Coire Sois, The Cauldron of Knowledge: A Companion to Early Irish Saga

Further Reading

Further Reading Compiled by Matthieu Boyd with the author’s input This section tries to orient nonspecialists while helping specialists get up to date. These two purposes are sometimes in tension—the most recent publications on a given topic may not be the most accessible, or may make questionable statements that others have not had a chance to rebut. Some readers will no doubt feel that, in the attempt to find a balance, there have been significant omissions. Also, some of the most important items in this section receive the least commentary, either because they deserve to be read in full, or because the contents are too diverse or complex to be summarized briefly. Items that antedate Ó Cathasaigh’s chapters are only rarely mentioned; often the chapters themselves will have shown nonspecialists the best places to start. The Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature maintained by the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, at http://bill.celt.dias.ie, and the Celtic Studies Association of North America Bibliography at http://celtic.cmrs.ucla.edu/csanabib.html are two excellent ways to keep up with the progress of research. “INTRODUCTION: IRISH MYTHS AND LEGENDS” (2005) Ó Cathasaigh’s survey of Irish literature to ca. 800 in volume 1 of the Cambridge History of Irish Literature (2005b) goes into more detail on some of the topics, and the subsequent chapters by Máire Ní Mhaonaigh (2005) 484 and Marc Caball and Kaarina Hollo (2005) complete the picture. Under the heading of “Aspects of Memory and Identity in Early Ireland,”Ó Cathasaigh (2011a) has more on the role of the filid and their place in society. Patrick Ford (1990) is a classic take on how the early Irish understood the nature of poetic craft, and Liam Breatnach (2006) is a noteworthy recent one on the scope of the filid’s activities. The overview of early Irish literary criticism by Erich Poppe and Patrick Sims-Williams (2005) is invaluable. The history of Ireland when most of the early literature was composed is covered in a magisterial survey by Thomas Charles-Edwards (2000), and Seán Duffy (1997) gives an accessible run-down of the later medieval period .For more detail on certain topics,see the hefty volumes of the New History of Ireland edited by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (2005) and Art Cosgrove (1987). Katharine Simms, in her short book Medieval Gaelic Sources (2009), surveys all the Irish-language texts that may lend themselves to historical research, including annals, genealogies, laws, and poetry, as well as the sagas. Forthcoming books by Edel Bhreathnach (2013) and Elva Johnston (2013) should further refine our understanding of the sociohistorical context. The status of early Irish narrative cycles has now been discussed at length by Erich Poppe (2008). Dan Wiley (2008) provides a comprehensive introduction to the King Cycle. The tradition of “synthetic pseudohistory ”represented by Lebor Gabála Érenn, which is outside the scope of this volume, is most recently discussed in the volume of Reassessments edited by John Carey (2009). On saints’ lives, also generally outside the scope of this volume, Kim McCone (1984b) and Richard Sharpe (1991b) are good places to start. Meanwhile, William Sayers presents the field of early Irish literature to Arthurians (2007b) and mainstream medievalists (2010). Those not familiar with early Irish saga who would like to browse the primary texts should see the translated volumes by Tom Peete Cross and Clark Harris Slover (1969), Jeffrey Gantz (1981), Thomas Kinsella (1970), Ann Dooley and Harry Roe (1999), Patrick Ford (1999), and John Koch and John Carey (2003), not to mention the various publications of the Irish Texts Society, DIAS, and the Maynooth Medieval Irish Texts Series. “THE SEMANTICS OF SÍD” (1977–79) Síd and related terms are further discussed by Eric Hamp (1982) and Patrick Sims-Williams (1990); for the latest comment on the etymology of síd, see Matasovi (2009), s.v. *sedo-. Further Reading 485 The location and geography of the Otherworld are discussed in articles by John Carey (1982; 1987; 2000)—who argues that an overseas Otherworld is “foreign to the native tradition at every stage” (2000, 119)— Maxim Fomin (2004), Feargal Ó Béarra (2009), and in a recent book by Alfred Siewers (2009). William Sayers (2012) now proposes that the relocation of the Otherworld to hills or islands on the same plane as humans represents a 90-degree shift from...