brjósti || er harðhugaðr | hamar um þekði’ (‘the spirit of Hlórriði laughed in the chest when the hard-minded recognized the hammer’; Neckel and Kuhn, Edda, p. 115). The Skáldskaparmál section also implies that the mind is situated in the heart: ‘Hjarta heitir negg. Þat skal svá kenna, kalla korn eða stein eða epli eða hnot eða mýl eða líkt ok kenna við brjóst eða hug. Kalla má ok hús eða jǫrð eða berg hugarins’ (‘The heart is called negg. It shall be referred to by calling it the corn, or the stone or the apple or the nut or the ball or something similar and be referred to in terms of the chest or the mind’; Faulkes, Skáldskaparmál, p. 108). 36 Hrímkaldr is also used to characterize one of Loki’s sons (negatively) in Lokasenna (49–50) and to characterize the dwarf Reginn (in Fáfnismál 39). 37 ‘Hann [Ymir] var illr ok allir hans ættmenn’ (‘He was evil and so was all his kin’; Faulkes, Prologue and Gylfaginning, p. 10). Aurgelmir, whom Snorri, as mentioned above, equates with Ymir, is more positively described in Vafþrúðnismál and characterized as inn fróði jǫtunn (‘the wise giant’) by Vafþrúðnir in stanza 33. Óðinn’s reference to inn fróði jǫtunn, ‘the wise giant’, in stanza 30 may be taken as reference to Aurgelmir as well (although Óðinn uses this expression elsewhere in the text, stanza 20, to refer to Vafþrúðnir). Furthermore, Óðinn refers to Aurgelmir as inn baldni (ms A)/aldni (ms R) jǫtunn (‘the fierce/old giant’) in stanza 32.

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The notion that creation should not be seen as a transgressive, evil deed can, for what it is worth, be supported by comparative material. There is a long tradition for noticing parallels between the Norse account of creation from Ymir’s dead body and other traditions. The historian of religion Bruce Lincoln once argued, on the strengths of an analysis of Indian, Iranian, Roman and Norse materials, that the Norse creation story is a reflection of a common Indo-European myth in which the first priest (who in Old Norse tradition would be represented by Óðinn and his brothers) sacrifices his twin brother, the first king (who would be Ymir). ‘As a result of this sacrifice, the world is created and [the first priest] fashions the earth and heavens, as well as the three social classes from his brother’s body’.38 Lincoln furthermore argued that ‘the myth tells us of the origin of the world and also of the origin of the most important human institution – sacrifice. […] The sacrifice is the origin of the world, and each repeated sacrifice serves to re-create it’.39 Although Lincoln himself has since left the reconstructive Indo-European paradigm behind, 40 his reconstruction is still cited with some frequency. 41 In addition to these ideas (which will be discussed further below), one may also cite comparative materials from non-Indo-European traditions that provide typological parallels. One of the more striking examples is the Babylonian Epic of Creation (often cited as Enūma eliš), of which the fourth tablet recounts how Marduk (referred to as Bēl ‘Lord’) kills the primordial being Tiamat: ‘Bēl placed his feet on the lower parts of Tiāmat, | and with his merciless club smashed her skull. | He severed her arteries | […] | He split her into two like a dried fish: | One half of her he set up and stretched out as the heavens’. 42 Like Óðinn and his brothers, Marduk thereafter brings order to the celestial bodies, organizes time and becomes the supreme ruler of the pantheon. The text goes on to describe how the other half of Tiāmat becomes the earth and how various elements of the cosmos are made out of her. The killing of Tiāmat is also positively valorized: ‘[The gods] 38 Lincoln, ‘The Indo-European Myth of Creation’, p. 139. In the original myth, the sacrifice of the human king was accompanied by the sacrifice of a bull from whose body all animals and plants are created. 39 Lincoln, ‘The Indo-European Myth of Creation’, p. 139. Lincoln develops aspects of this theory in a number of other publications, including ‘Death and Resurrection in Indo-European Thought’, Myth, Cosmos and Society, and Death, War and Sacrifice. 40 See Lincoln, Death, War and Sacrifice, pp. 123–125. 41 See e.g. Mallory and Adams, The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European, pp. 435–436. Lincoln reiterates some of the same points in ‘Pahlavi Kirrēnīdan: Traces of Iranian Creation Mythology’. 42 Trans. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, pp. 93–95. For an illuminating contextualization of this text and a discussion of its themes and aims, see Seri, ‘The Role of Creation in Enūma eliš’.

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saw it and were jubilantly happy’. 43 According to Mesopotamian creation tales, humans were also partly created out of a slain being: In Enūma Eliš, Qingu is killed by the other gods as punishment for having started the war between the generations of gods. Mankind is subsequently fashioned out of his blood. 44 In Atrahasis, on the other hand, Ilawela is slaughtered by the gods – probably also as a punishment for having initiated an uprising among the gods45 – and his flesh and blood are mixed with clay to form humans who are then given life when the assembled gods spit on them. 46 In both accounts humans are created to relieve the gods of their hard work. On the basis of the internal evidence as well as the comparative materials, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the primordial cosmogonic deeds of Óðinn and his brothers in Norse mythology should be seen as beneficial, constructive acts and the resulting cosmos as a testament to his initial victory over the giants.

Baldr Turning from Ymir’s death to that of Baldr, the crucial points are: 1) that it is the focal point at the centre of the mythology, and 2) that it is a murder within the family. 1) Gylfaginning clearly presents Baldr’s death as a momentous event in the causal chain of mythological history that leads towards the climactic end at Ragnarǫk. Not all myths are tightly integrated into mythological history in Gylfaginning, but the story of Baldr’s death is:47 Loki’s responsibility for the killing and his thwarting of the attempt to reclaim Baldr from the realm of the dead leads to the ultimate and unfortunate irreversible severing of the bonds between him and the gods which in turn results in his punishment and his breaking free and leading the forces of chaos against the gods in the great battle. This clear logical causality may be the result of the systematizing 43 Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, p. 103. Marduk, like Óðinn, is separated from the primordial being by some generations. His genealogy is: Apsû and Tiamat > Anšar > Anu > Ea > Marduk. While Ea kills Apsû, Marduk later kills Tiamat. See Seri, ‘The Role of Creation in Enūma eliš’, pp. 8–10. 44 Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, pp. 111–113. 45 Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, p. 223. 46 ‘Ilawela who had intelligence, | they slaughtered in their assembly. Nintu mixed clay | with his flesh and blood’ (Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, p. 17). 47 On the chronology of mythical history, see Ciklamini, ‘The Chronological Conception in Norse Mythology’, Meletinskij, ‘Scandinavian Mythology as a System (1) and (2)’, and Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, pp. 229–247, who also summarizes other discussions of this issue.

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efforts of Snorri Sturluson. While Baldr’s death looms large in other sources as well, it is striking that Gylfaginning is the only source that places most of the responsibility for the death of Baldr on Loki. This is of course a wellknown fact among those who have studied the materials, but it is often willfully ignored. 48 The Codex Regius version of Vǫluspá, the poem that provides much of the chronological backbone for mythological history, does not emphasize Baldr’s death to the same degree and the poem also largely eschews causal links between the various tableaux called up by the seeress. The three stanzas devoted to the topic of Baldr’s death are however placed more or less exactly halfway through the poem, 49 and this could certainly be regarded as an indicator of the centrality of this event. They are followed by a stanza telling of the chained Loki, so one may very well interpret this as an indication of causality. The second version of the poem, the Hauksbók version, on the other hand does not contain the sequence of stanzas telling of Baldr’s death. It does however mention the bound Loki.50 2) The second point I wish to make regarding the death of Baldr concerns its characterization as a murder within the family.51 Initially, it may be observed that Gylfaginning does not mention that Baldr and Hǫðr are in fact brothers. Kari Ellen Gade has shown that the textual evidence for their brothership is very slender. This in turn has led her to the conclusion that the identification of the two as brothers post-dates Snorri’s days.52 But even if we give up on the kinship of the two, the fact remains that Baldr and Hǫðr belong to the same in-group in the mythology. Hǫðr’s shooting of Baldr thus remains tragic. 48 See e.g. Lindow who writes: ‘Since both Baldrs draumar and Vǫluspá mention only Hǫðr as the slayer of Baldr and leave Loki’s connection to the deed unclear, there has naturally arisen a huge debate as to the “original” presence or absence of Loki in the myth […] we will leave Loki’s role intact’ (Murder and Vengeance, p. 68). Of older, classic studies one may mention De Vries (‘Der Mythos von Balders Tod’, p. 42) who appeals to Dumézil’s studies of Loki and argues that ‘die Darstellung in der Gylfaginning darf […] als sichere Grundlage der Forschung betrachtet werden’ (‘the Gylfaginning presentation should be taken as a secure foundation for scholarship [on the Baldr-complex]’). 49 The numbering of stanzas varies somewhat from edition to edition, as does the extent to which stanzas only found in ms H are incorporated into the reconstruction of the text. However, Bugge providing a diplomatic transcription of the R text that is divided into numbered stanzas has Baldr’s death in stanzas 32–34 out of 62 stanzas (Norrœn fornkvæði, pp. 12–18). The most recent edition, places Baldr’s death in stanzas 31–33 out of 63 stanzas (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, Eddukvæði I–II, vol. 1, pp. 291–307). 50 Loki is not mentioned by name in the H stanza. He is only identified as the ver (‘husband’) of Sigyn (Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, Eddukvæði I–II, vol. 1, p. 312). 51 Lindow uses the noun ‘murder’ in the title of his study, but in the quotation at the beginning of this section, he characterizes the deed as a ‘slaying’. 52 Gade, ‘“Hǫðr . . . Sonr Óðins”’, p. 275 et passim.

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More important is the fact that ‘murder’ is an obviously loaded term. It has strongly negative implications and signals intentionality. Old Norse legal texts differentiate between murder (morð) and killing (víg), a murder being a killing committed in secrecy and a murderer a killer who does not proclaim and take responsibility for his deed.53 According to Old Norse law, the punishment for murder is more severe than the punishment for a killing and various special provisions apply. Gylfaginning describes how Baldr was killed in full public at the assembly of the gods and there do not seem to have been any doubts about Loki’s responsibility for the killing,54 Baldr’s death does not qualify as a murder. Clunies Ross and Lindow attach great importance to the close familial relation between Baldr and Hǫðr. For Clunies Ross and Lindow, the tragedy of the killing is compounded by the duty of Baldr’s kinsmen to take vengeance on Hǫðr, but that this cannot be done without committing further killings within the family.55 Taking the cycle of vengeances to its logical conclusion would, as Lindow notes, force Óðinn ‘to direct vengeance towards himself’.56 This interpretation echoes a passage from the Old English poem Beowulf, which is often discussed in the context of the Old Norse Baldr story.57 Before Beowulf goes off to face the dragon, he reminiscences about his early life and among other things tells his followers about a great tragedy that happened at the court of his grandfather, King Hreðel, where he was fostered as a child (ll. 2425–2474). In what is often described as a hunting accident, Hæðcyn missed the mark and killed his older brother, Herebeald, with the shot of an arrow. The inexpiable nature of the killing paralyzes King Hreðel, the father of the two, with the result that he dies of sorrow. The parallels between the passage from Beowulf and the Baldr story are to be found at the narrative as well as the onomastic level.58 The first 53 The section concerning murder (morð) in Grágás explains: ‘en þá er morð ef maðr leynir eða hylr hræ eða gengr eigi í gegn’ (‘and it is a murder if a person conceals [the deed] or hides the body or do not admit to it’; Finsen, Grágás – Konungsbók, p. 154). One may add that other texts (Járnsíða, Landslǫg, and Jónsbók) add the category dráp which designates an execution (see ONP s.v.). 54 The gods wish to take vengeance immediately, but they cannot do that because the assembly site was a place of sanctuary (griðastaðr; Faulkes, Prologue and Gylfaginning, p. 46). 55 Clunies, Ross Prolonged Echoes, pp. 272–273; Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, pp. 134–135 et passim. 56 Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, p. 135. 57 Both Clunies Ross (Prolonged Echoes, pp. 271–272) and Lindow (Murder and Vengeance, pp. 141–144) discuss this passage in some detail. 58 See Fulk et al. (Klaeber’s Beowulf, xlvii–xlviii) for a quick overview of literature and opinions on the matter.

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element of Hæðcyn’s name is etymologically speaking an exact parallel to ON Hǫðr, both derived from PGerm. *haþu- ‘battle’.59 The second element of Herebeald’s name is similarly cognate with Baldr, both deriving from PGerm. *balþ/da- ‘brave’, cf. Eng. ‘bold’.60 A recent analysis of a central passage in the story of Hæðcyn and Herebeald has shown that the issue at stake is not the tragic killing within the family which would make blood vengeance unbearable, but the accidental nature of the incident.61 The absence of ill intent on Hæðcyn’s part thus outweighs the consequence of his actions and the killing is as a result feohleas ‘not to be atoned for with money’,62 or indeed blood. It may also be worth mentioning that Hæþcyn does not appear to have received any sort of punishment and becomes king of the Geats after the death of his father. Older interpretations were built on a notion that the archaic ‘pantheistic worldview of Germanic heathendom’ was blind to accidental wrongs and hence that they should be punished like intentional wrongs.63 Returning to Old Norse materials, we may note that Grágás, the law of the Icelandic Free State states: ‘Þat er mælt at engi skulu verða váðaverk’. (‘It is said that there shall be no accidents’).64 The traditional interpretation of this passage agrees with the outdated view of archaic Germanic law outlined above,65 but Miller argues convincingly in Bloodtaking and Peacemaking that the attitude to an event varies depending on the relationship between those involved and that ‘close friends and kin have accidents, enemies do 59 Hǫðr thus means ‘warrior’. OE cyn(n) is from PGerm. kunja- ‘clan’ (Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, p. 311 s.v. kunja- 1) and Hæðcyn’s name could probably be rendered as ‘the one who is related to battle’ (= ‘warrior’). 60 The reconstructed forms are from Kroonen (Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, p. 50, s.v. balþ/da- and pp. 214–215 s.v. haþu-) – although he does not link them with the names. Green provides a full discussion of the semantics of Baldr’s name (The Carolingian Lord, pp. 3–18). 61 Jurasinki, Ancient Privileges, pp. 113–148. 62 Beowulf, l. 2441, ed. by Fulk et al., Klaeber’s Beowulf, 84, and 374 s.v. 63 Jurasinki, Ancient Privileges, p. 117. In his discussion of this, Jurasinki (p. 118) quotes Tylor’s Primitive Culture from 1874: ‘The wild native of Brazil would bite the stone he stumbled over […] if a man was killed by a fall from a tree, his relatives would take their vengeance by cutting the tree down and scattering it in chips’. 64 Finsen, Grágás – Konungsbók, p. 166; cf. Grágás efter det arnamagnæanske Haandskrift Nr. 334 fol., Staðarhólsbók, p. 334. 65 Finsen (Grágás: Stykker som dindes i det arnamagnæanske Haandskrift Nr. 351 fol., Skálholtsbók, p. 686) interprets the passage as follows: ‘Intet, som skeer ved et Menneskes frie Handling, skal betragtes som váðaverk (straffrit), men derimod som udøvet med Forsæt’ (‘Nothing which is the result of a voluntary act of a human being shall be considered váðaverk (exempt from punishment), rather it should be considered an intentional act’).

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not’.66 Furthermore, he suggests that the Grágás provision should be taken to mean that ‘accidents are not to provide a basis for a cause of action’.67 Hǫðr’s killing of Baldr in Gylfaginning is by all accounts unintentional. Baldr is not only considered impervious, Snorri Sturluson also explains at length how all the gods, being cognizant of his invulnerability, amuse themselves by shooting at Baldr, hacking at him with weapons and pelting him with rocks.68 Snorri goes on to tell how Loki coaxed Frigg to reveal that the mistletoe was the one thing that would be able to kill Baldr and how he got hold of a sprig of mistletoe, made a weapon out of it and callously gave it to the blind Hǫðr, encouraging him to join the merriment. It would seem then that no punishment is due for Hǫðr and that all blame falls on Loki – and this is also how it is presented in Gylfaginning. Other versions of the tale include revenge taken on Hǫðr, but the details are fairly obscure (except in Saxo’s version, which is idiosyncratic in many ways), these other versions however, as already mentioned, do not feature Loki at all. Lindow cleverly explains the absence of an act of vengeance taken on Hǫðr by referring to the frame narrative of Gylfaginning with its unreliable narrators who perhaps wish ‘to draw attention away from the nasty fact of kin-slaying’.69 If we accept this, the obvious next step would be to question the extent to which the remaining elements of the Gylfaginning story are manipulated by the narrators. Perhaps they were also responsible for inserting Loki into the story. If so, everything we are told can be interpreted as a desperate attempt by the Æsir to use Loki as a scapegoat to cover up the consequences of their primordial misdeed, the murder of their close relative Ymir.70 A better course of action would probably be to accept that the texts differ so much in detail ‘that the search for a unified Baldr theory is […] too grand an endeavor’ and focus on interpreting each source texts independently of one another, as Lindow suggested initially.71 I have focused on the account in Gylfaginning and hope to have shown that I do not see a strong link between the killings of Ymir and Baldr as the two 66 Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, p. 67. 67 Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, pp. 65–66). 68 Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, p. 158. ‘Þá var þat skemtun Baldrs ok Ásanna at hann skyldi standa upp á þlingum en allir aðrir skyldu sumir skjóta á hann, sumir hǫggva til, sumir berja grjóti. En hvat sem at var gert, sakaði hann ekki’ (Faulkes, Prologue and Gylfaginning, p. 45). 69 That Snorri knew versions of the myth in which vengeance was taken on Hǫðr is evident from Skáldskaparmál’s sections on kennings for Baldr, Váli, and Hǫðr (Faulkes, Skáldskaparmál, vol. 1, pp. 17–19). 70 At this point one is almost reminded of Girard’s analysis of the myth in The Scapegoat, pp. 66–75). 71 Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, p. 38.

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norm-shattering, transgressive, murders within the family that Clunies Ross and Lindow have envisioned. Rather, I see the creation of the world out of the disiecta membra of Ymir as a deed that is positively valorized in Gylfaginning, as well as in the other sources we have. Gylfaginning’s Baldr narrative, on the other hand, I see as a story about the inevitability of fate. The myth perfectly illustrates a point repeatedly made in the Old Norse saga literature; namely that prophetic dreams are bound to come true, and that that which is fated to happen, will happen, no matter how hard one tries to avoid it and no matter the effort spent on evasive actions.72 This is not a hidden truth that needs to be decoded, but a common one – perhaps disappointingly common, but one that would have resonated with the original and intended audience of Gylfaginning. A more audacious alternative to this would be to venture beyond the sources we have and trace, to the extent this is possible, the development of the myth with the aim of establishing a narrative core. This would mean leaving the dominant interpretative paradigm and the mainstream of scholarship on Old Norse myth behind and turning from interpreting the story in the particular context(s) in which it is preserved, to discussing its possible origins and then possible interpretations within those more distant contexts.73 If one wishes to do this, one would have to relinquish a number of the elements that are only found in Gylfaginning, including the most memorable ones, such as Loki’s participation and Hǫðr’s blindness. Most sources agree that vengeance was taken on Hǫðr, which means that we should reconsider either the accidental nature of the killing or the impulse to interpret the story in light of legal norms and sources. While we are at it, we could also reconsider the notion that the two are brothers, and so on. In the case of the Baldr story, the obvious problem with such an archaeological approach is that it inevitably will lead to a prioritization of the most fragmentary and obscure sources while it sidelines the most elaborate and detailed sources: Gylfaginning and Saxo’s account (which has not been discussed in the context of this article), as many of the details that they provide cannot be supported from other sources and we will then have to consider them secondary, idiosyncratic elaborations. The solution to this would be to cast the net wider and include broader comparative materials that do not deal specifically with Baldr. While this 72 See Lindow, Murder and Vengeance, pp. 39–48. 73 In a recent survey of the scholarship on Old Norse myth and mythology, Clunies Ross observes that a reconstructive approach was dominant until around 1970, while ‘the emphasis of most studies of Old Norse myth post-1970 has […] been on the myths in their contexts of preservation rather than on the search for their contexts of origin’ (Clunies Ross, ‘The Social Turn’, vol. 2, pp. 585–586).

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would lead us even further from the attested Old Norse texts about Baldr, it might help us in other ways. In particular, I would like to devote more energy to exploring the idea, widely found in earlier scholarship, that the Baldr story is a reflection of some kind of ritual event, perhaps an Óðinn sacrifice or perhaps a story about a mock sacrifice gone wrong. Some of the words used for Baldr in the older poetry point in that direction,74 as does the well-known passage in Gautreks saga about how a warrior by the name of Starkaðr (i.e. Strong Hǫðr), is manipulated by Óðinn into killing his lord in a mock sacrifice.75 Seeing the Baldr story in this way might also provide a means to reconnect Baldr and Ymir, since the Ymir story, on the basis of comparative materials, often has been read as a story of a primordial sacrifice.76 Snorri is the great systematizer of Norse mythology. Like the creation of Óðinn and his brothers, Snorri’s creation is not made ex nihilo, and like them he dismembers his source material in order to fashion something which did not exist prior to his creative act. There is a narrative arc in Gylfaginning, leading from creation via destruction to regeneration. But the story he tells is not one of a foundational crime and its consequences, it is one in which every adversity of the gods and every misfortune can be conveniently attributed to Loki. Loki not only plans the murder of Baldr, Óðinn’s son, he also fathers the great mythological monsters that are associated with the deaths of the gods: Hel, who will not release Baldr from her abode of the dead and whose denizens will march against the gods with the forces of chaos at the great battle at Ragnarøk; the world serpent, who will kill Þórr at Ragnarøk; and the Wolf of Fenrir, who will devour Óðinn at the same event. Behind Loki we may catch a faint glimpse of the all-powerful Fates or Norns whose tool Loki appears to be, but this fatalistic element is not very prominent in this text. What Snorri presents is a sanitized, rationalized vision of Norse mythological history. Other textual sources, Eddic and Skaldic poetry in particular, but also comparative materials, encourage us to complicate this picture and show us that there probably were as many cosmogonies, mythological histories and Ragnarøks as there were sources. These should be studied individually, to the extent that they are preserved. They should also be allowed to throw light on each other, and to be studied 74 Vǫluspá calls him blóðugr tívorr (‘bloody sacrifice’) while Húsdrápa refers to him as heilgt tafn (‘holy offering’) (see e.g. Dronke, Mythological Poems. The Poetic Edda 2, pp. 46–54 and 139). On tafn, see most recently Mills, ‘Does heilagt tafn in Húsdrápa Mean “Holy Sacrifice”?’. 75 See Kragerud, ‘Balders død’, for a clear presentation of the parallels between the Baldr story and the episode in Gautreks saga. 76 One example can be found in Lincoln, Death, War and Sacrifice. See Lincoln, Myth, Cosmos and Society, pp. 1–64, for a more elaborate exposition.

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from comparative perspectives, and one should also attempt to connect them, or reconnect them, with pre-Christian rituals – but the temptation to create and overarching, all-encompassing system should, I believe, be resisted.

Bibliography Beekes, Robert, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Björn K. Þórólfsson, Um íslenskar orðmyndir á 14. og 15. öld og breytingar þeirra úr fornmálinu (Reykjavík: Fjelagsprentsmiðjan, 1925). Bugge, Sophus, ed., Norrœn fornkvæði: Islandsk samling af folkelige oldtidsdigte om nordens guder og heroer almindelig kaldet Sæmundar Edda hins fróða. (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1867; rpt. 1968). Bugge, Sophus, Studier over de nordiske gude- og heltesagns oprindelse (Christiania: Alb. Cammermeyer, 1881). Busch, Vivian, ed., ‘Þorvaldr Blǫnduskáld: Biography, Sigurðardrápa, Fragment’, in Poetry from the Treatises on Poetics, 487–90, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3/1. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017). Ciklamini, Marlene, ‘The Chronological Conception in Norse Mythology’, Neophilologus 47.1 (1963), 138–151. Clunies Ross, Margaret, Prolonged Echoes: Old Norse Myths in Medieval Northern Society I The Viking Collection: Studies in Northern Civilization 7 (Odense: Odense University Press, 1994). Clunies Ross, Margaret, ‘The Social Turn: The Pre-Christian Religions of the North in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries’, in Research and Reception, ed. by Margaret Clunies Ross, pp. 577–592, The Pre-Christian Religions of the North I–II (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018). Dalley, Stephanie, trans., Myths from Mesopotamia: Creatin, The Flood, Gilgamesh and Others. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). Dronke, Ursula, ed., Mythological Poems. The Poetic Edda 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). Eliade, Mircea, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries (New York: Harper and Row, 1961). Faulkes, Anthony, ed., Snorri Sturluson. Edda: Skáldskaparmál (London: The Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998). Faulkes, Anthony, ed., Snorri Sturluson. Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning (London: The Viking Society for Northern Research, 2005). Finnur Jónsson, Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd. ed. (Copenhagen: S. L. Møllers Bogtrykkeri, 1931).

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Finsen, Vilhjálmur, ed., Grágás – Konungsbók: Islændernes Lovbog i Fristatens Tid, udgivet efter Det Kongelige Bibliotheks Haandskrift (Copenhagen: Berling, 1852). Finsen, Vilhjálmur, ed., Grágás efter det arnamagnæanske Haandskrift Nr. 334 fol., Staðarhólsbók. (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1879). Finsen, Vilhjálmur, ed., Grágás: Stykker som dindes i det arnamagnæanske Haandskrift Nr. 351 fol., Skálholtsbók, og en Række andre Haandskrifter (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1883). Fulk, Robert D., Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles, eds., Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2008). Gade, Kari Ellen, ‘“Hǫðr … Sonr Óðins” – but Did Snorri Know That?’, in The Fantastic in Old Norse/Icelandic Literature – Sagas and the British Isles I–II, ed. by John McKinnell, David Ashurt, and Donata Kick, vol I., pp. 268–277 (Durham: Durham University, 2006). Girard, René, The Scapegoat (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). Green, Dennis H., The Carolingian Lord: Semantic Studies on Four Old High German Words – Balder, Frō, Truhtin, Hērro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965). Güntert, Hermann, Der arische Weltkönig und Heiland: Bedeutungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur indo-iranischen Religionsgeschichte und Altertumskunde (Halle an der Saale: Niemeyer, 1923). Jónas Kristjánsson and Vésteinn Ólason, eds., Eddukvæði I–II. Íslenzk Fornrit. (Reykjavík: Hið íslenska fornritafélag, 2014). Jurasinki, Stefan, Ancient Privileges: Beowulf, Law, and the Making of Germanic Antiquity, Medieval European Studies (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2006). Kragerud, Alv, ‘Balders død: Et religionshistorisk bidrag’, in I forskningens lys: 32 artikler om norsk forskning i går, i dag, i morgen, ed. by Mauritz Sundt Mortensen (Oslo: Lyche, 1974). Kroonen, Gus, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Lambert, Wilfred G., Babylonian Creation Myths, Mesopotamian Civilizations (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2013). Lincoln, Bruce, ‘The Indo-European Myth of Creation’, History of Religions 15.2 (1975), 121–145. Lincoln, Bruce, ‘Death and Resurrection in Indo-European Thought’, Journal of Indo-European Studies 5.2 (1977), 247–264. Lincoln, Bruce, Myth, Cosmos and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986). Lincoln, Bruce, Death, War and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991).

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Lincoln, Bruce, ‘Pahlavi Kirrēnīdan: Traces of Iranian Creation Mythology’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 117.4 (1997), 681–685. Lincoln, Bruce, ‘The One and the Many in Iranian Creation Myths: Rethinking “Nostalgia for Paradise”’, Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 13 (2012), 15–30. Lindow, John, Murder and Vengeance among the Gods: Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology, Folklore Fellows Communications 262 (Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1997). Lönnroth, Lars, ‘The Founding of Miðgarðr (Vǫluspá 1–8)’, in The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology, ed. by Paul Acker and Carolyne Larrington, pp. 5–25 (New York: Routledge, 2002). Mallory, James P., and Douglas Q. Adams, The Oxford Introduction to Proto-IndoEuropean and the Proto-Indo-European World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). McKinnell, John, ‘Wisdom from Dead Relatives: The Ljóðatal Section of Hávamál’, in Essays on Eddic Poetry, ed. by Donata Kick and John D. Shafer, pp. 123–152, Toronto Old Norse and Icelandic Series (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014; first publ. 2007). Meletinskij, Eleazar, ‘Scandinavian Mythology as a System (1) and (2)’, Journal of Symbolic Anthropology (1973–1974), 1: 43–57 and 57–78. Miller, William Ian, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990). Mills, Kristen, ‘Does heilagt tafn in Húsdrápa Mean “Holy Sacrifice”? Reassessing the Evidence’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 13 (2017), 145–164. Neckel, Gustav, and Hans Kuhn, eds., Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern 5 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1983). Noreen, Adolf, Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (Laut- und Flexionslehre) unter Berücksichtigung des Urnordischen, 5. unveränderte Aufl. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1970). O’Donoghue, Heather, ‘What Has Baldr To Do with Lamech? The Lethal Shot of a Blind Man in Old Norse Myth and Jewish Exegetical Traditions’, Medium Ævum 72.1 (2003), 82–107. ONP = Dictionary of Old Norse Prose / Ordbog over det norrøne prosesprog, ed. by Helle Degnbol et al. (Copenhagen: Den arnamagnæanske kommission (1989–). https://onp.ku.dk/onp/onp.php (accessed 19 January 2021). Philipsson, Ernst Alfred, Die Genealogie der Götter in germanischer Religion, Mythologie, und Theologie, Illinois Studies in Language and Literature (Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1953). Schier, Kurt, ‘Die Erdschöpfung aus dem Urmeer und die Kosmogonie der Vǫluspá’, in Märchen, Mythos, Dichtung: Festschrift zum 90. Geburtstag Friedrich von

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der Leyens am 19. August 1963, ed. by Hugo Kuhn and Kurt Schier, pp. 303–334 (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1963). Schröder, F.R., ‘Germanische Schöpfungsmythen II’, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 19.3/4 (1931), 81–99. See, Klaus von, Beatrice La Farge, and Katja Schulz, Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. Bd. I: Götterlieder (Vǫluspá [R], Hávamál, Vafþrúðnismál, Grímnismál, Vǫluspá [H], Zwergenverzeichnis aus der Gylfaginning) (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2019). Seri, Andrea, ‘The Role of Creation in Enūma eliš’, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 12.1 (2012), 4–29. Skjaldedigtning = Finnur Jónsson, ed., Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel – Nordisk Forlag, 1912–1915). Unger, Carl R., and Guðbrandur Vigfússon, eds., Flateyjarbok: En Samling af norske Konge-Sagaer med indskudte mindre Fortællinger om Begivenheder i og udenfor Norge: Samt annaler (Christiania: Malling, 1860–1867). Vries, Jan de, ‘Der Mythos von Balders Tod’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi 70 (1955), 41–60. Vries, Jan de, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977). Wellendorf, Jonas, Gods and Humans in Medieval Scandinavia: Retying the Bonds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). West, Martin Litchfield, Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

About the Author Jonas Wellendorf is an Associate Professor in the Department of Scandinavian at University of California, Berkeley. His publications on mythology and the interface between learned and vernacular culture in medieval Scandinavia include Gods and Humans in Medieval Scandinavia (2018).

Index Abrams, Lesley 80–81 Acallam na Senórach 37, 153 Achilles, 174, 191–192 Adomnán 155, 161 adventus ceremonies 188–189 Áed Dub 162 Áed Finnliath mac Néill 51–52, 55 Áed son of Brénnán 162 Áedán, king of Scotland 162 Æsir 252–253, 256–258, 262, 266, 274, 287 Africa 33, 38–39 agriculture 16–18, 40, 64–65, 107–108 Ailill Áine 138–140, 145 Airne Fíngein 30 aithech 38, 41–42 Alamanni 202 Alfǫðr 197, 199 alliances 50–53–56, 67, 80–81, 87–88, 166 Alqvist, Bo 58 Althusser, Louis 76 Amorites 32–33 Amra Coluim Chille 142 Angel of Death 182 Anglo-Normans 77, 79, 153, 160 animal sacrifice 200, 226–227 Annals of the Four Masters 158 Annals of Tigernach 145 Annals of Ulster 85 Arbois de Jubainville, Henri d’ 25–26, 28, 42 ‘Archaic Dínd Ríg Poem’ 143–144 Armagh 77, 122, 163–164, 166 Armenia 142 Askr 260 Athisl 241–242, 245 Atrahasis 283 Auðhumla 275 Augustine, St 120 Augustus Caesar 235 Aurgelmir 280–281 Baal 128 Babylon 121, 131, 282 Baile Chuind 136 Baile in Scáil 135–136 Bakhtin, Mikhail 73–76, 90 Baldr/Balder 19, 173–186, 192, 235–236, 240–242, 245–246, 255, 258, 262, 271–275, 283–290 Baldrs draumar 175, 179 Balor 13–15, 33, 53, 58–59, 63, 85, 87 Banks, Mary MacLeod 18 Bansenchas 33, 38 baptism 160 battles 13, 27, 31, 35, 49–53, 60–66, 83, 86, 98–100, 105–112, 161, 221, 236

Bede 203 Bedell, William 41 Bek-Pedersen, Karen 19, 173–192 belonging 72–73, 86, 88 Beow 238 Beowulf 241–242 Beowulf 235–242, 245–246, 285–286 Berach, St 19, 151–168 Bergholm, Alexandra 19, 117–131 Bestla 243, 245, 276–277, 279 Betha Beraigh 151–168 Betha Choluim Chille 160 Betha Colmáin maic Lúacháin 165 Betham, Sir William 35–36 Bhabha, Homi K. 73–74 Bible 12, 14, 32–33, 36, 38, 41, 119–121, 123, 128, 129, 131, 254, 258 Binchy, D.A. 77 bird-headed terminals 207–209, 211 birds 181–182, 185, 188, 191–192, 197–198, 210, 212 births 52–54, 59, 82–83, 87–88, 235, 237, 239–244, 260–261 bishops 160 Bo 241–242, 246 Bó Bithblicht meic Lonáin 37–38 Bǫlþorn 276–277, 279 bondage 62, 86 Book of Armagh 122, 167 Book of Ballymote 30 Book of Glendalough 137 Book of Leinster 36, 126, 137 Borr 275–278 Borsje, Jacqueline 130 bracteates 19, 173–192 Brangstrup find 188 Bréifne 154 Bres 243–244 Bres mac Elathan 13–18, 27–28, 33, 38, 40, 49, 53–60, 64–66, 74–75, 81–89, 104–108, 110 Brevis Historia Regum Dacii (Sven Aggesen) 239 Brian Bóruma 80, 160 Bríg 60–62, 65, 88 Brigit, St 155–156 Brión son of Eochu Mugmedón 166 Brug na Bóinne 37–38, 103–104, 108, 111 Búri 275–278 Byrne, Francis John 56, 146 Cain 35, 50 Cáin Domnaig 161 Caithréim Cellaig 165 Carey, John 13, 15–16, 25–43, 55, 83, 90 Carthaginians 39

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Cath Maige Tuired 13–18, 25, 27–29, 31, 33–35, 38, 40–41, 49–67, 71–90, 95–113 cattle 40, 64, 66, 110–111, 221 Cell Beraig 151, 158, 165–166 Cellach, St 165 Cenél Conaill 163 Cenél Dobtha 154, 158, 164, 166–167 Cenél maic Ercai 166 Cenél nEógain 136 central places 175, 200, 204–205, 210–211 Cerball, king of Osraige 52 Cermait 101 Cesair 27 Chestnutt, Michael 31 Chevalier au Lion (Chrétien de Troyes) 40 Chrétien de Troyes 40 Christianity 11, 19, 50, 80, 98, 117–131, 151–168, 198, 203, 251–254, 256–258, 266, 274 Chronicon Scotorum 29–30 chronology see time church reform 151, 153, 159–167 Cían son of Dían Cécht 53, 87, 98 Cichol Grichenchos 27, 32, 35 Clarke, Michael 77–78 Clonmacnoise 165 Clothru 243–244 Clúain Coirpthe 151, 157 Clunies Ross, Margaret 245, 271–273, 279, 285, 288 Cobthach Cóel 138–145 Cocad Gáedel re Gallaib 160 Codex Insulensis 152 Cóemgen, St 153 Cogadh Gaedel re Gallaib 78 Cogitosus 155–156 Coirpre 61–62 Cóir Anmann 30, 64 Colgan, John 152 Collectanea (Tírechán) 121–123, 130, 154, 163–164 Colm Cille, St 151–152, 154–155, 161 communion 160 Conall son of Níall 163 Cond Cétchathach 136 Confessio (St Patrick) 117, 119–121 confession 160 Constantine the Great 187–188 Cotterell, Arthur 254 Craiphtine 139, 142 creation 12, 243, 252, 260–262, 265, 271, 273–274, 279–283, 288 Crom Cróich 117–131 Crom Dubh 125 crosses 159, 256–257 Cú Chathfaid 163, 166 Cú Chulainn 36 Culhwch and Olwen 15 cult-houses 200, 206, 208, 210–211 cults 254–256

cultural assimilation 51–52, 89 cultural exchange 200 cultural integration 71–73, 80 cultural interaction 13, 71–76, 79–82, 88–90, 200 cupbearing 62, 99 customs 50, 57, 64, 67, 86, 103 Cynocephali 34 Cyprian 120 Dagda 35, 49, 60–61, 65–66, 88, 95, 98–105, 108–112 Daig mac Cairill, St 153 Dál Cuinn 143 Dalshøj bracteate 175, 177 Dan 238 dancing figures 206, 209, 211 darkness 13, 25–29, 42–43 David 14 Davidson, Hilda 225, 228 day 102–105, 108, 111 De Gabáil, in t-Sída 30 De vita vera apostolica (Rupert of Deutz) 160 de Vries, Jan 256–261 death 37, 50, 53, 89, 95–98, 100–102, 106–107, 111, 113, 161–162, 173–179, 182, 185, 228–232, 271–290 deformity 34–38, 40–41, 221; see also monstrosity demons 26, 29–30, 41, 50, 120, 122–124, 131, 182 Denmark bracteates 175–176 Derrida, Jacques 76 Devil 251–254, 256–257 Diarmait (poet) 154, 162 Diarmait Mac Murchada 79 Dícholla 163, 166 Dictionary of World Mythology 254 dindshenchas 78, 104, 118, 126–130, 131, 156–159; see also place-names Dinnshenchas Érenn 78 Diocletian 187 Dobtha 156–158, 164 Doherty, Charles, 156–157, 167 Downham, Clare 72, 80 dreams 178–179, 288 druids 62, 95, 98–99, 102, 121, 154, 162, 165 dualism 25–29, 42–43, 76, 87 Dumézil, Georges 39–40, 219–220, 236, 243–244, 254–255 Dumville, David 77–78 eagles 188, 198 Earl, James 242 Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Bede) 203 Echtrae Chonnlai 29 Edda (Snorri) 14–15, 178, 220–228, 236, 239–240, 251–266, 272–273, 276–279, 281–285, 287–289

297

Index

eddic poetry 175–178, 226, 257, 260, 263, 289 Egill Skallgrímsson 278 Eilíf Gudrúnarson 220–228, 259–260, 264 Einarr skálaglamm Helgason 259–260, 263, 278–279 Eithne 102–103 Elatha mac Delbaíth 29, 34, 49, 53–60, 65–66, 82–83, 85, 88 Elcmar 102–105 Eliade, Mircea 274 Elphin diocese 153, 165–166 Elsfleth buckle 208 Embla 260 Énde son of Amolngid 163 Enūma eliš 282–283 Eochaid Garb mac Dúach 87 Eochaid Ollathirs see Dagda Éoganachta 80 Ériu 34, 53–58, 82–83, 90 Esnada Tige Buchet 137 Ethne 53, 87 etymology 28, 39, 64, 126, 142, 275–277, 286 exile 27, 97, 139, 141–142 eye-guards 209–211 eyes 13–16, 18, 53, 63, 197, 206, 207–212 Eyvindr Finnson 260, 263 fairies 30 Fakse bracteate 175–176, 183, 186 Fálgae, men of 32, 41 family see kinship farming see agriculture fate 271, 288 feast days 155–156 Fee, Christopher 254 Feis Tighe Chonáin 37, 41 Fenrir 184, 257, 260, 289 Ferchertne 139 fertility 244, 260–261 Finmaith 153 Fir Bolg 27, 56, 87, 97, 99 Fir Morca 139, 141–142 Fir Muman 141 fire 254 Fís Adomnáin 161 Fisher, Peter 241 Flanagan, Marie-Therese 164 Fled Bricrenn 41 Fomoiri 13–15, 25–43, 49–67, 71–72, 78–79, 82–89, 95, 99, 101, 105–112 food 60–61, 107, 111, 221, 225–226 Foras Feasa ar Éirinn 145 foreignness 31–34, 38–39, 58, 67, 83–85; see also otherness Forfess Fer Fálgae 32 fornaldarsögur 227–228 fosterage 153, 285 Foucault, Michel 73, 76 founding figures 237–238

Fredegar’s Chronicle 202 Freyja 243, 245, 263 Frigg 178, 244–245, 255, 287 Friis-Jensen, Karsten 241 Frothi 238–240 Frothi III 235 Fuglsang/Sorte Muld bracteate 175, 177, 183, 186 Gade, Kari Ellen 284 Gaels 27, 29–30, 38, 63–64, 79 Gaul 138, 141 Gautrek’s Saga 228–232, 289 Geirrod/Geruth 14–16, 219–228, 230, 263 genealogies 33, 38, 55, 79, 151, 154, 156, 203, 235–246, 275–278 Gerald of Wales 36 Gesta Danorum (Saxo) 219–232, 235–246 Gevninge eye-guard 210–211 giants 13–16, 32–33, 36–38, 41–42, 178–179, 184, 220–228, 240, 261–264, 272, 274–283 Gjálp 223, 225–226 Glendalough 153, 157, 161 globalization 74 gnostic traditions 281 Goibniu 14, 61 Goliath 14, 36 Gorm 221 Grágás 286–287 Gram 238 Graves, Robert 39 Gray, Elizabeth A. 13, 16, 18, 49–67, 78, 82, 95–96 Great Book of Lecan 30, 38 Greek mythology 26, 174 Greip 225–226 Grid 222–223 Griðarvölr 220–222 Grímnismál 280–281 Grønbech, Vilhelm 226–227, 230 Grottasöngr 239–240 Grotti 239–240 Gúaire Aidni 138 Gudme 200 Gudme bracteate 175, 177, 181 Gudmund 221, 227 Gummerup bracteate 175, 177, 181–182 Gunnell, Terry 265 Guyonvarc’h, Christian-Joseph 26 Gylfaginning (Snorri) 36, 178–179, 182, 184, 252–253, 257, 259, 272–273, 276–279, 281–285, 287–289 Hading 238 Hadingus 219–220 Hæðcyn 236, 241–242, 245, 285–286 hagiography 19, 117–118, 120–125, 130–131, 151–168 Haldan 238–240, 245

298 

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Háleygjatal (Eyvindr Finnson) 260, 263 Halga 238–242 Hákon 198, 220 Hákonarmál 198 halls 66, 197, 199–200, 204–205, 210–211, 261, 263 Ham 35, 38–39, 42, 50 Hár 272–273, 281 Harald Hardradi 220 Haralds saga ins Hárfagra (Snorri) 263 Hárbarðsljóð 230 harps 66, 109–110, 139, 142 harvest festivals 125 harvests 17, 64, 103, 107; see also reaping Háttatal (Snorri) 253, 259 Hauck, Karl 182–183 Haukr Valdísarson 260 Haukur Þorgeirsson 261 Haustlǫng (Þjóðlfr of Hvinir) 256–257, 259–264 Hávamál 230–231, 279 Healfdene 238, 240–242 Hebrides 18, 33, 58, 66, 78, 82, 85 Heimdallr 255 Hel 178–179, 260, 262, 289 Helgi 238–242, 245–246 hell 161 Helmbrecht, Mikaela 206, 211–212 helmets 206, 208–211 helping figures 206–207, 211 Heorogar 241–242 Herbert, Máire 135–136, 159, 165, 167 Herebeald 236, 241–242, 245, 285–286 hermaphroditism 276 Hermóðr 178–179 Herod 121 Herodotus 274 Hesiod 17 Historia Langobardorum (Paulus Diaconus) 202 Hliðskjálf 197, 213 Hǫðr/Høther 178–179, 184, 235–236, 240–242, 245, 262, 284–285, 287–288 Hœnir 259, 260–262, 265 Hogan, Edmund 78 Holy Land 160 Homer 221, 227 Hørdum 184 horned figures 206–212 hospitality 56, 60–61, 162 hostages 66, 105–108 Hothbrod 240–242 Hraundal, Thorir Jonsson 231 Hreðel 236, 241–242, 246, 285 Hroðgar 238, 240–242 Hroðulf 238–242 human sacrifice 127–129, 200, 228–231, 289 Humbli 238 Húsdrápa (Úlfr Uggason) 175, 179

Hvorslevgård bracteate 175, 177 hybridity 71–76, 83, 86–90 Hygelac 241–242 Hymiskviða 263, 265 Hyndluljóð 175, 179, 260 Hyrrokkin 178–179 Ibn Fadlan, Ahmad 182, 231 iconographic shorthand 182–183 iconography 173–192, 201, 206–211, 255 identity 19, 71–81, 86–90, 146, 197, 212 idols 19, 117–131 Idun 224 Ilawela 283 Imbolc 17 Immram Brain 54 imperialism 73–74 inaugurations 64 incest 112, 235, 238–239, 241–244, 246 Indech mac Dé Domnann 33, 58–60, 63, 85, 106 inheritance 154 initiation rituals 185 invasions 29, 33, 39, 49–51, 58, 67, 77, 82, 84–85, 99–100, 153, 160 invented traditions 76–77 invulnerability 173–174, 178–179, 192, 287 Irish law 53, 64 Iron Age 173–174, 187–189, 198, 200, 206, 209, 211 Íslendingadrápa (Haukr Valdísarson) 260 Israelites 14, 32, 38, 119, 128–129 itinerarium 154–155 Japhet 38 Jonas of Bobbio 201–202 Jǫrmundgandr 184 Jǫtnar 252 Jupiter 187–188 Keating, Geoffrey 38–39, 145 keening 62 kennings 225–226, 251–253, 258–266, 278 Killerup bracteate 175–176 kingship 52–53, 56–60, 64, 80–84, 87–88, 103–105, 136–142, 161–167, 197–199, 203, 212–213 kinship 49–50, 52–60, 62, 67, 87–88, 237, 271–275, 279, 284–288 Klaeber, Frederick 241 Kudenko, Ksenia 19, 151–168 La Farge, Beatrice 275–276 Labraid 137–146 Laidoner, Triin 237, 255 Laigin 19, 137–146 lamentation 37, 50, 62, 128–129 land grants 153–154, 157–159, 161–165, 167–168 landholding charters 19, 164, 167–168

Index

landscape 76, 124, 130 Langobards 202 Lann (County Westmeath) 165 Lassen, Annette 227 law see Irish law; Old Norse law Le Roux, Françoise 26 Lebor Gabála Érenn 25, 27–30, 35–36, 38, 40, 51, 78, 82, 100, 105, 118, 126, 145 Leeming, David 254 Lejre 199–200, 211, 238 Leone, Massimo 131 leprechauns 35–36, 39 Leth Cuinn 141 Leth Moga 141 Life of St Brigit (Cogitosus) 156 lightness 13, 25–29, 42–43 liminality 75–76, 87–90 Lincoln, Bruce 243, 274, 282 Lindow, John 220, 223, 225, 255, 271–275, 279, 285, 287–288 literary theory 76, 89 Lóch 62–66, 78–79, 106–107, 109 Lochlainn 33, 58, 66, 78, 82, 85 Lóðurr 260–261, 265 Lóegaire Lorc 138–140, 144 Loíguire 121, 123, 125 Loka Táttur 260 Lokasenna 260–261, 263 Loki 19, 178–179, 182, 221–222, 224, 245, 251–266, 283–284, 287–289 Lokrur cycle 261 lorg of the Dagda 100–103 Lothar 243–244 Lother 238 Lug 13–15, 28, 35, 53, 60–66, 83, 86–89, 95, 98–102, 105–112, 244 Lugaid of the Red Stripes 243–244 Lughnasa 17, 125 Lyle, Emily 11–20, 235–246 Macalister, R.A.S. 32 Mac Cana, Proinsias 26, 81 Mac Coise 36–37 McCone, Kim 31, 155, 163–164, 243–244 Mac Eoin, Gearóid 146 Mac Firbhisigh, Dubhaltach 33 McKinnell, John 265 MacNeill, Eoin 34 Mac Neill, Máire 125 Mac Óc 37–38, 103–105, 108, 110–111 Mael Íosa Ua Connachtáin 165–166 Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill 80 Mael Sechnaill mac Maile Ruanaid 55 Mag n-Inis 105 Mag Slécht 117–118, 121–130 Mag Tuired, battle of 13, 27, 31, 49–53, 60–66, 83, 86, 98–100, 105–112 magic 29, 35, 50, 62, 95, 98, 100–105, 107–108, 131 Magmór, king of Spain 87

299 Manannán mac Lir 54, 104 Manicheanism 281 Mannus 237 Marduk 282–283 Maríu saga 254 marriage 50–56, 67, 81, 87, 139, 160, 263 Mars Ultor 187–188 Marvel Comics 254 Mass-attendance 160 material culture 19, 173–192, 201–202, 206–212, 256–257 medicine 61–62 memory 12, 76, 96, 237 Mesca Ulad 30, 102 Mesopotamian creation tales 283 metrical dindschenchas 127–131 Meyer, Kuno 34 Miðgarðsormr 260, 264 Midir 104 migration 73, 82 Migration Period 174 Miller, William Ian 286–287 Minucius Felix 123–124 miracles 152, 153–157, 159, 161–163 missiles 13–16, 63, 178–179, 221, 223, 225–228, 245; see also weapons mistletoe 173, 178–179, 182–183, 245, 287 Mjǫllnir 263, 266 Moloch 128 Mongán 54 monstrosity 28–29, 34–38, 40–41, 50, 74 Moríath 139, 142 Morrígan 28, 50, 111–113 Mosaic Law 119 Mount Caucasus 32 Muirchú 120–121, 123, 129–131, 165 murder 140, 185, 271–273, 279, 281, 283–290 Murphy, Gerard 51 Murray, Kevin 19, 135–146 music 66, 109–110, 142 Nagy, Joseph Falaky 13, 16, 87, 95–113 naming 30, 64, 103, 156–157, 275–277, 286; see also place-names Nanna 178–179 Nár 243–244 nationalism 77–78, 86 Nebuchadnezzar 121 Nemed, people of 27, 38, 40 Ní Mhaonaigh, Máire 84 night 102–105, 108, 111 Niles, John D. 238 Njörðr 219–220, 243–245 Noah 38, 50 Nordal, Guðrún 263–264 Nordendorf brooch 201–202 Normans 77, 79, 153, 160 Nostalgia for Paradise 274 Núadu 56, 81, 244–245

300 

My th and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Tr aditions

Ó Cathasaigh, Tomás 28 Ó Cléirigh, Mícheál 152 Ó Coileáin, Seán 138 Ó Corráin, Donnchadh 51–52, 143 Ó Cuív, Brian 51 Odin/Óðinn 15, 19, 178–179, 182, 185–186, 197–213, 228–232, 236, 241–246, 251, 259–265, 271–279, 282–283, 285, 289 Odyssey (Homer) 221, 227 Óengus 37–38, 103–105, 108, 110–111 O’Flaherty, Roderick 38–39 Og of Bashan 32–33 Ogma 49, 65–66, 109–110 Ogygia (O’Flaherty) 38–39 Olaf, king of Dublin 51–52 Ólafr Þórðarson 264 Old Norse law 285–287 Oliva wife of Ham 38 Olivina wife of Japhet 38 Olla wife of Shem 38 Olsen, Karin 26 one-eyed figures 37, 41–42, 197, 206–212 one-eyed masks 209–210 Onomasticon (Hogan) 78 O’Rahilly, T.F. 34, 137–138, 141 oral tradition 12, 81, 138, 156, 180, 203, 237, 262 Orchard, Andy 236 Orgain Denna Ríg 19, 135–146 Ó Riain, Pádraig 164 Orientalism 74 origin stories 27, 35, 72, 79, 97, 138 Origo Gentis Langobardorum 202 otherness 13, 27, 40, 67, 71, 74–79, 83–85, 89–90; see also foreignness otherworld 57, 67, 97; see also síde O’Toole, Laurence 166 Ótr 260–261 otters 182, 260–261 outsiders 76, 88 Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis 41 Parkhouse, James 19, 251–266 Partholón 27, 34–35, 40 Patrick, St 19, 117–131, 151–155, 157, 163–165 patronage 160, 163–165 Paul, St 120 Paulus Diaconus 202 peasants 38, 40–42 Peleus 174 penance 160–161 petitioning 129 Pharaoh 121 Philistines 14 picture stones 179, 184 pilgrimage 156, 159–160 pirates 34, 36 Pishdadian dynasty 236 place-names 19, 78, 104, 121–122, 126–130, 156–159, 201, 204–205, 210–211, 255

Pleiades 16–18 ploughing 13, 17–18, 40, 65, 107–108 poets 35–37, 56, 61–66, 87, 106–107, 109, 139, 154, 162 political allegory 31, 55, 82, 85 popular culture 252–254 postcolonialism 71, 73–75, 83 poststructuralism 76 power 57, 66, 74, 80–82, 85–86, 200, 203–204, 212 pre-Christian religion 19, 25, 50, 117–131, 159, 198–199, 251–266 Price, Neil 206, 211 propaganda 81–82, 135–136, 141, 146 property 151, 153–154, 156–158, 161–165, 167–168 prophecy 19, 50, 53–54, 59, 63–64, 84, 106, 112, 153–154, 239–240, 252 prose dindschenchas 126–127 pseudohistory 18–19, 50–51, 72, 77–78, 81–82, 90, 95, 97, 100, 117–118, 126–131, 135–137, 145–146 Qingu 283 Quarta vita (of St Patrick) 122–123 race 73–74 Ragnarǫk 252, 256–257, 273, 280, 283, 289 raiding 51, 55, 79 ransoms 16, 64, 105–108 rape 241–242, 246 Rathonn 153–154, 162 ravens 182, 197–198 reaping 13, 17–18, 40, 65, 107–108; see also harvests redemption 274–275 Reginsmál 260–262 reptiles 181, 185, 188–189, 191 revivification 100–102, 111, 161–162, 166–167 Rhŷs, John 30, 34, 42 Ribe Horned Pendant 208 Ribe skull fragment 202–203 Richmond, Broughton 16–17 Rígsþula 276, 278 rímur cycles 261, 265 Rindr 179, 241–242, 245 rings 54, 57–58, 180, 190–191 ritual 17, 127–129, 131, 185, 188–189, 200, 206, 211–212, 230–231, 289–290 Roi 238, 240, 245 Rolf Krake 235, 238–242, 246 Roman coins 173–175, 186–190, 192 Roman emperors 187–189 romances 40 Rome 159–160, 189, 200 Rood, Joshua 15, 19, 197–213 Rúadán 62, 88–89 runic inscriptions 181, 190, 201–203, 211–212 Rupert of Deutz 160

301

Index

sacrifice 127–129, 200, 219, 226–231, 282–283, 289 Samain 60, 103, 128 Satan 251–254, 256–257 satire 35, 41, 50, 56, 60–62, 64 Saxo Grammaticus 19, 219–232, 235–246, 287–288 Sayers, William 254 Schier, Kurt 280 Schlegel, Donald M. 39 Schulz, Katja 275–276 Scoríath 139 Scyld 238, 240 Scylding dynasty 235–246 Searbhán Lochlannach 42 seasons 16–17, 103, 107–108, 110, 112–113 selfhood 13, 71, 76–77, 83, 89–90 Sergent, Bernard 14 serpents 179, 184, 257, 289 settlement 27, 31, 50, 51–52, 55, 77, 80–82, 99–100 Sex Aetates Mundi 36, 39 sexuality 74–75, 102–105, 111–112, 160 Shahnameh 236 Shaw, Philip 202 Shem 38 síde 29–31, 36–37, 42, 57, 67, 79, 97 Sigyn 257 Síl nÁedo Sláine 136 Simek, Rudolph 255, 260–261 single combat 13–16, 18, 66 Sitric of Dublin 80 Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise 26 skaldic poetry 175, 179–180, 198, 220, 227, 251–253, 258–66, 278, 289 Skáldskaparmál (Snorri) 222, 252–254, 259, 263, 278 Skiold 238–240, 245 Skǫldingar 199 Skovsborg bracteate 175–176 sling-stones 13–14, 63 smiths 14, 61–62, 191 Sneglu-Halla tháttr 220 Snogskilden bracteate 175, 177 Snorri Sturluson 14–15, 19, 36, 178, 197–198, 219–228, 232, 236, 239–240, 243–246, 251–266, 276–279, 281–285, 287–289 social hierarchy 39–42, 244 social order 64, 84, 87–88 Sonatorrek (Egill Skallgrímsson) 278 sons of Míl 97, 100, 102, 126 sons of Tuirill 101 sorcery 62, 99 sovereignty goddesses 54–55, 83, 136 sowing 13, 17–18, 40, 65, 107–108 spears 15, 37, 61–62, 89, 142, 180, 182, 187, 197, 210–211, 229 specialist skills 61–63, 98–99, 190 spells 61

Stair Ercuil 41 standing stones 19, 124, 159 Staraja Ladoga Horned Figure 208 Starkad 228–232, 289 stars 15–18, 282 Stokes, Whitley 28 Strabo 202 Suebians 201–202 Suibne, king of Ulster 162 Sulpicius Severus 155 Sunday rest 160–161 supernatural 15, 28, 31, 37, 40, 42, 53, 67, 97–98, 102, 108 Sutton Hoo helmet 206, 208–211 Sven Aggesen 239 swastikas 181 swords 57, 109, 182, 221, 229, 236 Tacitus 237 Tailtiu 87 Táin Bó Cúailnge 36 Talmach 154, 161 Tara 55, 77, 81–82, 87, 98, 121, 128, 130–131, 136 Tertia vita (of St Patrick) 122, 125 Tertullian 120 Tethba 154, 162 Tethra 29, 59 ‘Theft of the Thunder-Instrument’ tale type 265 theogony 235–246 theomachy 28, 31, 50 Thetis 174 Third Grammatical Treatise (Ólafr Þórðarson) 264 third space 75–76 Thjalfi 221, 226 Thjazi 224 Þjóðlfr of Hvinir 256–257, 259–264 Thor/Þórr 12, 14–15, 184, 204, 220–231, 243–245, 254, 259, 262–264 Thorkil 221–222 Thórsdrápa (Eilíf Gudrúnarson) 220–228, 259–260, 263–264 Thorstein 15 Þorsteins þáttr bœjarmagns 227–228 Þorvaldr Blǫnduskáld 278 Þrymr 263 Þrymskviða 263, 265 thumbs 180–181, 186, 190 Thurneysen, Rudolf 28 Tiamat 282–283 Tigernmas mac Ollaich 126–128 time 12–13, 16–19, 95–113, 237, 282 Tipraite mac Taidg 161–162, 166–167 Tírechán 120–123, 130, 154–155, 163–165 Tissø 200, 206, 211 Titans 26 Tochmarc Emire 33 Tochmarc Étaíne 102–105

302 

My th and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Tr aditions

Tochmarc Ferbe 31–32 Togail Bruidne Da Derga 29–32, 34, 37 ,41 Topographia Hiberniae (Gerald of Wales) 36 Toranach 163, 166 Torslunda Dancer 208–209 Torslunda plates 206, 208–209 Tóruigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne 41–42 trade 80, 200 tribute 27, 33, 56, 58–60, 66–67, 83, 85–86 tricks 65, 101, 104, 107–108 triskelions 181 Trollhättan bracteate 184 truces 60–61 truth claims 11 Tuaim Achad 153, 157–159, 167 Tuam 158, 166 Túatha Dé Danann 13–15, 25–31, 35–42, 49–67, 71–72, 75, 79, 81–89, 95–112 Tuisto 237 Tuomala, Ina 13, 71–90 Turville-Petre, Gabriel 255–257 Týr 184, 244–245 Ua Conchobair, Ruaidrí 158, 167 Ua Conchobair, Toirdelbach 166 Ua Conchobair, Tomaltach 166 Ua hÁinlige 166–167 Úar son of Indast 37 Ugarthilocus 222 Uí Áinlige 158 Uí Briúin Aí 166–167 Uí Briúin Sinna 163–164, 166 Uí Chonchobair 158, 165–167 Uí Néill 52, 55, 77, 80–81, 135–136, 140–141, 143–144 Úlfr Uggason 175, 179 Ulster Cycle 102 Uppåkra 200, 206, 208, 210–211 Uppåkra eye-guard 210–211 Uppåkra Horned Figure 208 Uppsala 199–200, 211 Útgarða-Loki 261, 263 VafÞrúðnir 280 VafÞrúðnismál 280–281 Valhǫll 197–198, 212–213 Váli 179, 184–185 Vallancey, Charles 39 Valsgärde helmet 206, 208, 210–211 Vé 243–245, 265, 275, 277–278 Vellekla (Einarr skálaglamm Helgason) 259– 260, 263 Vendel Era 199, 210–213 Vendel shield-grip 208

vengeance 101, 140–141, 179, 239–240, 262, 272, 285–288 Vetrlidi 225 Victoria 187–188 Victoriatus coins 187 Víðarr 257 Vikar 219, 228–232 vikings 13, 34, 42, 49, 50–52, 55–57, 60, 67, 75, 77–82, 84–86, 89 Víli 243–245, 265, 275, 277–278 visio genre 161 Visio sancti Pauli 161 Visio Tnugdali 41, 161 Vita Martini (Severus) 155 Vita Patricii (Muirchú) 121, 123, 129–131 Vita Sancti Berachi 151–152 Vita Sancti Columbani (Jonas of Bobbio) 201–202 Vita tripartite (of St Patrick) 122, 124–125 Vǫlundr 191 Vǫluspá 15, 175, 179, 257, 260, 262, 265, 279–280, 284 von Schnurbein, Stephanie 255–256 von See, Klaus 275–276 Wadden, Patrick 77 Wagner, Heinrich 143 Warmind, Morten 19, 219–232, 236 warrior aristocracy 39, 185, 197–213 weapon depositions 200 weapons 61–63, 89, 103, 109, 142, 173–174, 178–179, 191–192, 200, 221, 287; see also missiles; spears; swords weather 103 Wellendorf, Jonas 19, 243, 271–290 wells 15, 62 White Goddess, The (Graves) 39 Williams, Mark 13 wisdom 15, 17, 63, 190, 197 witchcraft 30, 62 wolves 178–179, 184, 197, 212, 257, 289 women of sovereignty 54–55, 83, 136 Woolf, Alex 81 Works and Days (Hesiod) 17 wreaths 182, 187–188 Yahweh 119, 129 Yellow Book of Lecan 137 Ymir 271–283, 287–290 Ynglingar 199 Young, Robert 73, 76 Yrsa 239–242, 245 Zagórzyn bracteate 175–176, 181