DeDanaan

(author unknown)
compiled by Donnchadh Ó Corráin
CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork, College Road, Cork, Ireland. (2005)

The edition used in the digital edition:
Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Early medieval law, c. 700-1200 in Angela Bourke, Siobhá¡n Kilfeather, Maria Luddy, Margaret Mac Curtain, Geraldine Meaney, Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha, Mary O’Dowd and Clair Wills (eds.), The Field Day anthology of Irish writing, Volume 4, New York and Cork, Cork University Press in association with Field Day (2002) page 6-44: 22-26.

Republished in 36 Sections for Educational Purposes.

section 1

Exempt from legal suit for each is what each may have used or have consumed as against the other, except what lien, obligation or loan may have imposed, or what one of them may have mis-appropriated from the other. Exempt from legal suit is everything useful to the partnership, everything done in good faith; liable to legal claim is everything done in bad faith in the law of the couple.

section 2

Question: How many pairings are there in Irish law?
Answer: Eight: a lord and his base clients, a church and its tenantry, a father and his daughter, a girl and her brother, a son and his mother, a foster-son and his foster-mother, a teacher and his pupil, a man and his wife.

section 3

Equally exempt from legal suit for each is whatever one of them may have given the other, whatever one of them may have used as against the other, without violent crime, without stealth. Everything taken without permission, that is complained about, is repaid by simple replacement of the object until the matter goes as far as the legal remedy of fasting, except in the case of the church. Repayment, by simple replacement, of what is taken without permission and complained about is all that is required until there is evasion of the legal obligations that arise from fasting, or legal default. Anything taken by stealth, by violent crime, anything taken without permission, that is complained about and ignored, is levied with its penalty fine.

section 4

Question: how many couples of cohabitation and procreation are there in Irish law?
Answer: ten -

1. union of common contribution;
2. union of a woman on a man’s contribution;
3. union of a man on a woman’s contribution with service;
4. union of a woman who accepts a man’s solicitation;
5. union of a man who visits the woman, without work, without solicitation, without provision, without material contribution;
6. union by abduction;
7. union of wandering mercenaries;
8. union by criminal seduction;
9. union by rape;
10. union of mockery.

section 5

(1) Union of common contribution: if it is a union with land and stock and household equipment, and if their marital relationship is one of equal status and equal propriety-and such a woman is called a woman of joint dominion-no contract of either is valid without the consent of the other, except for contracts that benefit their establishment. These are: an agreement for common ploughing with proper kinsmen when they do not themselves have a full ploughing team; paying for the leasing of land; getting together food for a coshering; getting food for feast-days; paying stud fees; fitting out the household; making an agreement for joint husbandry; the purchase of any essentials that they lack. Every contract shall be without neglect, an advantageous contract, conscientious, in accordance with right and propriety, with acknowledgement on both sides that the ownership of what is acquired belongs to the person whose property was alienated to acquire it.

section 6

Anything, the lack of which brings loss on the household, cannot be sold without common counsel, consultation, and mutual concession. For the impairment of the joint economy in a union of common contribution is not proper without mutual concession.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

by James Owen
for National Geographic News
January 20, 2006

Up to three million men living around the world today could be descended from a fifth-century Irish king, according to a new study.

Research suggests as many as 1 in 12 men in Ireland carry the genes of Niall of the Nine Hostages, bolstering claims that the ancient warlord founded a dynasty that dominated Ireland for centuries.

Some historians doubt Niall’s existence, comparing his legend to that of King Arthur.

But scientists at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland say a distinctive genetic signature on the male Y chromosome, which is passed down from father to son, leads to Niall or some similar figure.

Niall had 12 sons, according to folklore, and took nine key hostages, including Saint Patrick, as way to subdue opponents and consolidate power.
(Continued)

Chains Of Fires
by Elsa Gidlow

Each dawn, kneeling before my hearth,
Placing stick, crossing stick
On dry eucalyptus bark
Now the larger boughs, the log
(With thanks to the tree for its life)
Touching the match, waiting for creeping flame.
I know myself linked by chains of fire
To every woman who has kept a hearth

In the resinous smoke
I smell hut and castle and cave,
Mansion and hovel.
See in the shifting flame my mother
And grandmothers out over the world
Time through, back to the Paleolithic
In rock shelters where flint struck first sparks
(Sparks aeons later alive on my hearth)
I see mothers, grandmothers back to beginnings,
Huddled beside holes in the earth
of igloo, tipi, cabin,
Guarding the magic no other being has learned,
Awed, reverent, before the sacred fire
Sharing live coals with the tribe.

For no one owns or can own fire,
it lends itself.
Every hearth-keeper has known this.
Hearth-less, lighting one candle in the dark
We know it today.
Fire lends itself,
Serving our life
Serving fire.

At Winter solstice, kindling new fire
With sparks of the old
From black coals of the old,
Seeing them glow again,
Shuddering with the mystery,
We know the terror of rebirth.
_________

Winter Solstice
21 Dec 2005
13:35 Eastern

The practice of hunger-striking has deep roots in Irish culture. The Celts would use self-inflicted starvation as a means of discrediting someone who had done them wrong, as would unpaid poets or tradespeople who would camp outside the home of an uncaring patron and begin a hunger striking ritual until their wrongs were righted or their debts paid.

The Irish words “troscad” and “cealacha” appear in some of the earliest written records during the medieval period in Ireland, even written into the legal civil code: the Feineachas (the laws of the Feine or Feini (fainyeh)), which are now called the Brehon Laws. Dlighthe Feine is another name for the laws, with the same meaning. The Anglo-Irish word “Brehon” is derived from the Gaelic word Bret hem (judge). Troscad and Cealacha roughly translated, they mean: “fasting on or against a person” and “achieving justice by starvation.” As far as can be understood, it consisted of fasting on the doorstep of the person or institution accused. The troscad was the means of compelling justice and establishing one’s rights, and it was open to all members of Celtic society. It is not unreasonable to suppose that when a woman performed the ritual hunger strike, that her action recalls a former age when women, as sorceresses, witches, and even in connection with the goddess-oriented pagan religion, were able to compel a redress of their grievances by ritual, religious, and magical means. If the hunger striker died, the accused would suffer societal ostracism and would have to pay compensation to the dead person’s family. The law said “he who does not give a pledge to fasting is an evader of all; he who disregards all things shall not be paid by God or man.” If a plaintiff having duly fasted did not receive within a certain time the satisfaction of his claim, he was entitled to distrain as in the case of an ordinary defendant, and to seize double the amount that would have satisfied him in the first instance.

In ancient times, the troscad was one of the most effective means of someone of lesser social position to compel justice from someone of higher social position. Thus Druids could fast against a King, or even a man or woman in one of the lower orders of society could fast against a Chieftain. To refuse to submit to fasting was considered indelibly disgraceful, and was one of the things which legally degraded a man by reducing or destroying his honor-price.

In the play The King’s Threshold, William Butler Yeats portrays the poet on political hunger strike against a king who takes away poets’ rights to sit on the king’s council. Yeats was a founding member of the Abbey Theatre.

Persuade him to eat or drink? –
While he is lying there, Perishing there, my good name in the world
Is perishing also. I cannot give way.
Because I am king; because if I give way,
My nobles would call me a weakling, and, it may be,
The very throne be shaken.

- William Butler Yeats, The King’s Threshold

Additionally, fasting and the Catholic credo of self-sacrifice, are also part of Irish culture and viewed as a means of self purification that added power to one’s prayers. Troscad is at the same time also aíne frithaire, Christian ascetic, penitential fasting aimed at influencing God. We can see here a subtle medieval blending of both the old pagan ways and the new Christian faith, a compelling of God’s aid to the devotee who fasts as well as a reliance on the older Brehon laws.

There was a spiritual penalty to be paid as well, for at this time there was great social and moral regard for hospitality among the Irish people, which extended even to strangers at one’s door. To allow someone to starve to death at one’s doorstep was a profound disgrace.

That it was an ancient ritual can be demonstrated by the fact that it bears almost complete resemblance to the ancient Hindu custom of dbarna. This custom is not only found in the Laws of Manu but as prayopavesana (’waiting for death’) it occurs in ancient Vedic sources. Dr. Joyce saw the troscad as ‘Identical with the eastern custom, and no doubt it was believed in pagan times to be attended by similar supernatural effects’; that is, that if the one fasted against ignores the person fasting then they would suffer fearful supernatural penalties. — Ellis, P.B.

The troscad was never entered into lightly and always with full knowledge of the seriousness of the final intent. Even after Christianity displaced the pagan religion, the troscad continued in Irish society even up to recent times where it has been used by political prisoners trying to gain rights to such things as sanitary conditions in the prisons and humanitarian treatment of the prisoners.

Early Irish Astrology: An Historical Argument
by Peter Berresford Ellis

In all histories of western astrology there is a curious omission. There are no references to early Irish, nor - indeed - ancient Celtic, astrological practices. In fact, the only serious scholarly study on Celtic astrology was published in a French academic journal in 1902. [1] This dissertation, in the light of modem research, is open to debate.

The major reason for this neglect of the subject, at least during the last fifty years, has undoubtedly been the insidious influence of Robert Graves’ The White Goddess (1949). This book has done singular disservice to those who seek to study the realities of Celtic cosmology and, especially, the practice of astrology. Graves was not a Celtic scholar. His highly imaginative inventions of the so-called ‘tree calendar’ and ‘tree zodiac’ inspired an outpouring of books purporting to be on ‘Celtic astrology’. Graves and his acolytes have, unfortunately, seized the popular imagination but their ‘tree zodiac’ has nothing at all to do with the realities of the ancient Celtic world.
(Continued)

Valkyries : In Norse mythology the Valkyries, 7 to 12 in number, are maidens serving Odin, the chief god. They ride into battle on horseback, with sword and helmet, and choose those who are to die a heroic death. The Valkyries then escort these heroes to Valhalla, their heaven, where the maidens serve them as they feast.

Valhalla : Valhalla is the hall of slain warriors in Norse mythology. It is said to be the most beautiful hall in the palace of Asgard, with 540 gates surrounding it, rafters built of spears, and a roof of polished shields. The palace, situated in the grove of Glasir, is surrounded by the river Thund. Odin, the god of death, rules Valhalla. After warriors have spent their days in battle, Odin heals their wounds and shares feasts with them in the hall. Valkyries, who wait on the heroes, serve a magic boar that returns to life each time it is killed. After the feast, battle songs are sung and tales of valiant fighting are recalled.

Tristan and Iseult / Isolde : The Tristan and Iseult/Isolde legend starts with Mark, uncle of Tristan. Tristan goes to Ireland to bring back a bride for Mark, the beautiful Iseult, but he falls in love with her himself. Most of the legends are to do with their efforts to remain together and the uncle’s determination to thwart them. In the end the story ends in tragedy. It is one of literature’s great love stories. Tristan and Iseult are second only to Lancelot and Guinevere as the great lovers of the Arthurian legends. The story of their tragic love has been the subject of numerous medieval and modern retellings.

Tristan and Iseult is a love story that a harper, or minstrel, tells at Camelot, the court of King Arthur. Tristan, nephew of King Marc of Cornwall, slays an Irish knight in a duel, thus averting a war. Later Tristan, shipwrecked in Ireland, kills a dragon that is scorching the countryside, and is forgiven for his victory over the Irish champion knight. He brings home the princess Iseult (Isolde, Isolt, Ysolt) to be the bride of King Marc in order to cement the peace between their two countries. But on the trip back to Cornwall, Tristan and Iseult fall passionately in love. Though Iseult becomes queen of Cornwall, the love affair continues until they are betrayed to King Marc. She is rescued from burning at the stake by Tristan wearing leper’s clothes, and they escape to live in the forest. In the end Marc forgives his queen and Tristan is banished. Then he comes to Arthur’s court and becomes a knight of the Round Table. When he dies, Iseult arrives too late to see him, and she dies of a broken heart. King Marc buries them together, and hazel and honeysuckle plants spring from the ground over their hearts and twine together over their grave.

There are many variations of this enduring love story.

From the Back Cover :
The first complete English edition, brilliantly translated….Throughout it retains the beauty and sense of fatality that have made it one of legendary literature’s most fascinating tales.” — Time

A tale of chivalry and doomed, transcendent love. The Romance of Tristan and Iseult is one of the most resonant works of Western literature, as well as the basis for our enduring idea of romance. The story of the Cornish knight and the Irish princess who meet by deception, fall in love by magic, and pursue that love in defiance of heavenly and earthly law has inspired artists from Matthew Arnold to Richard Wagner. But nowhere has it been retold with greater eloquence and dignity than in Joseph Bedier’s edition, which weaves several medieval sources into a seamless whole, elegantly translated by Hilaire Belloc and Paul Rosenfeld.

“A powerful rendition, an incomparable tale.”

– The New York Times

Sonnet : A sonnet is a 14-line verse form using a definite rhyme scheme and structure and dealing with a single idea or theme. The earliest form was the Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet, which was developed in Italy in the 13th century and named after the Italian poet, Petrarch.

It consists of an eight-line “octave,” generally with a rhyme scheme a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, followed by a six-line “sestet” with a varying rhyme scheme. The octave introduces and develops the theme, and the sestet completes it. In the 16th century the English, or Shakespearean or Elizabethan, sonnet was developed. It consists of three independently rhymed quattrains followed by a unifying couplet. Its general rhyme scheme is a, b, a, b, c, d, c, d, e, f, e, f, g, g.

Examples of the sonnet form can be found in the works of Dante, Petrarch, William Shakespeare, John Milton, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.