Reddit reviews Tales of the Elders of Ireland (Oxford World's Classics)

In one example in the medieval Irish tradition from the pseudo-historical Lebor Gabála Érenn, the tension between pre-Christian and Christianized lineages was dealt with by drawing distinctions between the descent of Christianized man and that of their predecessors on the Island. The text can be seen as a sort of reconciliation of pre-Christian religion and history into a framework patterned on Biblical narrative. Within the text the aforementioned distinction is drawn between humanity and the Tuatha Dé Danann who would reside beneath the earth after their defeat by the sons of Míl:

>Three days and three nights after that the sons of Míl defeated the demons, i.e. the Tuath Dé Donann, in the battle of Sliab Mis... From Bile and Míl all the Gaels are descended.^^1

Though it is not the specific topic of your question, you've touched on a fascinating and enigmatic broader theme; that of the Christian contextualisation of pre-Christian culture. If you'd permit a slight detour, there are some interesting textual demonstrations of the attitude in monastic Ireland towards Pagan tradition. Ireland had a very old and sophisticated oral tradition prior to the arrival of Christianity, and the integration of this tradition into a Christian context was by turns harmonious and discordant. Some expressions of this were a folk syncretism, neither entirely Pagan nor entirely Christian, as Don Yoder writes in his 1974 paper Towards a Definition of Folk Religion:

>Is folk religion, in the European context, as Charles G. Leland once defined it in the last century, "the old religion" (la vecchia religione), that is, survivals in the present of pre-Christian forms of religion? This is the evolutionist, survivalist, "gesunkenes Kulturgut" approach. According to this definition folk religion in Catholicism would be the acculturated elements from the pre-Christian religions...^^2

While the Lebor Gabála Érenn might make distinctions between the two, such stark divisions are not always the case. More permissive cultural amalgamation may be seen for example in the Acallam na Senórach, a compilation Fenian Cycle narratives. The framing device of the Acallam na Senórach is the recounting the exploits of the long-dead legendary Fianna by Fionn mac Cumhaill's son Oisín and his companion Caílte to an amazed but deeply conflicted Saint Patrick, who is uneasy over the role these Pagan heroes have within Christianity. As Ann Dooley writes in her introduction to her own translation of the text:

> Early in the great medieval compilation of Fenian lore called Tales of the Elders of Ireland...St. Patrick's guardian angels come to him to give him the heavenly advice he had sought. Ancient warriors, survivors from an older, more heroic and magnificent age, have presented themselves to him and he has been both fascinated and troubled by their appearance and their stories. The advice of the angels, given 'with one voice', is the following:
>> `Dear holy cleric, these old warriors tell you no more than a third of their stories because their memories are faulty. Have these stories written down on poets' tablets in refined language, so that the hearing of them will provide entertainment for the lords and commons of later times.'^^3

This permissive 'laundering' of pre-Christian tradition is not always so warmly encouraged; contrast the Book of Leinster's text of the Táin Bó Cúailnge which ends with a more antipathetic stipulation:

>Sed ego qui scripsi hanc historiam aut uerius fabulam quibusdam fidem in hac historia aut fabula non accommodo. Quaedam enim ibi sunt praestrigia demonum, quaedam autem figmenta poetica, quaedam similia uero, quaedam non, quaedam ad delectationem stultorum.

>

>I who have copied down this story, or more accurately fantasy, do not credit the details of the story, or fantasy. Some things in it are devilish lies, and some poetical figments; some seem possible and others not; some are for the enjoyment of idiots.^^4

Which perhaps might betray the monastic perception of pre-Christian tradition, though the medieval period was hardly unique in this editorialisation; "I left out a good deal I thought you would not care about for one reason or another,"^^5 as an uncomfortable Lady Gregory wrote of the omitted salacious detail in her translation over 700 years later.



^^1 ^(John Koch and John Carey. The Celtic Heroic Age. Literary Sources for Ancient Celtic Europe and Early Ireland and Wales. Aberystwyth, Wales: Center for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 2009. pp. 266-269)

^^2 ^(Don Yoder. “Toward a Definition of Folk Religion”. Western Folklore 33, 1974. Western States Folklore Society: 2–15.)

^^3 ^(Ann Dooley. The Tales of the Elders of Ireland. New York, United States: Oxford University Press, 1999. p. VII)

^^4 ^(Thomas Kinsella. The Táin. New York, United States: Oxford University Press, 2002. p. 282)

^^5 ^(Ibid., p. XIV)

Hello! I am not OSP but figure I might be able to help a little bit (at least with the first question). For me, at least, when I hear "Fae folk" the first thing I think of is what became of the Irish's "Tuatha Dé Danann". This is not to say that other countries don't have their own "fae" or "spirit" beings (domovoi, hobgoblins, etc), but if I were you I'd start by reading up on Irish mythology. So you could probably check out books like, Tales of the Elders of Ireland or The Tain. If not that, then there are more general books like Fairies: A Dangerous History (I've never read it, but did a quick check on the author and they're a lecturer of Renaissance Literature so it at least sounds decently founded). Besides that, if you're in school and have access to a scholarly database or library you could always try looking up journals/articles relating to them within history or religion and culture. Hope that assists you. :)

The CELT (Corpus of Electronic Texts) database hosted by UCC hosts transcriptions of many Old Irish texts. There are some English translations, though they can be difficult to dig up. Nonetheless the database contains a wide variety of material the narrative literature section includes mythology.

Ignoring the somewhat dodgy-looking website MaryJones.us contains a wide selection of Irish (and Celtic!) material and more translations. The only real downside to MaryJones is that the sources of translations aren't always provided, so the accuracy cannot be checked against the actual texts the translation is working from. Nonetheless, the majority are good translations.

Irish Literature which includes many of the historical and mythological texts that CELT also has, and some Pre-Christian Inscriptions.

In terms of books, The Táin, early Ireland's great epic is a good one. I've yet to read the latest translation, admittedly, but I do quite enjoy Kinsella's version: he manages to capture the feel of Old Irish, so to speak, and its occasionally choppy narrative style, while making the text legitimately readable. It stays true to the text while still being accessible.

Likewise, Jeffrey Gantz's Early Irish Myths and Sagas is an excellent introduction to some of the more interesting, and important myths of early Ireland. The translations are very readable - though at times he has sacrificed the tone of Old Irish to do so.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Tales of the Elders of Ireland as translated by Ann Dooley and Harry Roe, has retained the Old Irish flavour, and is therefore occasionally difficult to understand.

In terms of secondary material, you'll have to be a little more specific as to what you're looking for. Miranda Green has a pretty good book, but she runs into the same issue that we all run into: we don't know how the myths that we have were perceived by or influenced the people who created them.

All of our stories, all of our information, really, is relayed to us through manuscripts that were created primarily in monasteries (though we have some created by laypeople and not monks, they're younger, and fairly well-removed from whatever paganism may be represented in the texts.) Few (if any) of them provide any commentary, or meta-analysis - and what we do have is pretty spare (ie. a note that the scribe doesn't believe any of what he's just written.)

The texts do tend to uphold the laws that we have, so I suppose you could argue either way: did the myths influence the laws, or the laws influence the myths?

But as I say, as we have no sources, really, from pre-Christian Ireland, only material that has been transmitted through a Christian lens, it's hard to know how the remaining texts were treated. Granted, their preservation does indicate that they were regarded with a certain level of reverence, but their actual influence is unknown. There is some literature that compares the ways in which the Christian authors follow some of the tropes of myth in their own writings of saints lives, but I'm not sure if that's what you're after.