Heroic Romances of Ireland — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 211 pages of information about Heroic Romances of Ireland — Volume 1.

Heroic Romances of Ireland — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 211 pages of information about Heroic Romances of Ireland — Volume 1.

Line 26.  “Their three blemishes.”  This disfigurement of the women of Ulster in honour of their chosen heroes seems to point to a worship of these heroes as gods in the original legend.  It may, however, be a sort of rough humour intentionally introduced by the author of the form of the story that we call the Antiquarian form; there are other instances of such humour in this form of the story.

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Line 2.  “Like the cast of a boomerang.”  This is an attempt to translate the word taithbeim, return-stroke, used elsewhere (L.U., 63a., 4) for Cuchulain’s method of capturing birds.

Line 8.  “I deem it as being by me that the distribution was made.”  The words “I deem it” are inserted, they are not in the text.  It appears that what Ethne meant was that the distribution by Cuchulain was regarded by her as done by her through her husband.

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Line 9.  “Dun Imrith nor yet to Dun Delga.”  Dun Imrith is the castle in which Cuchulain was when he met the War-Goddess in the “Apparition of the Morrigan,” otherwise called the “Tain bo Regamna.”  Dun Delga or Dundalk is the residence usually associated with Cuchulain.  The mention of Emer here is noticeable; the usual statement about the romance is that Ethne is represented as Cuchulain’s mistress, and Emer as his wife; the mention here of Emer in the Antiquarian form may support this; but this form seems to be drawn from so many sources, that it is quite possible that Ethne was the name of Cuchulain’s wife in the mind of the author of the form which in the main is followed.  There is no opposition between Emer and Ethne elsewhere hinted at.

Line 15.  The appearance of Lugaid Red-Stripes gives a reason for his subsequent introduction in the link between the two forms of the story.

Line 18.  “Near the entrance of the chamber in which Cuchulain lay.”  It does not yet seem certain whether imda was a room or a couch, and it would seem to have both meanings in the Antiquarian form of this story.  The expression forsind airiniuch na imdai which occurs here might be rendered “at the head of the bed”; but if we compare i n-airniuch ind rigthige which occurs twice in “Bricriu’s Feast,” and plainly means “at the entrance of the palace,” it seems possible that airinech is here used in the same sense, in which case imda would mean “room,” as Whitley Stokes takes it in the “Bruiden da Derga.”  On the other hand, the word imda translated on page 63, line 11, certainly means “couches.”

Line 27.  “Ah Cuchulain, &c.”  Reference may be made for most of the verses in this romance to Thurneysen’s translation of the greater part of it in Sagen aus dem alten Irland but, as some of his renderings are not as close as the verse translations in the text, they require to be supplemented.  The poem on pp. 60, 61 is translated by Thurneysen, pp. 84 and 85; but the first two lines should run:—­

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Heroic Romances of Ireland — Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.