Acallam na Senorach or Tales of the Elders of Ireland, translated by Ann Dooley and Harry Roe. 

For someone who goes out of her way to read and translate Irish and Welsh mythology, well, it took me forever to get to this.  Now I remember why.  This material–not the translation, mind you, but the material itself–makes me want to shake people really really hard.  The text was transcribed in either the 12th or 13th century, which is part of the problem.  Because, you know, this version was recorded so much further from the historical source material, and thus pretty terribly corrupted. 

Also, in the spirit of full disclosure:  I’m a pretty radical feminist and a dirt-worshipping heathen, so St. Patrick doesn’t much appeal to me.  Most of the Saints whose prime focus was destroying native religions and cultures don’t get invited to my birthday parties.  The whole "driving the snakes out  of Ireland" routine is a thinly-veiled reference to Christian missionaries stamping out or subsuming native Irish religious practices.  And I hate green beer too.

Dooley and Roe did a great job translating this.  I don’t know how they made it through.  I would have lost my mind.  It’s easy to forget what kind of shape some of the mythology is in, having been transcribed by monks who were not generally fluent in the languages they were transcribing and who were also encouraged to "clean up" any texts that seemed blasphemous, idolatrous, sexual, or otherwise un-Christian by medieval standards. 

So, you know, priceless pieces of oral history were whitewashed and stripped of sex, humor, tidbits of ancient religious practice and belief–just thinking about what we’ve lost is making me itch.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not anti-Christian.  I’m anti-censorship.  And I particularly resent the roles left for women in some of the works that were transcribed later.  That may not make sense to folks who aren’t well-versed in Irish myth, but if you compare the women in The Tain Bo Cuailnge to the women in this text and it doesn’t make you itch even just a little bit, um, go listen to some P.J. Harvey please.  Now.  It’s an emergency.

Acallam na Senorach is set up as a major frame story which holds hundreds of little stories about Irish mythology.  In the book, St. Patrick is trying to learn about Ireland and its heroes, primarily Fionn Mac Cumhaill, from the surviving Fianna.  The Fianna were, according to the myths, groups of men who didn’t yet hold land or political position who wandered around sort of keeping order and having adventures.  I say "sort of keeping order" because they were frequently involved in huge skirmishes that didn’t seem to do anything to keep the peace or maintain justice.  Fionn’s Fianna had many run-ins with the Tuatha de Danaan, the Divine Tribes of the Goddess Danu.  The main narrator in Acallam na Senorach is Cailte, Finn’s right-hand man and an all-around badass. 

Should be a great book of stories, right?  For many people, it probably is.  For me, well, I hate parts of it like poison.  Largely because over and over again, for no clear reason, members of the Irish pantheon suddenly cowtow to Patrick and forswear their own divinity.

Seriously.  Who would do that?  The Dagda would not do that.  Aengus Og would not do that.  The Morrigan would certainly not do that.  And I shudder to think how any of them would react if their siblings or kids–even just the demi-Gods–did it.    Makes no sense.  Destroys all connection to character established in the earlier mythology.  The Tuatha De Danaan were badasses in the myths.  And suddenly they’re worshiping some new God they just heard about?  I know this form of revision is common in many Christianized cultures, but it drives me nuts.  Nuts, I say. 

When I could set aside my burning anger and remember that I was reading a historically-significant text that two really talented translators had made available to me for crap pay and too little recognition, I really was able to enjoy the stories, particularly the dindsenchas (stories that explain how a place got its name–a very important type of Irish myth). 

But then one of the Tuatha De Danaan would lay his or head into Patrick’s lap and beg to be baptised and offer to dig up the grave of one of their relatives or lovers so that Patrick could have more wealth, and I would start cursing again. 

And in case anyone is wondering, if I die and am buried with a horde of my cool stuff and any of you dig me up to steal my grave goods to fund some evangelist, my peeps will boil you alive. In the nicest way possible of course, but with the same results. 

Trackback URI | Comments RSS