Abstracts

Kjetil Aasen: Linguistic variability revisited
(Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo)

In her article “Surprises in Sutherland: linguistic variability amidst social uniformity” (2001), Nancy Dorian tells the story of her first encounter with the Scottish Gaelic of East Sutherland. She had expected to find one uniform dialect, but she rather faced a wide range of linguistic variability within a socioeconomically very homogenous speech community, and concluded that “social homogeneity need not imply linguistic homogeneity.”

She moves on to criticising Magne Oftedal, whose monograph The Gaelic of Leurbost, Isle of Lewis (1956) describes how the language of the wife of his main informant differs from the main informant’s language both phonemically and grammatically in spite of the fact that they grew up as next-door neighbours. Dorian criticises Oftedal for failing to describe the linguistic reality of Leurbost in choosing only to describe the main informant’s language.

Having read Dorian’s critique of Oftedal, the question arises whether it can be said to be correct and fair. In recent years, traditional Norwegian dialectology in the 20th century has been heavily criticised by Norwegian linguists for being backward-looking and conservative, limiting itself to neogrammarian diachronic studies, and not being willing to adopt new developments in linguistics such as structuralism and synchronic dialect studies. Oftedal is then mentioned as an example of an innovator for his achievements in both Norwegian and Scottish Gaelic dialect studies.

I intend to argue that Dorian’s critique misses its target because she fails to take into consideration the fact that Oftedal, like traditional Norwegian dialectologists, performed his research as part of a tradition. However, one may also ask oneself whether typological linguistic study requires the same sort of linguistic material as variationalist study of language usage.

Françoise Bader: Déesses Ombreuses
(École Pratique des Hautes Études, IVe section, Paris)

Des déesses se sont appelées « Ombreuses » dans trois domaines linguistiques où le radical de leur nom, sk-ot-, a donné aussi des toponymes et/ou ethniques : grec (Skotoûssa ; Skotía « Ecosse », Niceph. à D.Per. 554) ; germanique (formes du nom de la « Scandinavie » comme Skáney, Scandinavia, etc.) ; celtique (Scotland, Scotti). En Grèce, Thétis la Néréide, mère dans le microcosme d’un Achille qu’elle sait voué à une mort précoce, accouche le monde dans la cosmogonie d’Alcman, grâce à Poros et Tekmôr, « Passage à Terme » par une procès accompli dans le téknon, ‘enfant’. Celui-ci vient à la lumière représentée, dans le mythe, par les deux « Luminaires », (Soleil et Lune), dont la brillance, éternellement cyclique, est bornée, dans le temps humain, par les deux manifestations de Skótos, l’utérine et l’infernale. Les acteurs du mythe germanique portent des noms étymologiquement reliés l’un à Skotos, l’autre au père de la Néréide, un Vieux de la Mer, dont l’habitat est contigu aux Enfers. Ce sont Skaði et Njörðr (dont le dédoublement Nerthus est entièrement chthonien) ; dans un mythe uniquement cosmique, ils forment un couple conflictuel ; Skaði aime la montagne, les loups, et est chthonienne ; Njörðr est maître d’un port (comme l’autre Vieux de la Mer Phorkys) et aime les oiseaux marins ; leur opposition est celle de la terre chthonienne et de la mer, ambivalente (comme les portes de la grotte des Naïades à l’entrée du port de Phorkys en Ithaque) : ses abysses touchent les Enfers ; mais l’homologation des eaux de la mer et de la mère mammifère la rattache à l’embryogenèse (cf. µ?t?? ???s?d???). Celle-ci est transposée en éducation, celle de Cú Chulainn, correspondant fonctionnel d’Achille en Irlande. Scáth(ach), dont le domaine se trouve dans l’autre monde, est l’initiatrice en amour du jeune homme, ainsi qu’en armement, lui donnant sa lance gáe Bolga. Comme dans les mythes des Ombreuses grecque et germanique s’unissent ici, en une union des contraires, sexualité (cf. embryogenèse) et mort.

Alexandra Bergholm: Folly for Christ’s sake in early Irish literature: the case of Suibhne Geilt reconsidered
(Department of Comparative Religion, University of Helsinki)

A few scholars studying the 12th century early Irish text Buile Suibhne have drawn attention to the similarities between the tale’s main protagonist Suibhne Geilt and the holy fools of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Shared characteristics of the Irish wild man (geilt) and the fools for Christ’s sake include leading an ascetic lifestyle in the wilderness, going around naked and possessing the ability of prophecy. Yet other aspects of Suibhne’s derangement, most notably its depiction as divine punishment rather than a feigned condition, seem to set him apart from the holy fools of Eastern Orthodoxy. This paper explores the nature of Suibhne Geilt’s geltacht by setting it in the context of the phenomenology of saintly madness in order to establish whether Buile Suibhne should be considered as a representation of folly for Christ’s sake in early Irish literature. To create a comprehensive background to Suibhne’s condition other early Irish texts dealing with geltacht and the theme of madness will also be examined.

Grigory Bondarenko: Conn Cétchathach: the image of ideal king in Early Medieval Ireland.
(Research Institute for Irish and Celtic Studies, University of Ulster at Coleraine)

The personal name Condus, Connos 'head' is attested already in Gaulish. It is characteristic of this anthroponym that the form Connos occurs on the coins of the Lemovices evidently as the sovereign's name drawing the kingly tradition of the name back to continental Celts. OI anthroponyme Conn is connected with conn, cond 'protuberance, boss, chief, head' and 'sense, reason'. Conn's epithet - Cétchathach - presumably recalls a hundred battles fought by Conn in every fifth of Ireland. Some of them are mentioned in Baile in Scáil. This epithet seems to reflect the same image as the name of a mythological ideal Gaulish king Ambigatus ('fighter around himself') known from Livy's account who also represents a type of 'the first king' (Ab Urbe Condida, V.34.2). The image of Conn corresponds to that elastic but not illusory notion of 'the first king'. It does not mean that the kings of this type are really 'historically' or 'pseudohistorically', first but in different arrangements of the same 'pseudohistorical' material they could have been considered as the first. According to their status they initiate certain important features of social life. The image of Conn Cétchathach as an ideal king, whose reign is described almost as a Golden Age, is found only in Airne Fingein ('Fingen's Night-Watch'). This image though does not have any biblical connotations and the first poem of praise from AF (Gáir gene Cuinn...) depicts him as a man of war which is not very consistent with a Christian image of the true reign and may reflect pre-Christian image of an ideal king.

Nina Chekhonadskaja: "Fogur carpait fo rig"
(Department of Ancient languages, Moscow State University)

In this paper I am going to present and analyze the motive of the "noise of chariot under the king" in mediaeval Irish literature. The relevant material comes mainly from the Lives of saints: the druid or priest on hearing the noise of a chariot carrying mother or parents of the future saint, predicts his/her future greatness. Most Lives containing this motive come from the Leinster region; this makes us suggest that we are either dealing with a local motive of with a borrowing from the lives of the most famous Leinster saint - Saint Brigit. Regarding this motive from a wider perspective, we are intended to study its role in the biography of a saint and its connection with other beliefs involving predictions by the noise or movement of a chariot or horse, which occur in Indo-European and non-Indo-European traditions as well (e.g. among the Finnic-speaking Livonians, as described in the Heinricus' "Chronicon Livoniae").

Marion Deane: From Knowledge to Acknowledgement
(Independent scholar, Dublin)

In Feis Tigi Becfholtaig, the king's self questioning is indicated by an acallam which depicts his progress towards Wisdom and Truth, advancing from sensual perception through various faculties of cognition, memory and will. He is portrayed as taking time to attend to the pragmatic details of his affairs, that were, in the various idioms of the tale, either, or both, marital and martial. However, as the goal that the king pursued was Truth or happiness, his worldly conquests, in love or in war, could not exist in isolation. They were part of a larger whole. By taking credit for what has been achieved, he is forgetting his reliance upon the goddess and the part that she has played in bringing things to this pass. If he was to be a good king he must acknowledge the full Truth or the whole of reality (represented by Deictire) and then make it known to his subjects. This required speaking it out. In uttering the Truth, which he had discovered in the otherworld, and which, according to the maxims laid down for kings in early Irish wisdom texts, he is seen to be a good king, in possession of fir flaithemon.

Charles Doherty: Giraldus Cambrensis and the 'Horse Sacrifice': possible further evidence and parallels
(School of History, University College Dublin)

The extraordinary results of the excavations at Navan Fort (Emain Macha) have led to attempts at interpretation. Foremost of these is the work of Chris Lynn. Dr Lynn argued cogently that the activity at Navan had to do with kingship. I have agreed with this and in a chapter in the recent book on Tara I have suggested that it had to do with the creation of a 'world king'. As a starting point for that argument I referred to the account of Giraldus Cambrensis concerning the inauguration of a king in Donegal. I also suggested that there was evidence other than that of Giraldus in native Irish sources to indicate that he was not a lone witness. Since scholars had seen the a?vamedha (ashvamedha) ceremony of ancient India as providing the closest parallel to the account of Giraldus I re-examined scholarly opinion on the Indian evidence. Since then Philippe Swennen, D'Indra à Ti?trya. Portrait et évolution du cheval sacré dans les mythes indo-iraniens anciens, has re-examined this ceremony. I wish to re-examine the account of Giraldus in light of this recent work.

Clodagh Downey: Purple Reign - the naming of Conall Corc
(School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies)

According to Irish genealogical tradition, Conall Corc mac Luigthig was the nearest common ancestor of the Éoganachta, the most important dynastic federation in early medieval Munster. This paper takes another look at the story of his birth and of how he got his name and examines the evidence for attributing this name to his colour.

Kelly Fitzgerald: An Intertextual Analysis of ATU782, The King with Horse’s Ears in Ireland
(Department of Folklore, University College Dublin)

The international folktale involving the king with horse’s ears occurs in manuscript form in Ireland from the Middle Irish period and continues to be published to this day, (An Gúm, 2005). The traditional protagonist is Labraid Loingsech, an early Irish mythical king of Leinster. The tale re-appears in Geoffrey Keating’s 17th century text Foras Feasa Éireann, and in the 19th century we find Labraid Loingsech featured in a number of popular magazines and journals such as the Dublin Penny Journal and the Shamrock. This paper will trace the history of the tale in Ireland, including oral versions collected in the 19th and 20th centuries, and analyse how renderings and versions of the literary tale have influenced its development. The paper will also look at the tale in relation to storytellers in the 20th century, whose repertoire included Labraid Loingsech and his horse’s ears.

Roy Flechner: The Hibernensis in Brittany
(Wadham College, Oxford)

Brittany played a major role in the early transmission of the Hibernensis. In total, seven or eight copies of the Hibernensis (and a fragment) were written in Brittany or copied from Breton exemplars, and all complete copies of the Hibernensis but two have Breton connexions. The present paper examines how the Hibernensis figured in ninth-century Breton politics, and introduces new evidence pertaining to individual Breton copies of the Hibernensis and their relationship.

Maxim Fomin: Hiberno-Indica: Further Tasks and Objectives
(Research Institute for Irish and Celtic Studies, University of Ulster at Coleraine)

The similarities between early Irish and early Indian language, literary and legal traditions have been recently re-assessed by S. Zimmer (2001, 2002) and J. Uhlich (2006). Their studies can be described as comparative Indo-European, and are based upon the earlier findings by Windisch (1903), Stokes (1885), Vendryes (1915), Dillon (1973, 1975), Mac Cana (1968), and Watkins (1979). Different methodology to the similarities can be applied, referred to as ‘cultural typological’. It is based upon the findings of the Russian semioticians and cultural anthropologists Lotman (1990) and Romanov (2003) who studied the traditional and/or early cultures in general. The paper shall determine the ways of development of cultural typological methodology with regard to various subjects, such as the early Irish and Indian kingship, the sacred topology, and the tradition of learning.

References:

Dillon, Myles, 1973, Celt and Hindu. Dublin: DIAS.

Dillon, Myles, 1975, Celts and Aryans. Simla: Institute for Advanced Studies.

Lotman, Yuryi M., 1990, Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Translated by Ann Shukman. Introduction by Umberto Eco. London, New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. Publishers.

Mac Cana, Proinsias, 1968, ‘An Archaism in Irish Poetic Tradition’, in: Celtica 8, 174-181.

Romanov, Vladimir N., 2003, Historical Development of Culture: Psychological-Typological Aspect. Moscow: MSU (In Russian: ???????, ???????? ??????????. ???????????? ???????? ????????: ?????????-?????????????? ??????. ??????: ???).

Stokes, Whitley, 1885, ‘Sitting Dharna’, in: Academy 28, 169.

Uhlich, Jürgen, 2006, ‘Linguistic Connections between India and Ireland’, Myles Dillon Memorial Lecture, given at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Celtic Studies, on 6th April 2006.

Vendryes, Joseph, 1915, ‘Les correspondances de vocabulaire entre l’indo-iranien et l’italo-celtique’, in: Memoires de Soc. de Linguistique 20, 265-85.

Watkins, Calvert, 1979, ‘Is tre fír flathemon: Marginalia to Audacht Morainn’, in: Ériu 30, 181-198.

Windisch, Ernst, 1903, ‘Pronomen infixum im Altirischen und im Rigveda’, in: Indogermanische Forschungen: Zeitschrift für indogermanische Sprach- und Altertumskunde 14, 420-6; 15, 126. Strassburg.

Zimmer, Stephan, 2001, ‘Indo-Celtic Connections: Ethic, Magic, and Linguistic’, in: The Journal of Indo-European Studies, 29, nos. 3-4, 379-406.

Zimmer, Stephan, 2002, ‘A uo penn bit pont: Aspects of Leadership in Celtic and Indo-European’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, 53, 202-229.

Jörg Füllgrabe: Glauberg-Statues as a hint of an early-celtic cult of the holy Year or the universe?

The discovery of early LaTéne tombs at the Glauberg in the southern Wetterau nearby Frankfurt is to be regarded as a archeological sensation . Beneath a burial mound, to be reached from the "klientel" of the Lords of Glauberg by using a "procession-street", flanked by noticable ditches, was a magnificently furnished grave from the mid-fifth century B.C. exvacated. Remarkable was the riches of the grave, especially the figurative group on the healse of a beaked jug, to be interpreted as "Lord of the animals" may give us the possibility, to interprete this complexe much more religious as burials are by their nature. Less interesting may be the second grave, a fire burial, wich may be interpreted as grave of a noble at the court of the Lord from Glauberg.

The discoveries of Glauberg show us a sacred place once dominated by a large tumulus, in so far, it may, as usual be seen as a place of regularly memorial ceremonies, but there are much more interesting details, I think.

Maybe most important are relicts of an ensemble of four human shaped sandstone steles, discovered at the foot of the tumulus. The most complete of these steles, well known by published pictures, unfortunately titulated es "Lord of Glauberg", shows us maybe an idealized portait of the mid-thirty man in the main burial. So the first interpretation may connect this fact to the phenomenon of adoring a high ranked antecessor, but it seems, that there are more aspects belonging to this ensemble of four different dimensioned steles!

The original arrangement of this monuments is hardly to be reconstructed, but the exvacators found a system of ditches round the tumulus and also seperating a "sacred area" from the secular surroundings.Maybe, this area is definable as an early celtic form of a "nemeton". The different largeness of the four figures can be explained as the possibility of more than only - or maybe a special - a form of antecessor cult. It seems to be possible, that the difference in largeness belongs to the sun's alitude resp. solstices and their celebrations. So we can interprete the Glauberg ensemble as a regional form of celebrating the holy year - or maybe the holy universe.

Angela Gleason: Legal position and care of the mer in early Irish society
(Department of History, Princeton University)

The early law tracts give reference to several types of mental disability and legal disenfranchisement. The three most common legal terms describing those with a mental disability, druth, dasachtach and mer, each has its own historical, semantic and linguistic evolution. The term mer, generally describing an individual with full mental disability and therefore full legal dependence, is particularly revealing in terms of gender. Close inspection of the laws reveals that over time the term developed a clear and particular association with women, describing individuals who were completely at the mercy of society, through both disability and gender. This paper discusses the term mer, its use and importance in the legal material, and the historical development from general mental disability to a specific association with women.

Jenny Graver: ”What’s in a name?”
(Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo)

”What’s in a name?” Juliet asks in the famous play, and goes on to say how Romeo should take off his name, because his name is not a part of who he is.

In this paper, I will take a look at one of the many explanations of place names in the Lebor na hUidre Táin Bó Cúailnge. I will show how this explanation, which I will term an ”etymology,” may be based on a conception of names quite contrary to that of Juliet, namely the Isidorian interpretation that if you have knowledge of a name, you will also have knowledge of the name’s referent.

My starting point will be a linguistic analysis of how the etymology is expressed, based on the idea that it has three participants: The name itself, as the object of the etymology; an explanation of the name; and the name’s referent. The syntactic realization of these three will then be discussed further, based on the following question: How might the Isidorian interpretation be expressed?

Karin Hansson: Using Irish language corpora in the university classroom
(Celtic Section, Department of English, Uppsala University)

This paper deals with the use of electronic corpora in the Irish language courses taught at the Celtic Section, Uppsala University. Corpora are increasingly being recognised as an important tool in language teaching, in particular at university level. For example, electronic corpora can make up for the lack of suitable textbooks and grammars — a problem facing both teachers and students in Uppsala. I will present my experiences of working with the Irish PAROLE corpus (Corpas Náisiúnta na Gaeilge) to find instances of use that can help explain grammar rules and to create grammar exercises and assignments, as well as provide material for student term paper projects. In my experience, an electronic corpus is an important tool for the teacher providing an easily accessible source of authentic examples that reflect actual use — this is of particular benefit to the teacher teaching a foreign language. However, there are also a number of problems and caveats involved when working with an electronic corpus regarding the set-up, compilation method, documentation and necessary search and concordance programmes, which I will also address in my paper.

Joël Hascoët: La ville d'Is, un mythe celtique toujours vivant
(Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest / Faculté Ouverte des Religions et des humanismes laïques, Charleroi)

La ville d'Is est une légende célèbre dans toute la Bretagne, elle a inspiré de nombreuses oeuvres littéraires, théâtrales et cinématographiques ; pourtant rien ne prédisposait le mythe celtique de la ville de l'Autre-Monde, à connaître un tel succès au travers des époques. L'historien Pierre Le Baud, en 1505, la mentionne en quelques lignes, en 1636 Albert Le Grand, dans "Les Vies des Saints de la Bretagne Armorique", développe le noyau légendaire en y introduisant Dahut, la fille du roi Gradlon ; par la suite, les écrivains romantiques vont chacun à leur manière embellir la légende, C. Guyot dans son roman à succès intitulé "Légende de la ville d'Ys d'après les anciens textes" passe en revue tout ce qui a été écrit, mais, sans rapport avec les traditions antérieures au 19e siècle. Il faut attendre la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, avec Louis Ogès, pour entrevoir dans les publications un retour à la raison, la légende retourne vers le mythe, immatériel par nature. Au travers d'une approche historique puis littéraire de la légende, nous analyserons les structures mythiques pour en révéler les mécanismes de transmissions et de revitalisation.

Gaël Hily: The Ugly Hag in the Welsh Romance of Owein?
(Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, IVe section historique et philologique, Paris)

One of the favourite themes of Celtic narratives is the relation between the king and the Sovereignty. Their union is the only way to have a right governance, to get abundance and fertility from the earth. But this balance is frightened when the royal union breaks. This often leads to the disappearance of life from the land, which should be expressed by the physical abject of the Sovereignty, i.e. the Ugly Hag. She takes place in Irish tales of Níall Noígiallach and of the Lugaid sons of Dáire, in the Welsh Romance of Peredur, and in Arthurian continental literature.

To my mind, another Middle-Welsh narrative, Owein, deals with this theme as regards the young lady who arrives at the court of king Arthur. Actually, the context of her coming recalls the Ugly Hag’s in Peredur. Before this event, the heroes Owein and Peredur are married (the Lady of the Fountain/the Empress of Constantinople) and both are lords of their wife’s country. Then, both leave them for a while to spend time at Arthur’s court. Whereas they stand there, a young lady arrives and shames Owein/Peredur to have forgotten the existence of their wife. In Peredur, the young lady is properly an Ugly Hag, while, in Owein, her external appearance is normal. But I will suggest that in the latter tale, the ugliness should appear, even if it is not on the young lady.

Dafydd Ifans: Wmffre Dafydd ab Ifan (fl. 1620-1646) – parish clerk and poet.
(The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth)

This paper provides a survey of the Welsh poetry of Wmffre Dafydd ab Ifan, who flourished between 1620 and 1646. He was the sexton or parish clerk of Llanbryn-mair church in the heart of Mid Wales and his poetry links the strict-metre poetry of the medieval poets with the free-metre folk poets of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.

Some seventy items in all, this body of Protestant poetry includes metrical versions of several Psalms; poems on Biblical and theological subjects such as the Lord’s Prayer, Joseph’s dream and the Ten Commandments; others appeal for an end to the English Civil War which affected Wales, while others are prayers for release in time of plague and other sicknesses.

His earliest poem is addressed to Dr John Davies, Mallwyd (c.1567-1644), one of the foremost Welsh scholars of all time who published a Welsh grammar (1621), a Welsh-Latin dictionary (1632) and who is remembered for the excellence of the 1620 version of the Welsh Bible.

The main body of Wmffre Dafydd ab Ifan’s poetry is contained in one manuscript, NLW MS 19660B, and some of his most popular poems were published in two anthologies of Welsh poetry in 1686 and 1696.

Rhiannon Ifans: `Hosanna! dyma'r dydd: ushering in the festive season in Wales'
(Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, Aberystwyth)

Christmas Day meant attendance at an early-morning church service referred to as y blygien, a dialect form of plygain (derived from the Latin pulli cantus `cock crow'). The plygain began with an abbreviated service of morning prayer, followed by the singing of carols set to the old ballad tunes. Carollers were called upon to sing a specific type of Christmas carol. These were strictly orthodox poems, containing purely scriptural materials, and they played an important part in the religious education of a semi-literate people. Many hundreds of plygain carols have survived from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

Assemblies of carol-singers were male-dominated. Carols, which were not always sung in unison, were not intended for participation by the audience. The most popular mode of presentation was by a male trio, unaccompanied; this method could accommodate an inspired performance where one voice began the carol and the other parts joined in, perhaps at the end of a certain musical phrase.

Words and tune fitted perfectly in accentuation and emphasis; add to that a complex alliterative system, matched by a complicated rhyming pattern, and it is no wonder that the populace found the melodic quality of these carols truly satisfying.

Serge Ivanov: Conjugated Prepositions in Old Irish Cleft Constructions
(Institute for Linguistic Studies, Saint-Petersburg)

In this paper we will deal with cataphoric function of conjugated prepositions set in the foreground as focal elements in cleft constructions. Our material is the complete sample of such constructions from Würzburg glosses, total amount being 25 examples.

We will offer a functional analysis of right-dislocation phenomena in Old Irish and draw a distinction between two subclasses of the construction in question. In the first sub-class the cataphoric links are established between the focal conjugated preposition and the right-dislocated Prepositional Phrase, in the second – between the conjugated preposition and subordinate clause.

The syntactical features of both sub-classes will be discussed at length with special emphasis laid on discourse categories (such as givenness, definiteness and distantness) determining the use of cataphoric constructions.

Uliana Kukhtina: Common Origins of Celtic, Roman and Indian Cults of Horse.
(Department of Religious Studies, Moscow State University)

A cult of horse appears in the end of 4000 B.C. and develops in the territory of Southern Russian steppes during the Bronze Age. There is a ground to consider ancient Aryan tribes inhabited that place as ancestors of Indo-Iranians. It’s no wonder then that historical and archaeological data state a great similarity between rituals of horse sacrifices in the Celtic, Indian and Roman cults, arguing all of them are originated from common Indo-European ritual in the honour of a God of heaven. This rite was used for transmitting fertile power of the nature to a king as a holder of it. Not only details of the ritual but also many ritual terms are the same for different Indo-European peoples.

Other common points are: worship to the goddess-mother and twins, associated with life and death, or considering the horse as the embodiment of gods of sun and heaven; widespread myth about struggle between the Good and the Evil; white horses dedicated to gods and kings.

Thus the similarity of rituals, myths etc. belonged with cult of horse in Indo-European religions permits to do a conclusion that in spite of geographical, historical and many other differences all of them originated from the one Aryan descent.

Riitta Latvio: Authority: Assessing, proclaiming and sitting on it
(Department of Comparative Religion, University of Helsinki)

This paper looks at the ways authority is conceived and its use expressed in some early Irish law tracts. Some of the questions the paper intends to discuss are: Who are the utterers of ultimate truths? Whence and how wells their justice forth? What kind of words and terms are used in conjunction with authority?

Marie Chantal Lhote-Birot: Divinités celtiques et cultes des eaux en Gaule Romaine.
(Metz)

Je propose une étude des divinités indigènes des eaux en Gaule romaine, les divinités masculines et féminines ainsi qu'une étude des théonymes (exemple Borvo le bouillonant) ainsi qu'une étude des pratiques cultuelles et des offrandes : " Les ex votos antomiques ont été offerts aux divinités indigénes des eaux ;Ils représentent des parties du corps humain et sybolisent les maladies dont soufraient les pélerins .lles dévots offraient aussi des enfants emmaillotés ou des figurines en terre blanche.

Marion Löffler: Function and Transmission of New Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Wales: The Case of Iolo Morganwg
(Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, Aberystwyth)

In his review of Elijah Waring’s Recollections and Anecdotes of Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg) (1850), a volume which laid the foundations for the myth of Iolo Morganwg in Victorian Wales, William Williams quietly inserted an anecdote about ‘Iolo and a nobleman’. In the story, Iolo, representative of the Welsh artisan classes in London, successfully withstood the violence threatened by a member of the English upper classes by using his wit to compose the following stanzas:

Strike a Cymro if you dare,
Ancient Britons as we are;
We were men of great reknown,
Before a Saxon wore a crown.

Melanie C. Maddox: Early Irish Monasteries and their Dynastic Connections
(Mediaeval History, University of St Andrews)

With the introduction of Christianity, kings took advantage of the writing abilities of clerics to maintain records and extend their authority over wider areas. Along with this, kings were quick to use their patronage of the church to influence political relationships within their kingdoms and those of their neighbors. Francis Byrne notes in his Irish Kings and High-Kings that each Irish king “ruled over a túath or tribal kingdom.” In turn, each royal dynasty could split off into several branches. With so many kings ruling throughout Ireland, it would only make sense for each to look for something to strengthen their position. It would also be natural for these individuals to want to work closely with their kindred. Thomas Charles-Edwards in his Early Christian Ireland observes that even though it might have been impossible for some dynasties to maintain their royal standing, there were still other ways for them to maintain a high status. One such way was to control a monastery. Through the dynasty’s control of a monastery and its connection to that monastery’s saint, Charles-Edwards notes the dynasty could gain “a powerful focus of unity, capable of helping to sustain a widely scattered people.” In my presentation I propose to look at the ways in which a dynasty could control a monastery and different ways in which a dynasty and monastery could find mutually beneficial ties.

Catherine McKeown & David Robinson: Results of “Celtic, Regional and Minority languages Abroad Project”
(Information Services, Queen’s University Belfast)

In 2003 the European Commission invited proposals for projects promoting language learning and linguistic diversity. One of the successful projects was CRAMLAP, 'Celtic, Regional and Minority languages Abroad Project', co-ordinated by Queen’s University Belfast with partners from the universities of Oslo, Uppsala, Mannheim, Rennes and Maynooth.

Teaching of regional and minority languages at trans-national level are mostly taught in higher and life-long institutions. CRAMLAP proposed to research provision for regional and minority languages outside their national borders in Europe through investigating provision in Higher Education. Celtic languages across Europe was the case study focus, but provision for other European regional and minority languages were also investigated. An audit of provision and evaluation of practice across Europe was undertaken.

The project team has collated and displayed on a web site previously inaccessible information on language provision and teaching methodology. Students may use the site to investigate where to study a particular language and academics can use the site to contact colleagues across Europe. The web site has proved popular generating multiple “web hits” every day.

The purpose of the talk would be to present the findings of the project, in particular, concentrating on Celtic language provision, teaching methods and usage of the web site.

Gunnel Melchers: "Agus í fós ina mac léinn" ('And she still a student') On the use and structure of subclauses introduced by agus in Modern Irish with some reference to and-clauses in Hiberno-English
(Department of English, Stockholm University)

The use of agus as a subordinating conjunction in Modern Irish is neatly if incompletely presented in Collins' Pocket Irish Dictionary:

1) (referring to time) when; as; chonaic mé é agus mé ag teacht abhaile 'I saw him as I was coming home'

2) (referring to manner): bhí sí ina suí ar stól agus í ag cniotáil 'she was sitting on a stool knitting'

A parallel structure is found in Hiberno-English, as seen from the title of the present paper, whose aim is to investigate the use and structure of subordinating and/agus introducing clauses lacking a finite verb.

Although the subordinating agus-constructions are firmly rooted and acknowledged in Irish, it would appear that most of the research devoted to them has been undertaken by scholars whose primary field of research is Hiberno-English, notably Filppula (1991) and Häcker (1999). This paper, by contrast, takes Irish as its starting-point in trying to establish the structures and functions of agus-constructions as used in selected texts from the PAROLE corpus (ITÉ and ELRA 2000). The findings are then related to and-clauses in Hiberno-English, drawing on earlier studies as well as utilizing the corpus accompanying The Corpus Presenter (Hickey 2006).

Tatyana A. Mikhailova: The Five Fifths of Ireland – a new approach (word of power, or history at service of phraseology).
(Department of Germanic and Celtic philology, Moscow State University)

The problem of so called ‘five fifths of Ireland’ remains unsolved up to now, in spite of numerous attempts to find a solution of this linguistic and geographical contradiction. It is well known, that in Modern Irish traditional provinces of the island are called cúige (the fifth), but they real number is only – four (Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Connacht). The same names was known in Early Irish literature (cóiced nUlad etc). The Irish literati saw this contradiction and made some attempts to solve it in early mythological and pseudo-historical narrative (sagas and poetry). According the artificial theory the province of Munster really consisted of two districts – ‘the fifth of Cú Roí’ and ‘the fifth of Eochu mac Luchta’. At the same time, the compiler of the saga ‘The settling of the manor of Tara’ proposes a theory of the sacred centre (Tara, the seat of kingship, and/or the hill Uisnech, the centre of druidism) of Ireland and of four subject provinces or zones – North, South, East and West. The idea of the power of the dominant Goidelic race leads T.P.O’Rahilly to his theory of the Midland kingdom. Brothers Rees added to this theory an aura of the universal cosmology.

We would like to propose another solution of this problem, based not on the traditional cosmological or geographical principle of division of a country, but on another one, also ‘traditional’ as far as the geography of the Ancient World is concerned. Ireland was really divided into five parts, but this ‘native’ division of the island continued for a short time only. The idea of ‘five fifths’ preserved in Irish mythology and pseudo-history being supported by the symbolic role of the number ‘five’ in Irish tradition. Thus, the ‘power of word’ or a word-hypnosis influenced historical and native geographical tradition.

Dean A. Miller: King and Hero: The Power of Words, and the Ingratitude of Princes
(Department of History, University of Rochester)

The ’mythological’ king and the hero always employ words to identify, ‘construct’ and deal with one another, words or phrases that may have a ritual (or semi-ritual, formulaic) connotation. The supposed essential aggressiveness of the hero-warrior against the king (seen in the Nibelungenlied in Siegfried’s declaration of his intent to throw down King Gunther, and also apparent in the tale described below) is one form of the narration showing ‘the power of words’ while the king’s order or directive demanding a particular action by the hero (often involving an appeal to hero’s honor) is yet another. Here I want to re-examine a very odd incident, a set of ‘powerful words’ contained in the Welsh Culhwch ac Olwen and involving Arthur the King and Cei, the ambiguous warrior-hero – Arthur’s ‘twin.’ The central drama in this tale is laid out in the serial Quest that follows the demands of Ysbaddaden Chief-Giant, and Cei is preeminently involved in the successful completion of a number of these quest-segments. After the segment that involves the ‘shaving’ and killing of the giant Dillus the Bearded, however, Arthur pronounces and signs an englyn that seem to denigrate the exploit and to dishonor Cei. How should this ‘insult’ (these words) be parsed and analyzed? Certainly they break the unspoken (or the spoken, verbalized) bond between the two characters or Types – and they show the fabled ‘ingratitude of princes.’ They are also descriptively ‘rational’ (in that they describe a possible outcome of this quest-segment that would have been fatal to Cei). I think, however, that they were intended to have an extra-rational or magical impact on Cei, by reducing his implicit and explicit potency (words of power directed against his physical and mental powers) and that they spring from a ‘deep’ characteristic the Welsh sources (which give Arthur himself an ambiguous penumbra of powers and attitudes, not always flattering to him) attach to the king: That of the satirist with his power of mischievous narrative but, more seriously, his wielding of unbalancing and even destructive words and phrases.

Anna R. Muradova: The symbolic meaning of the red colour in Breton
(Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences. Moscow)

The symbolic meaning of three main colours (white, black and red) in Breton is a common feature of the European Christian tradition. The white colour is the symbol of innocence and the black - symbol of sin. But the red colour has more complicated connotations, which come from the pre-Christian past.

The breton ru(z) "red colour" as the welsh rhudd and the irish rua (dh) (old irish ruad) comes from the Indo-European *reudh-, *roudh- < red > . In Breton the word ru(z) has another meaning 'bad , dangerous'. This connotation exists in the others Celtic languages. In the Breton folk tradition the red colour is associated with the devil and the other infernal creatures. In Gaulish and Old Irish the component 'red' in the names of kings and gods had the meaning of power and destructive force.

Being at first one of the epithets of the ring or god this word had in the Celtic languages an other meaning 'strong, powerful". In Irish we find "red" men and women, but in Gaulish and Breton the epithet red was a masculine colour. This epithet had a connotation "bad, harmful, dangerous" because the destruction of enemies was one of the valours of a king. So the red colour used to be associated with the death. In Christian Brittany this meaning of the word remained while speaking about the destructive force of the devil.

Kevin Murray: Approaches to Baile Binnbérlach mac Búain
(Department of Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork)

Copies of Baile Binnbérlach mac Búain, 'Sweet-voiced Baile son of Búan', survive in four manuscripts. Unusually for a medieval Irish tale, all versions of the narrative have long been in print along with many summaries and translations of the story. However, no critical edition of the text has yet appeared and no comprehensive analysis of the tale has yet been attempted. This talk is a contribution towards the second of these desiderata.

Jenifer Ní Ghrádaigh: Devenish round tower: a depiction of the evangelists in twelfth-century Ireland?
(School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies)

This paper will examine the sculpted cornice of the twelfth-century round tower at Devenish, Co. Fermanagh, Ireland, which is decorated with four carved heads facing the four cardinal points. Possible iconographic readings for the heads will be suggested, and the multivalent nature of such symbolism will be taken into account in examining their identification as evangelists, but also perhaps equally as the four major prophets. The arguments will be developed with reference to other depictions of the evangelists in Insular art, but also with reference to liturgical function, and it will be suggested that the colophon drawing from the Book of Mulling can be used to help understand the implications of such an unusual iconographic scheme at a time when Irish sculpture was generally purely decorative.

Tomás Ó Cathasaigh: Magic and the Law in Tochmarc Étaíne
(Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University)

Tochmarc Étaíne is one of the greatest narrative achievements in Early Irish. Its overarching subject is Midir’s great and abiding love for Étaín. The gods have magical powers, and enchantment is an important component in the saga. Yet Midir’s wooing of Étain unfolds as a series of transactions – of promises, pledges, purchases, wagers, and so on. The purpose of this paper is to show that in Tochmarc Étaíne the exercise of magical power is in great measure subject to legal or quasi-legal constraints.

Ralph O’Connor: Prophecy, storytelling and the Otherworld in Togail Bruidne Da Derga
(Department of History, University of Aberdeen)

In this paper I will explore the complex interconnections between prophecy, storytelling and the Otherworld in the Togail, building on Thomas Charles-Edwards’s insight that the prominence of prophetic modes in this saga reflects the influence of the filid on its Old Irish development. My paper, however, will focus on the saga’s extant Middle Irish recension (Recension II). Its eleventh-century Christian author-compiler was fascinated by the divinatory origins of his profession: for him, prophecy was a valid mode in which to narrate large sections of his story. Moreover, he has presented prophecies themselves as fragmentary glimpses of hidden stories deriving ultimately from the Otherworld, where they exist unbounded by time. As the Togail progresses, Otherworldly commerce with mortals increases, partly because of stories told in the síd-mounds; conversely, the mortal actors find themselves increasingly glimpsing fragments of their own story. The Togail reveals itself as having found its way from the secret realms of the síd-mounds into the contemporary textual world of recorded history. I will show that this reflexivity illuminates the superficially anachronistic intrusions from the Christian present into the story’s pre-Christian past (e.g. references to burning oratories, Leviathan and Judgement Day), and that these alignments in turn suggest how this consummate literary craftsman intended his own audience to respond to the story.

Caitríona Ó Dochartaigh: Causa scribendi: Endorsement of Medieval Irish Hymns
(Department of Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork)

The classical expository method of supplying a locus, tempus, persona and causa scribendi for a composition, was adopted in many areas of medieval scholarship, in particular in biblical exegesis, the probable channel of its reception by the Irish. In the medieval Irish context, however, the academic accessus often introduces work which formerly fell well outside its ambit. A striking example is the manner in which this introduction is employed in the prefaces to both Latin and Irish hymns. Medieval Irish hymns had a multiplicity of function unparalleled by their continental congeners. They were employed in the liturgy and in private devotion but there is evidence that they also served as protection charms and amulets (lorica). In this latter function, the manuscript preface takes on an added significance since it serves as a guarantee of efficacy. In the preface the association of the hymn with an important saint is often stressed, thus infusing the words of the prayer with the power of the holy man or woman. Furthermore, the time of composition is often associated with a moment of grave physical danger to the saint and serves as a paradigm of the hymn's power and potency. Medieval Irish hymns have in general been studied in isolation and extracted from their manuscript contexts. By examining these texts in conjunction with their accompanying prefaces, we may gain a greater understanding of their contemporary significance, as well as shedding new light on the function of the hymns as powerful, sacred language.

Mícheál Ó Flaithearta: Return to the Ring: The Gaulish ring inscription of Thiaucourt (Meurthe-et-Moselle)
(Department of English/Celtic Section, University of Uppsala)

This shortly inscribed (it contains 30 letters) octagonal gold ring which was discovered c. 1884 and subsequently disappeared, has received its fair share of scholarly attention down through the years. D’Arbois de Jubainville, Sir John Rhys, G. Dottin, R. Thurneysen, L. Fleuriot, P.-Y. Lambert, J. Koch, K.H. Schmidt, W. Meid, to name but some, have analysed the linguistic contents of the ring, either partly or in total. In this paper I will join the aforementioned illustrious fellowship in discussing the language contents of the ring and I shall offer a partially alternative interpretation as to the meaning of the inscription.

Ruairí Ó hUiginn: An Gamanrad
(National University of Ireland, Maynooth)

A people referred to as An Gamhanradh feature quite prominently in Irish texts of the late medieval period. Based in North Connacht, this group included in its ranks heroes such as Fear Diadh mac Damháin and Fraoch mac Idaith (or mac Fidaig) who feature in tales of the Ulster Cycle. In this paper the background, significance and role of this population group in the literature will be examined.

Natalia O’Shea: Hiatus verbs in Old Irish.
(Department of Germanic and Celtic Philology, Moscow State University)

It is well known that a group of Old Irish verbs shows disyllabic hiatus in absolute present forms; cf. ci•d “weeps”. Rudolf Thurneysen’s classification refers to such verbs as to weak ones. This, however, does not seems wise, as nearly a half of them show different stems at least for present and preterit forms and therefore can only be treated as strong verbs. Kim McCone’s classification sees three classes of verbs in Old Irish: strong, weak and hiatus; but, as it is easy to notice, this distinction only works for present stems. He further distinguishes three group within the hiatus class, based on the hiatus vocalism: -a -, -i-,-o/u/e-. Still, as weak and strong verbs go together, there are great discrepancies in the conjugational types within these three groups. In the present paper I intend to address possible approaches to the classification of Old Irish hiatus verbs. I will also pay special attention to a handful of dubious etymologies in this group and attempt to explain them.

Elena Parina: Coherence markers: conjunctive personal pronouns in Middle Welsh.
(Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow)

The semantics of Welsh conjunctive pronouns was described by John Morris Jones with the help of English translations 'too', 'even', 'for my part', 'but', 'while', with a specification that "sometimes the added meaning can be so subtle as to be untranslatable" [WG 273]. Dr. Graham Isaak suggested that conjunctive pronouns should be considered as means of topicality switch coding in Middle Welsh [Isaak 1996: 56], but our analysis of their use in the text Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi shows these units are not only syntagmatically or paradigmatically conditioned.

To find a way of describing the semantics of conjunctive pronouns in Middle Welsh we should look for similar elements in other languages. Recently the attention of Russian typologists was attracted by markers of discourse coherence with a wide range of usage. Such elements were described in North Caucasian Tsakhur [Kibrik 1999], Uralic Mari [Khitrov 2002], Turkic Chuvash and Tatar [Pazelskaja 2002] languages. If we look at the translations of the elements analysed in the above mentioned papers we shall see that the vast majority of them corresponds to the additional meanings of the Welsh conjunctive pronouns. It lets us assume, that the conjunctive personal pronouns in Middle Welsh are means of discourse cohesion. In our paper we shall analyse the similarities and differences of such discourse coherence markers in different languages in more detail.

Geraldine Parsons: A Rendezvous with Death: Reicne Fothad Canainne as Exemplary Fíanaigecht Text
(Trinity College, Cambridge)

This paper will consider the relatively neglected fíanaigecht text Reicne Fothad Canainne which comprises an apparently Middle Irish prose preface and a lengthy Old Irish poem. Both the form and content of the work are of great interest to the student of later fíanaigecht material and of acallam, or dialogue, texts in Irish.

This paper will have two primary purposes, namely to ask if the work should be considered as the earliest example of the acallam tale-type in fíanaigecht literature and to illustrate the tale’s anticipation of themes which characterise fíanaigecht texts from the twelfth century. Analysis of the treatment of Fothad Canainne’s demise will act as a case-study, being both central to both the form of the text (which is that of the posthumous speech of a severed head) and its substance. The ambiguous but essential role occupied by death in the ideology internal to fíanaigecht material will be explored, and it will be argued that the eschatology of Reicne Fothad Canainne is characteristic of the wider corpus.

Patricia Ronan: Snow in Early Irish Texts, a sign of icy times or else?
(Department of English, University of St. Gall)

From a modern day perspective the repeated mention of heavy snowfall in early Irish texts is surprising. Especially in Táin Bó Cuailgne snow is frequently said to hamper the progress of some of the protagonists. Snow is, however, also mentioned in other Old and Middle Irish texts, in poetry and hard winters are also recorded in the Annals. This paper proposes to examine instances of snow and snowfall in some early Irish texts.

John Shaw: Gaelic Versions of AT 2033, Celtic Cosmology, and the Three Worlds of Georges Dumézil
(Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh)

The tale-type 2033 in the Aarne-Thompson classification, best known to the English-speaking world as Chicken Little or Henny-Penny, appears in a number of variants in the Gaelic storytelling tradition common to Ireland and Scotland. In 1978 a Scottish Gaelic version, formerly unknown and containing names associated with pre-Christian gods (Crom, Donn) familiar from medieval Irish sources, was recorded from a reciter in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. This version is examined in relation to the other known variants of AT 2033 distributed throughout Gaeldom, as well as traditions concerning pre-Christian gods in medieval sources and 19th and 20th century oral narratives. Comparisons are drawn between the tripartite cosmological structure (heaven, land, sea) featured in the tale, and medieval Irish eschatological formulae. The significance of this apparent survival is discussed in terms of our (admittedly fragmentary) knowledge of pre-Christian Celtic cosmology with reference to relevant classical sources. Georges Dumézil’s description of a parallel system in Indo-Iranian cosmology raises the possibility that it is an inheritance surviving at the peripheries of the Indo-European world.

Harriet Thomsett: The Biography of Mongán in Medieval Irish Literature before 1200
(Jesus College, Oxford)

The figure of Mongán mac Fiachna (or mac Manannán) is an intriguing one, who appears in a number of early Irish texts. This paper will endeavour to construct a biography for the character, from his birth, through his connections with a number of different women, to his death. The focus will be upon his interactions with members of the learned classes and involvement in literary culture as a storyteller himself. It will consider why this is such a pervasive element in the narratives in which Mongán features, and what light this may shed on our understanding of the methods and functions of the learned classes as a whole. The literary evidence will then be set alongside that for the historical Mongán, seventh century king of Dál nAraide. An attempt will be made to establish what the relationship between the two figures is and assess its significance.

Iwan Wmffre: 'The Life and Times of the Breton Dialectologist Francois Falc'hun'
(Institute of Irish and Celtic Studies, University of Ulster, Coleraine)

Francois Falc'hun (1909-1991) could be considered the twentieth century's most notable Breton dialectologist, and this in a domain of endeavour which did not suffer from any shortage of eminent researchers. His importance lies not only in the actual breakthroughs he achieved in the understanding of the phonology of Breton, but also in the strategic chronological juncture he occupied between earlier dialect researchers such as Pierre Le Roux and his own immediate successors Kenneth Jackson and Jean Le Du of Brest who spearheaded the flowering of Breton dialectal studies that occurred from the 1970s onwards. Falc'hun was unlucky in at least two respects, firstly through his poor health which, nevertheless, had first made it possible for him as an ecclesiastic to devote himself to the study of Breton dialectology, and secondly through the trying times of the German occupation of 1940-44 which left a profound and deleterious impression on a person who was basically ecumenical by nature. This paper proposes to chart his life and career, as well as attempting a broad summation of his achievements as a scholar - one who collaborated with Arwyn Watkins and Magne Oftedal amongst others - and to extricate these achievements from the political controversies that dogged his reputation and standing. It is anticipated that an understanding of Falc'hun's life and times will constitute the most useful introduction to the contribution of Breton to dialectological studies.

Adolfo Zavaroni: Coins or embryos ? Remarks on three figures of Cernunnos
(Independent scholar, Reggio Emilia)

The purse held by the antlered god, usually identified with Cernunnos, of the bas-relief from Vendoeuvres, contains life embryos rather than coins, since the two boys standing on snakes at both sides of him are cupids involved in the generation of life.

Analogously, the round discs flowing out from the bag placed on the knees of Cernunnos in a monument from Reims, are not coins, but life embryos, since they flow between a bull and a deer symbolizing the reproduction of life. In fact Cernunnos echoes the Bronze Age great god conceived as Creator-Destroyer and ruler over the universal cycles.

Many clues drive us to suggest that Mercury’s purse too contains embryos rather than money. The Apollonian god with the lyre associated with Mercury and Cernunnos on the monument of Reims is a redeemer of souls. Playing the lyre, he can tame the griffins protecting the mysterious substance of life.

On other monuments a pàtera containing round disks, as well as the circle containing cupmarks on the petroglyphs, alludes to the reproductive power.

The squatting posture in which Cernunnos is represented alludes to his weak legs which can be transformed into the coils of a snake (Corfinium monument). The Latin Saturn, the Germanic Njordhr and the Welsh Math, who are chthonian gods of reproduction like Cernunnos, have analogous leg impediments.

Christian Michael Zottl: ‘Visualising the present past’ Genealogical construction in the Lebor Gabála Érenn
(Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna)

Early medieval Irish scribal tradition was very closely linked with the ecclesiastical element in society. The Church was equally interwoven with the secular centres of power from where it drew the majority of its leading members. Consequently, the produced literature often took up a consolidating function, strengthening not just the ecclesiastical background but also the various relations between the existing social strata. In connection with the descendants of the various ancient people of Lebor Gabála (LG), Ireland is given its mythical ancestors of the dynasties of Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Tara, anticipating hegemonic rivalries between Armagh and Cashel. This is significant when we consider that the 8th century versions of LG may have been compiled in the face of an increasing hegemony of an Uí Néill kingship. The narrative framework thus merges with history and makes us see that we are dealing with a predominantly fictitious narration. Although the story-line may tell us little about the perceived past, we yet discover critical elements of the time of its compilation. The mythical-historical entity, therefore, may be assessed as fulfilling highly contemporary tasks of (1) reinforcing social cohesion within Irish early medieval societies, (2) strengthening the functional unity of that particular group that presents and justifies this order as being traditional, and (3) establishing all these modes within a codified form of a complex narration that is appealing to listen to, as well as easy to remember and transmit.