DeDanaan

Filed by Aine MacDermot

Giraldus Cambrensis (c. 1147 - c. 1223) mentions in his Description of Wales a class of people whom he calls Awenithion, and who appear to practise an art closely resembling that described by Cormac as imbas forosnai.

‘Sunt et in hoc Kambriae populo quod alibi non reperies, viri nonnulli, quos Awennithion vocant, quasi mente ductos. Hi super aliquo consulti ambiguo stsim frementes spiritu quasi extra se rapiuntur, et tanquam arrepti fiunt. Nec incontinenti tamen quod desideratur edisserunt ; sed per ambages multas, inter varios quibus effuunt sermones nugatorios magis et vanos quam sibi coherentes, sed omnes tamenornatos, in aliquo demum verbi diverticulo qui responsumsolerter, observat quod petit accipiet enucleatum. Et sic denique de hac extasi tanquam a somno gravi ab aliisexciantur, et quasi per violentiam quandam ad se reverticompelluntur. Ubi et duo notanda reperies ; quia post responsum, nisi violenter excitati et revocati, ab hujuscemondi quasi furore reverti non solent, et quod in se reversi, nihil horum omnium, qua ab his interim prolata sunt, ad memoriam revocabunt. (unde et, si forte super hoc iterum vel alio consulti dicere debeant, aliis omnino verbis et alienis enantiabunt ; ) forsan sicut per phanaticos et emergumenos spiritus interdum loquuntur, quanuam ignaros. Solent autem eis haec dona plerumque in somnis per visiones infundi. Quibusdam enim videtur, quod eis schedula inscripta ori imponatur. Et statim a somno erecti et conori effecti, se gratiam hanc suscepisse publice profitentur.’

It will be seen that the phenomenon of the Awenithion (or, more properly, Awenyddion) resembles that of the imbas forosnai as described for us in the Glossary, and as illustrated by the stories of Finn. The name is derived from the word awen or poetic (mantic) inspiration, and is generally conferred on a person in a mantic sleep. These people become rapt in an ecstasy (cf. ‘imbas forosnai’) in which they deliver themselves of speech which is not easily intelligible because the utterances are veiled (cf. the Irish rhetorics), and apparently contradictory and highly figurative. Often such people have to be shaken violently before they can recover their normal condition. We do not know the exact source of Giraldus’ account. It may have been based on contemporary custom, as he himself avers ; or it may, as I suspect, be derived from literary (oral) tradition, like the entry in the Glossary. But whatever the source, there can be little doubt that in the time of Giraldus a practice similar to that of imbas forosnai was known in Wales, either as a living practice or a literary motif.

Talhaern, a poet of the Britons who is mentioned in the Historia Brittonum, as living in the time of Maelgwn, King of Gwynedd (548), is said to have been called Tataguen, i.e., ‘father of awen or poetic (mantic) inspiration,’ and to have been a contemporary of the poet Taliesin, who almost certainly lived in the middle of the sixth century. The similarity of the poetry traditionally ascribed to Taliesin, to that ascribed - also by tradition - to the poet Nede and to the fili Amargin has already been commented on. There can, indeed, be little doubt that early traditions in this country imply the existence at an early date of a phenomenon similar to imbas forosnai. We have seen that Irish tradition suggests that the art was in a more advanced condition in this country, since it was from this country that, according to the same tradition, the earliest exponents known to Irish legend derived their art.

The result of our study suggests the following conclusions. The passage on Imbas forosnai in Cormac’s Glossary is a piece of antiquarian learning, based on literary evidence. It contains several technical terms, derived ultimately from mantic texts, but now extra-syntactical, and therefore not intended to be understood literally. The author of the passage was a Christian with no direct acquaintance with the phenomenon which he is describing, and which he apprehends imperfectly, whether through ignorance of the details of the traditions which he is following, or from the difficulty of reconciling variant versions. He gives us to believe that the imbas forosnai and the tenm laida are no longer practised, while certain other mantic phenomena, originally heathen, have been transmogrified under Christian influence. In this he appears to be right.

The phenomenon of imbas forosnai itself is well known in Irish tradition, alongside other mantic phenomena, some of which are also commented on in the Glossary. The imbas forosnai, in particular, is known to the earliest cycle of Irish saga, where we find an example of the mantic poetry associated with it. In these, the earliest cited examples, imbas forosnai appears to be a specifically female accomplishment, though later it is especially ascribed to Finn, and the male filid. The earliest Irish traditions represent it as acquired in this country. British tradition also knows the art in this country, apparently at an early date. On the whole, it would seem to be not improbable that Britain was a centre of prophetic poetry in the early centuries of our era, and we may suspect that it was in this country that the early Irish mantic poets acquired their imbas.

I am well aware that I have not succeeded in ascertaining the exact milieu to which the author of the colophon refers in his remarks on dicetal and aisneis di chennaib. It is impossible to avoid a suspicion that these expressions somehow contain a veiled allusion to the baile literature, such as the Baile in scail and the Echtra Cormaic, though so far as I am aware, ‘heads’ are not actually mentioned as playing a part in these stories. The redactor of the Echtra Cormaic is at pains in his colophon to bring the baile literature, and these two stories in particular, into the circle of Christian orthodoxy, and he tells us, in words which sound like an echo of the colophon to Imbas forosnai, that these experiences were brought about by divine means, and were not connected with ‘demons.’

We need not suppose that the author of the colophon to Imbas forosnai is necessarily the same person as the author of the main entry. Indeed, the change of tense in itself would render it improbable that such was the case. The use of the present tense in the main entry is striking and unusual, most of the entries which embody individual stories being in the narrative (past) tense. The use of the present tense in our entry tends to confirm my suggestion that the entry itself has been composed as a synthesis. It is, however, by no means impossible that it represents a single version of a lost saga. If so, we must suppose that such a saga would have much in common with the stories of Finn referred to above. But whatever its precise origin, there can, I think, be little doubt that the material contained in the main portion of the entry is derived neither from contemporary custom nor from etymological speculation, but from oral narrative saga.

Nora K. Chadwick
1935, Great Britain

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