Early Irish Myths and Sagas (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

 

 

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Jeffrey Gantz’s translation of The Mabinogion set a standard of excellence that makes it an invaluable tool for those who wish to investigate the Welsh tradition from source texts. Now Gantz has added Early Irish Myths and Sagas to our shelves. This Penguin Classics contains translations of thirteen myths including some of the more common ones such as The Wooing of Étaín and The Boyhood Deeds of Cú Chulaind. I found The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel to be excellent. It contains details never found in mere retellings of the tale and this creates a deeper understanding of the archetypal significance of this myth. The Tale of Macc Da Thó’s Pig is wonderful in Gantz's translation. One could spend many months reading, re-reading and pondering this story. The first section of Early Irish Myths and Sagas includes valuable historical data, a bibliography of ancient texts and translations, a guide to the pronunciation of Irish names and words, and a map of ancient Ireland. This is an excellent book and well worth adding to your library.

I liked the way it has things in no particular order like it lists mighty warriors and the main characters are somewhere in the middle. It keeps you awake!

also the introductions at the bginning of each story were for once really interesting.

These are the stories in the book. i'm not quite sure how they were chosen, it seemed slightly random.

The Wooing of Etain: This starts out with the birth of the god Oenghus(usually called Aonghus). It tells of his growing up raised by the (man who is usually called his brother but is unexplained in the text) Midir and his discovery of his true parentage and winning of land from his stepfather. After an argument with Midir when Midir comes to visit him, Oenghus promises Midir a wife if he makes up and they settle on a girl named Etain. With the help of is newly dicovered father, Oenghus wins Etain for Midir but he knows there are still going to be problems since Midir already has a wife-a druidess named Fuamnach. The story continues as Fuamnach turns Etain first into a pool of water and then into a fly. By the time Oenghus finds Etain in fly form, her having flown round the world several times avoiding Fuamnach, both Oenghus and Etain seem rather annoyed with Midir as well as Fuamnach, since he's done nothing to stop any of this and if this was a modern novel it would be the point where they get together but since it isn't...oh well. Oenghus nurses Etain back to health but then Fuamnach discovers her again and in trying to escape her tormentor, Etain mistakenly causes herself to be reborn as a human. Having apparently forgotten her former life, she marries the new High King of Island and should at this point live happily after, despite frequent visits from a mysterious stranger(Midir) and the fact that the King's suicidal brother Aillil is in love with her. But it turns out that Midir has decided he wants Etain back and when he challenges Aillil to a contest in which the prize is Etain, he looks set on a path to achieve this.

This was one of the stories with the most moderen appeal-with some updating it could make a really good film or book today, although I don't think Midir ever actually deserves Etain and she needs more development as a character.

The second story is The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel, which is about King Conaire More. Conaire is a sympathetic but flawed character who struggles to control his court, particularly some troublesome relatives and is tricked into breaking the oaths that were laid on him by his bird god father. This eventually leads to his death in "Da Derga's Hostel" a frightening building of death ,at the hands of his now exiled relatives and a sinister new friend they've picked up who is also an exile.

Or at least I thought that was how it was supposed to read. To be honest I found this story confusing and not that interesting. Half the text is taken up with a very long list of Conaire's warriors and their special abilities, almost none of which is particularly relevant to the main plot. Conaire Mor is also descended from Etain, but, as the introduction in the book explains, the part of the text explaining how this works is missing.

The third story is The Dream of Oenghus. It tells how Oenghus falls in love with a girl he's never met but who has appeared in a dream he was having. His parents and others search for this girl and eventually discover she is a shapeshifter named Caer. This is sort of like a sequel to The Wooing of Etain since it continues themes like Oenghus's relationship with his parents and has a happy ending for Oenghus which never happened in the Etain story.

Next was The Cattle Raid of Froech(Froach). Froech is a fairy prince, the son of a goddess who may actually be a form of Etain-at least according to Midir in the first story. When he hears that Findabair, the daughter of Queen Medb(the queen who later fights the hero Cuchulain) has fallen in love with him through hearing stories of him, he decides to go and ask her parents for her hand in marriage. Although Medb is charmed by Froech, her husband Aillil is rather less keen and decides, with Medb, to set Froech some tasks before he can marry Findabair. Findabair, meanwhile, meets Froech in secret and gives him a ring. Seeing that Froech has the ring after he has defeated a sea monster, Aillil becomes convinced Froech is actually sleeping with Findabair and decides to kill her. However Froech lies to him about how he got the ring and Findabair publicly rejects and disowns her father, choosing for herself to marry Froech. The story would have been better if it ended there but then there is a sideplot in which Froech and the hero Conall(see the later stories) go to rescue his cattle wife and sons from a rival who has kidnapped them. This bit was very confusing as it was unclear if the wife was Findabair (although they haven't really had time to have sons)or some other wife(which would completely ruin the whole romantic plot). I'm not sure why this story was put fourth since many of the character's earlier lives feature in later stories in the same book.

Then it was The Labour Pains of the Ulaid and the Twins Of Macha. In this shorter story, a king meets and marries a mysterious woman who is an extremely fast runner. after boasting that she is faster than his friends team of horses ,he is then pushed into getting her to race against them even though she is pregnant. Macha-the name of the woman-wins the race but then dies giving birth and curses the kingdom that at it's greatest time of need all the men will suffer labour pains. The Kingdom turns out to be Ulster and the curse comes true in the middle of their war with Connacht, inexplicably leaving only the hero Cucuchulain unaffected, but that story is not actually in this book.

After that, Cucuchulain starts appearing in the stories under his non-translated name Cu Chulaind. The next story is about his birth, the one after that his childhood and these are followed by one about how, whhile courting his future wife Emer, he kills his young son with a warrior queen Conlai, who is too proud to tell his father who he is.Then there is The Wasting Sickness of Cu Chulaind and the only jealousy of Emer which tells of the heroes affair with a fairy queen ,Fand,who contacted him by having her maids make him ill by whipping him, so that he could defend her home from monsters.

The Tale of Macc Da Tho's Pig, whilst it does not feature Cuchulain ,is about most of his friends and relatives who are squabbling over the meat of a pig with their enemies the Connachtians. in The Intoxication of the Ulaid, Cu Chulaind throws a party, gets drunk and then he and the entire of the Ulster warriors get lost going home and end up in Connacht, where they are greeted as friends but suspecting treachery, start a fight anyway. Briciu's feast is about a trickster who throws a feast at which he turns Cu Chulaind and Emer against their peers as they try and prove they're the best man and woman respectively.
Finally, the Exile of the Sons of Uisliu is the story of Deidre and Naiosie. Before Deidre's birth, the Druid Cathbad prophesied she would cause a war and the death of King Concobohr's son. However hearing she will also be the mos beautiful woman in the world, Concobohr protects her from the warriors who want her killed and has her raised with the expectation she'll one day sleep with him. Resenting the fate planned for her and hearing of a man named Naoisie who fits her ideas of the perfect man, she meets with Naiosie and forces him and his brothers to elope with her by chalenging his honour. Met with danger and treachery wherever they go ,Naiosie and his brothers are grateful for an invitation to return from Concobohr but Deidre suspects it is not as good as it seems and she is right. concobohr's actions cause the prophecy about Deidre to come true.

This is far from a complete account of Irish Myth and often you will have to look up elsewhere what actually happens to many of the characters introduced here. But it is still a good book, giving very literal translations of the original Irish epics to produce often surpriingly modern stories. One complaint I must make, however is that Irish mythographers did not go for realism as much as ,say, Greek ones did. O.k., so Grrek Myths have monsers, but they do speak rather more like normal people then characters in this book mostly do. "Not difficult that" is the standard response to a question. maybe that was how the ancient Irish actually spoke, but in some stories the character's behaviour is just as unconvincing and was obviously written like that just to advance the plot. Characters start fights over the most trivial issues, resolve them in the oddest ways and at one point Cu Chulaind is taunted for wanting to leave a place he's stumbled into by mistake without first having an adventure! Personality development is secondary to a tragic and compelling plot and poetic exagerration is employed even in the more modernly written stories(the harpists played such sad music that twenty men died from weeping!) This might not bother you at all, but it did annoy me.

But they are actually a pretty good collection of stories and I personally think Irish mythology is underrated.

The introduction is interesting (page 1 to 35). I have found the actual stories very heavy going I assume an academic knowledge of early myths and sagas would make the book more entertaining.

I think this is a book for reference purposes but not for leisure.

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