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4 - How Time Flies in the Cath Maige Tuired
- Edited by Emily Lyle
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- Book:
- Myth and History in Celtic and Scandinavian Traditions
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 19 October 2021
- Print publication:
- 08 February 2021, pp 95-116
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Summary
Abstract
The Túatha Dé Danann are seemingly a pre-Christian survival in early medieval Irish literature, where they are portrayed as magicians, druids, or powerfully knowledgeable artisans. Traditionally slotted into the ‘pseudohistorical’ scheme, thus constituting one of the primeval waves of invaders who shaped the land and institutions of Ireland, the Túatha Dé Danann (and their opponents, the Fomoiri) have a narrative space to themselves in the text known as the Cath Maige Tuired‘ (Second) Battle of Mag Tuired’. The characters Lug and the Dagda, ‘Good God’, represent contrasting perspectives on the struggle taking place, which I argue is primarily concerned with the question of whether, after the Battle, the Túatha Dé Danann will continue resisting time and death, or will embrace these quotidian realities.
Keywords: Túatha Dé Danann, the Dagda, Lug, time, death
Elizabeth A. Gray, the editor/translator of the Cath Maige Tuired (‘The Battle of Mag Tuired’), a medieval Irish saga that will be the focus of this study, formulated in an article on this text an eloquently compact functional definition of the kind of narrative that concerns us in this essay. ‘In structural terms, the function of a myth is to present issues and problems raised by conceptual categories in order to clarify – if not necessarily to resolve – the tensions inherent in any ordered perception of human experience.’ From the perspective provided here by Gray, ‘myth’ and ‘history’ are not at all incompatible or mutually exclusive genres of storytelling. A ‘myth’, fulfilling the function described above, might be presented by a storyteller (oral or literary) and received by the teller's audience as a striving-to-be-faithful or approximate account of the events of the past. Or a story fitting Gray's description may be presented as an account of events that preceded the past of living memory or that takes place outside a temporal framework.
As different as their orientation and points of reference might be, both types of narrative can persist in and pervade a culture because they serve to express key ‘issues and problems’ with which it is important for the people in that culture to be familiar.
Preface
- Edited by Joseph Nagy, Charles MacQuarrie
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- Book:
- The Medieval Cultures of the Irish Sea and the North Sea
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2020
- Print publication:
- 26 April 2019, pp 9-10
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Summary
This book derives from a 2015 Summer Seminar for University Professors, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities of Washington, D.C. The seminar commenced on June 8 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and ended on July 12, in Glasgow, Scotland, after an extended stay in Douglas on the Isle of Man. The co-editors of this volume, who were also the co-directors of the seminar, are forever indebted to the extraordinary participants, our colleagues and friends, whose research projects, presentations, and contributions to the lively and provocative discussions helped to make the experience so memorable and productive. In addition to the authors of the essays included herein, those participants included Kay J. Blalock, Tracey Cooper, Emily C. Cox, Donna E. Crawford, Sandy Feinstein, Leslie Jacoby, and Jeff A. Rudy. Thank you all!
We are also grateful to the NEH itself, especially Doug Arnold and Rebecca Boggs, as well as to our gracious hosts and invited seminar speakers—Thomas Clancy, Peter Davey, Jennifer Kewley-Draskau, James P. Mallory, Gregory Toner, Sir David Wilson, and M. Joseph Wolf—and to our redoubtable administrative coordinator, Milissa Ackerly. Special thanks to the indispensable Andrea Weikel, who completed the final accounting on the grant. We would also like to acknowledge the Centre for Manx Studies, formerly a research unit of the University of Liverpool; the Manx National Heritage and the Isle of Man Museums, for letting the members of the seminar use their facilities and resources, for providing photographs of items from their remarkable archaeological collection for our publication, and for permitting us to quote extracts from the Manx Folk-Life Survey Archive; the Royal Overseas League in Edinburgh; Strathmillis College in Belfast; and the University of Glasgow. This grateful acknowledgment extends to Peter Killey, who has allowed us to use his beautiful photograph on the cover.
Of course, our heartfelt gratitude goes out in a special way to the Amsterdam University Press, in particular Erin Dailey (who, in addition to all his editorial assistance, so expertly designed a map for us), Lucia Dove, and Chantal Nicolaes. Without the guidance, wisdom, and faith in the project with which they honored us, our book could not have become a reality.