Lebor na hUidre

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Lebor na hUidre [ 'Lʴevor na' hiðʴrʴe ] ("The Book of the Dark / Dark-Colored Cow") is the name of the oldest surviving composite manuscript in the Old Irish language , which was created around 1100 AD in the Clonmacnoise monastery .

Legend

The name was given to the work after the color and material of the binding and the text sheets. The following legend is told about it: A cow ran after Saint Ciarán from his parents' farm when he went to see Saint Finnian von Clonard as a pupil. She fed him with her milk until she died. When Ciarán founded Clonmacnoise, the cow's dark skin was treated like a relic - anyone who died on it went straight to heaven. The mythical Ulster hero Fergus mac Róich appeared to Ciarán one day to tell him the Táin Bó Cuailnge (“The Robbery of Cooley ”) and Ciarán wrote this down on the cow's skin.

Factory history

One of the two monks who actually wrote the book, Mæl-Muire mac Célechair [ mail 'muir'e mak' k'eːl'exir ' ] ("Servant of Mary, Célechar's son"), was named after a report in the so-called Annals the four masters murdered in 1106 by robbers in the monastery church. Therefore, the oldest sections of the manuscript can be dated to around 1100. Later, post-editors changed the work, added new chapters and removed old ones. The Táin Bó Cuailnge is the most important legend in this oldest surviving collector's book . The 67 parchment leaves are now kept in the National Museum of Ireland as the most important manuscript from the library holdings of the Royal Irish Academy. It has been in their possession since 1844, and a facsimile print from 1870 became the most important study object in early Celtology .

Content (excerpts)

Originally included stories:

One of the later added stories:

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf Thurneysen: The Irish hero and king saga up to the seventeenth century. Verlag M. Niemeyer, Halle 1921, p. 27 f.
  2. ↑ 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. 468 f.