DeDanaan

Parable : Usually simple in form and substance, a parable is a story that is intended to teach a moral or spiritual lesson. Many parables are to be found in the scriptures and texts of the major world religions.

Midgard : In Scandinavian or Norse mythology, Midgard was Earth, the Middle Abode, located between the ice world, Niflheim, to the north and the land of fire, Muspelheim, to the south. According to legend, sparks from Muspelheim fell on the frozen rivers of Niflheim, causing some of the ice to melt. From the water rose a giant named Ymir, the first being of Creation. Other giants sprang from the drops of Ymir’s sweat. After this the gods were created, and finally human beings. The gods killed Ymir, and from his body fashioned Earth and the heavens. Asgard, the home of the gods, was connected to Midgard by the rainbow bridge, Bifrost.

The main source of information about Scandinavian mythology was an Icelandic scholar named Snorri Sturulson (c. 1179-1241), who wrote down the myths in what has come to be called the Prose Edda. There are a number of translations available on the internet, as well as at Amazon.com.

Middle Earth : Middle Earth is the legendary place created by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Hobbit and in the trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Middle Earth is inhabited by hobbits, elves, orcs, wizards, dwarves, and people. In the southeastern section lies Mordor, the desolate place to which Frodo journeys in order to destroy the ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Adjacent to Mordor is Gondor, where most of the great cities are found.

On the northeastern banks of the Great River, which runs from north to south bisecting the land, lies the forest of Mirkwood, where the evil Sauron built up his power. Still further east the dwarves reside, beneath Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. The Misty Mountains, over which the travelers cross, rise to the west of the Great River. Further west is Eriador, where many of the hobbits reside and where the first volume of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Rings, begins.

Limerick : This form of verse — short, humorous, often nonsensical, and frequently bawdy — has existed since 1820, but became, and has remained, widely popular after the appearance of Edward Lear’s The Book of Nonsense (1846). Its name may come from the city of Limerick, Ireland, where it was the custom at parties to compose and sing nonsensical verses on the spur of the moment. A limerick consists of five lines; the first two and the fifth of which rhyme, as do the third and fourth, which are also shorter.

The first deliberate creation to match limerick form is usually considered Tom o’ Bedlam (c. 1600):

From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend thee

And the spirit that stands
by the naked man,

In the book of the moons defend yee.

And here’s another example:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.

But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean

And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Irony : Irony is a way of speaking or writing in which the real meaning of words is contradicted by their literal meaning. For irony to work, the listener or reader must be aware of the contrast between what is said and what is really meant.

Ironical situations in stories usually involve contrast between what is expected and what occurs: the thief who is robbed, the hunter who becomes the hunted.

MacCool, Finn (MacCumhaill) : Finn MacCool (Fingal) is a traditional Irish folk hero who actually may have lived in the 3rd century but who figures heavily in Irish mythology. A leader of a band of warriors, Finn is often portrayed as a giant with great strength and wisdom. According to folk tradition, Finn assembled a rock formation known as the Giants’ Causeway along the coast of Northern Ireland to enable other giants to travel between Scotland and Ireland. He and his son, Oisin, appear in the Fenian Cycle of ancient Irish tales, the most famous of which is “The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne.” Grainne, who loves Oisin, is pressured to marry the father instead, but escapes by eloping with Diarmuid, Finn’s nephew. Finn pursues them, Diarmuid is slain by a giant boar, and ultimately, Grainne becomes Finn’s wife.

In the 1760’s, the Scottish poet James Macpherson (1736-1796) claimed dubiously to have discovered and translated tales written by Finn’s son, Oisin, whom he called Ossian. Two of his popular books are Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books (1762) and Temore (1763), an epic that he claimed was translated from the Gaelic of Ossian. Both Finn and his son frequently appear in Irish myth and literature, most notably in the poetry of William Butler Yeats.

Fable : A fable is a story, usually but not always about animals with human qualities, that illustrates some moral truth or wisdom. The familiar fable of “The Fox and the Grapes,” for example, suggests that people will belittle what they cannot get. The fox, after using all his wiles to reach the grapes hanging beyond his reach, concludes that they are sour anyway. Though fables have been discovered even among the Egyptian papyri (500BC), the development of the fable is most often associated with the Greek slave, Aesop. The French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine made perhaps the most celebrated collection of fables. Uncle Remus fables by Joel Chandler Harris celebrate the exploits of Brer Rabbit. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson are more up-to-date examples of fables.

Camelot : Camelot was King Arthur’s castle. In the Arthurian legends, Camelot represented a place of honor and peace, the home of the Round Table and King Arthur’s knights. It was the place from which the knights departed on their adventures, and to which they would return after the fighting was done and the foe was defeated. It was the court and seat of government. In pictures Camelot is usually depicted as a 12th- or 15th-century medieval castle, but Arthur actually lived in the 6th century, when there were no castles and clothes and armor were much simpler than are usually shown.

Blank Verse : Blank verse is unrhymed poetry, and usually refers to poems written in iambic pentameter. The plays of William Shakespeare are written mostly in blank verse, as are many English epic and dramatic poems.

An example from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.