From: hrjones@socrates.berkeley.edu
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 10:39:59 -0700 (PDT)
Reply-To: hrjones@socrates.berkeley.edu
To: minstrel@pbm.com
Subject: minstrel: re:"book of the Dun Cow"
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Conchobar -- I hope you don't mind me redirecting this back to the whole
list, since others may find it of interest.

On Tue, 13 Oct 1998, Russell Gilman-Hunt wrote:
> Tangwystyl wrote:
> 
> > It is extremely rare to find published versions of complete
> collections of
> > this sort, due to the interests of the scholars doing the publishing.
> > Generally, they are interested in looking at all the various
> versions of
> > one particular tale or block of material.
> <snip>
> > Are you interested in the complete contents as a sort of "what would
> my
> > persona know" type of thing? Your best bet for finding this
> 
> Precisely; I was thinking about "what stories would a middle level
> (Now that I have a Jambe de Leon) Storyteller and poet be expected 
> to know?" Aside from my earlier question about "AnTirian Basic Bard"
> brain food.  Easily I could come up with the Tain, the stories about
> Fionn (especially the Salmon of Wisdom), The Wooing of Etain, the 
> story about Dierdre, the Children of Llyr.  One of my sources (Celtic
> Fairy Tales) says that "Connla and the Fairy Maid" comes from the 
> Book of the Dun Cow; and so it would be appropriate too.

Ok, I _did_ find a source that gives at least extensive (if not always
exhaustive) contents lists for the most important of the oldest
collections. This is all taken from Eleanor Hull's "A Text Book of Irish
Literature" (Dublin: M.H. Gill & Son, Ltd., 1910). It's nice to see that
my guesses about the parallels between the medieval Welsh and Irish
collections were pretty accurate. Hull notes, "these works are not books
in the ordinary sense of the term, but ar miscellaneous collections of
material of different ages and varying value, written into large parchment
volumes from time to time by the scribes who had them under their care;
romances, history, genealogies, poems, biography, and religious matter
being thrown together without much natural order".

For the Book of the Dun Cow specifically, she notes: "It opens ... with a
fragment of the Book of Invasions .... Then follows the history of
Nennius, poems to or by St. Columcille, the Story of Tuan, and a long list
of romances, such as the Intoxication of the Ultonians, Cattle Spoil of
Dartada, the Wanderings of Maelduin, the Vision of Adamnan, the Sickbed of
Cuchulain, the Destruction of Da Derga's House, the Battle of Cnuca ...,
the Feast of Cricriu, the Battle of Carn Conaill, the Story of Connla of
the Golden Hair, the Voyage of Bran, the Courtships of Emer and Etain, th
eStory of Mongan, and the earliest account of the Cattle Spoil of
Cuailnge. A few semi-historical pieces, such as the Death of King Dathi
and the banishment of the Deisi into Munster are included, also a couple
of religious pieces, and Cineath O'Hartigan's long poem on the Burial
Places of the Kings."

She gives the date of compilation as ca. 1100 -- note that the dates of
composition of the pieces will vary considerably.

Conchobar -- if you're interested in a photocopy of the whole chapter I
took this from, drop me a note with your regular address in it and I'll
pop it off.

Tangwystyl

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PLEASE NOTE ==> New E-mail address

WAS <hrjones@uclink.berkeley.edu>
NOW IS <hrjones@socrates.berkeley.edu>
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