The Cycles of Irish Myth

The Cycles of Irish Myth
Compiled by Áine MacDermot

Irish is a Celtic language, brought to Ireland from the European mainland by Celtic peoples who arrived in the late 6th century BC (although recent archaeological evidence may push this estimate further back in time). The Celts lived in some 150 small agricultural communities called tuatha, each with its own chieftain. Cattle were the measure of a tuatha’s wealth. In this society, poets called filidh had responsibility for preserving and transmitting the tuatha’s heritage, its history, and the genealogy of its rulers. Filidh underwent long training, during which they mastered the complicated meters of Celtic verse, composed poems in praise of kings, and memorized long genealogies, histories, and other lore. Filidh had great status in their tuatha and they exerted their power, often in the form of satire, to keep members of the tuatha in line. The people feared their satire, which shamed or humiliated its target. A poet’s harsh words were said to be so powerful they could drive rats away.

Written literature in Ireland begins after Christian missionaries arrived in the 5th century ad and introduced the Roman alphabet, which was then adapted to the Irish language. Christianity co-existed with traditional Irish ways, rather than supplanting them, and has continued to do so to the present day. Both traditions figure strongly in Irish literature.

The second major influence on Irish literature, after Christianity, was colonization from England, which began in the 12th century. By the 17th and 18th centuries, the English had consolidated their power in Ireland, and Anglo-Irish writers — Irish-born writers of English descent — dominated Ireland’s literary culture. English was the language of the rulers; literature in Irish survived largely in oral tradition.

The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology. Although many of the manuscripts have failed to survive, and much more material was probably never committed to writing, there is enough remaining to enable the identification of four distinct, if overlapping, cycles: the Mythological Cycle, The Ulster Cycle, The Fenian Cycle and The Historical Cycle. There are also a number of extant mythological texts that do not fit into any of the cycles. In addition, there are a large number of recorded folk tales that, while not strictly mythological, feature personages from one or more of these four cycles.

The three main manuscript sources for Irish mythology are the late 11th/early 12th century Book of the Dun Cow (Lebor na hUidre – translation provided at CELT) which is in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, the early 12th century Book of Leinster (Lebhar Na Níachongbála) in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Rawlinson manuscript B 502 (Saltair na Rann), housed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Despite the dates of these sources, most of the material they contain predates their composition and some can, on linguistic grounds, be dated back as far as the 5th or 6th century when Christian monks first began to record the native Irish oral histories.

Other important sources include a group of four manuscripts originating in the west of Ireland in the late 14th or early 15th century: The Yellow Book of Lecan (Leabhar Buidhe Lecain), The Great Book of Lecan (Mór Mhic Fhir Bhisigh Leacain – containing the Book of Rights), The Book of Hy Many (Leabhar Uí­ Mhaine), and The Book of Ballymote (Leabhar Bhaile an Mhóta). The first three are especially important because they contain the heroic sagas. The first of these contains part of the earliest known version of the Tain Bó Cúailnge and is housed in Trinity College. The other three are in the Royal Irish Academy.

Other 15th century manuscripts, such as The Book of Fermoy (Leabhar Fhear Magh­) also contain interesting materials, as do such later syncretic works such as Geoffrey Keating’s The History of Ireland (Foras Feasa ar Éirinn – ca. 1640), particularly as these later compilers and writers may have had access to manuscript sources that have since disappeared or crumbled to dust.

The oldest writings are poems from about the 6th century; Dallá¡n Forgaill is the most famous of the filidh or official poets. There are also some fine anonymous nature poems from the 8th century.

When using these sources, it is, as always, important to question the impact of the circumstances in which they were produced. Most of the manuscripts were created by Christian monks, who may well have been torn between the desire to record their native culture and their religious hostility to pagan beliefs resulting in some of the Gods being euphemerized (explained away). Many of the later sources may also have formed part of a propaganda effort designed to create a history for the people of Ireland that could bear comparison with the mythological descent of their British invaders from the founders of Rome that was promulgated by Geoffrey of Monmouth and others.