Irish mythology

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The Irish mythology is the branch of Celtic mythology in Ireland .

Beginning and origin of Irish mythology

Statue of St. Patrick on the hill of Tara

Irish mythology as a branch of Celtic mythology with a reference to Ireland began in the form of manuscripts written by Christian monks . Linguistic evidence suggests, however, that the contents of these writings actually referred to older materials.

In fact, these monks were on the one hand committed to their Christian faith and thus made some adaptations to Christianity, on the other hand these monks were Irish and thus had the clear intention to preserve the culture of Ireland. In addition, Irish culture was far less disrupted than the rest of the British Isles after the arrival of the Romans and Christians .

Ireland essentially escaped Roman invasions, and Christianity also seemed to have had little influence on culture until the arrival of St. Patrick in the mid-5th century AD.

Ultimately, the old stories were preserved by the ancestral bards ( Filidh ) until the founding of Christianity and passed on orally.

The Irish mythical tales were first written down in dialect , and later translated by monks in the 6th century using the Latin alphabet . It can be assumed that all or most of what is now known as Irish mythology was already written down.

The large Tech Screpta , in which the early manuscripts were collected, was gradually looted, especially by the Vikings in the late 8th century, so that all but a few fragments were destroyed. Today's basic sources for Irish mythology therefore come from manuscripts written at the beginning of the early 12th century.

Sources of Irish Mythology

Facsimile of a page from the Book of Leinster

The first of these dating from the 12th century manuscripts is the Lebor na hUidre ( "Book of dark colored cow"), whose principal authorship should be at the monk Mæl-Muire mac Célechair, the order in 1106 during a raid on the monastery Clonmacnoise killed should be.

The so-called manuscript Rawlinson B 502 , which is in the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford , probably comes from the monastery Glendalough or also from Clonmacnoise and was created around 1130.

The Book of Leinster ( Lebor na Nuachongbála or Lebor Laignech ) was presumably compiled around 1150 by Áed Ua Crimthainn in the Terryglass monastery .

In the following 200 years works such as the Leabhar Mór Leacain ("The great book of Lecan"), the Yellow Book of Lecan ( Leabhar Buidhe Lecain ), the Book of Ballymote ( Leabhar Bhaile an Mhóta ), the Leabhar Mhic Cárthaigh Riabhaigh ( "The Book of Mac Cárthaigh Riabhach", called "The Book of Lismore") and the Book of Fermoy , all of which were based on earlier texts.

A particularly important source of Irish mythology, particularly the mythical history of Ireland, is a collection known as Lebor Gabála Érenn ("The Book of the Lands of Ireland") based on several other manuscripts such as the Book of Leinster. The most complete edition of Lebor Gabála Érenn is that of Mícheál Ó Cléirigh from the early 17th century.

Other significant sources for Irish mythology are various versions of Cath Maige Tuired , two legends about the two battles of Mag Tuired .

Heroic mythology

The heroic mythology of Ireland is centered around a series of sagas and legends that are summarized in the Ulster Cycle ( An Rúraíocht ). The sources for these legends are in particular Lebor na hUidre , the Book of Leinster and the Yellow Book of Lecan , from which the great Irish epic tale Táin Bó Cuailnge ("The Robbery of Cooley") came and the less well-known Táin Bo Fraoch (" Fraoch's cattle robbery ”).

The 12th-century Acallam na Senórach ("Conversation with the Elders") is the literary form of a series of heroic stories known as the Finn Cycle .

The founding of Ireland in mythology

The waves of immigration from Cessair, Partholon and Nemed

At the center of Irish mythology is a mythical-historical version of the founding of Ireland derived from the above texts. While there are some conflicting versions of different details in the story, the basic elements are consistent.

According to Christian representations, the immigration to Ireland with Noach's granddaughter Cessair (or from Banba , one of the queens of the same name and symbols of Irish sovereignty ) begins before the Flood . According to the Cessair myth, the flood destroyed all the first immigrants with the exception of her husband Fintan mac Bóchra , the so-called ancient white, who, according to legend, saved himself by turning into a salmon . The myth also shows that Fintan survived into the Christian era as a source of knowledge about the past.

Partholon and its people were the second immigrants. He developed social customs and traditions and began to reclaim land. However, he and his people died of a plague after fighting with the Fomori , one-armed and one-legged violent demons from under or across the sea.

Next came Nemed with his four wives, the ancestors of the Nemedians, who also developed customs, handicrafts, and cultivated fields. When Nemed was killed in fighting with the Fomoris, his people were so abused by their conquerors that they first revolted and then fled to other countries.

Immigration of the Firbolgs and the Five Provinces of Ireland

According to some versions, a group descended from the Nemedians returned to Ireland as Firbolg ("bag men"), whereby this name should come from the fact that they had to transport leather bags with fertile soil as slaves in ancient Thrace .

The Firbolg, who might represent an actual pre-Celtic people in Ireland, are related to the division of the island into five provinces ( cóiced ) and the establishment of a holy kingdom based on the relationship between the king's essential integrity and the fertility of the land based.

The five provinces that are fundamental to Irish mythology and history are Ulster in the north, Connacht in the west, Munster in the south, Leinster in the east, all held together by Mide (Meath) with Tara , the seat of the holy king, as their center .

The immigration of the Túatha Dé Danann

The treasures of the Danu

The stone of Fal ( Lia Fáil ), the coronation stone of Tara
Macha curses the men of Ulster

The next intruders, the Túatha Dé Danann , the so-called "people of the Danu ", were the beings of Irish mythology who were closest to the deities of the Indo-European traditions. Probably also descendants of the Nemedians, who learned the creation myth in their exile - presumably on the northern islands of Greece . The leaders of the Túatha, in one way or another, became deities themselves upon their arrival in Ireland.

The Túatha Dé Danann also brought with them extensive powers of magic and druidism , symbolized by four talismans :

  • the stone of Fal ( Lia Fáil ), which proclaimed the true king when he stood on the stone;
  • the victorious spear of Lugh ;
  • the invincible sword ( Fragarach ) of Nuada as well
  • the never empty boiler of Dagda .

Deities of the Túatha Dé Danann

The Túatha Dé Danann were, as their name shows, descendants of the god mother Danu, of whom little is known. Their functions reflected an Indo-European tripartite order: rulers / priests, warriors and artisans. Numerous Túatha are associated with the figures of the Celtic religion .

In that of Julius Caesar wrote the catalog Celtic deities is Mercurius the Irish Lugh, who wore these tripartite order in itself. He is a master of the arts and crafts, a warrior, the source of divine royalty as a druidic priest. Temporary King of the Celtic Otherworld , he was enthroned with a queen to represent the sovereignty of Ireland.

Belenus , who was equated in the Interpretatio Romana Apollon , was related to the Irish god of love, Mac ind Óc or Angus , son of the “all-father” Dagda, the “good God” in the sense of “good to everything”. Dagda was the highest representative of the priestly class, the chief druid.

Caesar's Minerva corresponds in aspects to Dagda's daughter Brigid , a healer and patron of crafts and learning, who was later assimilated by the Christians as Brigida of Kildare and perhaps in a different context by the British with Brigantia ( Britannia ), the genius loci of Great Britain . As Brigida of Kildare, she is related to the sacred fire for the protection of many virgins, and thus again in connection with the Roman vestals . In Scotland she is honored as the midwife of the Virgin Mary and as the foster mother of Jesus Christ .

Vulcanus has his counterpart in Goibniu , the blacksmith god of Ireland. Dis Pater has his counterpart in the mysterious Donn , the Dark or the Brown, which can be brought into connection with the great bull in the Táin Bó Cuailnge . The Irish god Ogma most likely corresponds to the Roman Heracles .

Other important figures among the Túatha Dé Danann are the healer Dian Cecht , King Nuada with the silver arm and his warrior queen Macha , like so many Irish deities a triune figure who first appeared as the wife of Nemed and later appeared as the Queen of Ulster.

The battles of Mag Tuired

After the Túatha arrived in Ireland, they established their court in Tara and defeated the Firbolgs in the first battle of Mag Tuired in which King Nuada lost his arm. Although the arm was replaced by a silver arm made by Dian Cecht and later by a real arm made by Dian Cechst's son Miach , Nuada renounced his royal dignity because of his poor health when the Túatha faced a new battle, namely against the after Ireland returned to Fomori.

Bress , son of a Fomori father and a Túatha mother, was elected king. But when he proved unsuitable, he was mocked in the satire ( Glám dícenn ) of the bard Coirpre with the following lines:

No dish quickly in the bowl,
No cow's milk from which a calf grows
No place for a man in the dark of night
No payment for the storytellers crowd:
May that be the prosperity under Bress!
May Bress not prosper!

With the voice of the bards carrying great weight in Ireland, Bress' beauty declined, leading to his being asked to resign as king. Instead, he returned to his warring relatives for help, which led to the Second Battle of Mag Tuired.

Before the battle, Nuada was re-enthroned as king, but soon passed his powers to Lugh, who came to Tara and successfully demonstrated his ability to call for magical powers. Lugh led into the second battle, where he soon faced the terrible Balor , who had killed both Nuada and Queen Macha and whose terrible one-eye could destroy entire armies. Lugh wounded Balor's dread eye with his slingshot in such a way that the thrown stone pushed the eye through the skull of the demon, who then turned its evil forces against the Fomori, who self-destructed and vanished from Ireland forever.

Bress was captured but allowed to live in exchange for revealing revealing secrets of the Fomori's agriculture . Like the Nordic Vanans and Vedic giants against whom the gods had to wage wars, these were representatives of the forces of fertility and destruction that occur together in nature.

The immigration of the Gael

The first Amergin invasion

The next mythical-historical invasion of Ireland was that of the Gael or Irish Celts, represented by the Milesians or Míl Espáne ("soldiers of Spain").

There are numerous stories of how the Milesians ultimately came to Ireland. The Christian monks who wrote the Lebor Gabála Érenn saw in the history of the origin of Ireland a similarity to the Exodus described in Exodus. According to their description, the Milesians traveled from Scythia via Egypt to Spain and finally to Ireland. There they landed under the leadership of the poet Amergin , who used his Moses- like prophetic power and wisdom to push aside the cloud of fog that the Túatha arranged for Beltane on May 1st on the day of the festival .

Amergin then, as it were, called the new Ireland of the Celts to life, in which he included himself like Krishna - Vishnu in the Bhagavad Gita or the people in the poems of Walt Whitman .

On their way to Tara, the Milesians met the triune goddess, represented by the queens Ériu , Banba and Fódla , who represented Irish sovereignty. The queens tried to convince the Donn- led invaders to keep their names forever as names for the conquered islands. Donn refused and his early death was then predicted by Ériu.

In Tara, the Milesians met the husbands of the three queens, Kings Mac Cuill , Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine , who requested a temporary truce. It was decided by Amergin that the Milesians would retreat to the sea and invade again.

The second invasion of the Gael

The second invasion, however, was prevented by the magic wind of the Túatha before that wind was lifted by the even more magical word of Amergin. The Milesians then landed, and despite the death of Donn, they succeeded in destroying the gods. The peace treaty led the Celtic Gael to control the supernatural world and the Túatha to control the subterranean world. Amergin then stated that Ireland should be named after the triune goddess.

From then on , the Túatha lived in Síd , the underground hills, and have been referred to in the legends of Ireland as fairies ( Sióg ) or "little people".

Ireland was then ready for the heroic and tragic events for the lives of Cú Chulainn , Conchobar mac Nessa , Fergus mac Róich , Queen Medb , Fionn mac Cumhaill , Oisín and many others.

These events, depicted in works such as Táin Bó Cuailnge or the later Finn cycle, are the Irish counterparts to the Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana , but also the legends of Germanic and Slavic mythology and the more well-known epics of Homer .

Background literature

  • Helmut Birkhan : Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2609-3 .
  • Ingeborg Clarus : Celtic Myths. Man and his otherworld. Walter Verlag 1991. (2nd edition. Ppb edition, Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 2000, ISBN 3-491-69109-5 )
  • Barry Cunliffe : The Celts and Their History. 7th edition. Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 2000.
  • Myles Dillon, Nora Kershaw Chadwick : The Celts. From the prehistory to the Norman invasion . Kindler's cultural history, ISBN 3-89340-058-3 .
  • Peter Berresford Ellis: Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford University Press, New York City 1992.
  • Christopher Fee, David Leeming: Gods, Heroes, and Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain. Oxford University Press, New York City 2001.
  • Miranda Green: Celtic Myths. British Museum Press, London 1993.
  • David Leeming: The Oxford Companion to World Mythology. Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-515669-2 , pp. 204-207.
  • Proinsias Mac Cana: Celtic Mythology. Hamlyn, London 1970.

Individual evidence

  1. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2609-3 , p. 942.