Old places

"The old places" is known today from written sources, but at the same time, most likely, retains many features of the oral tradition . The poetic form served as a mnemonic means for memorization. Knowing the real or fictitious history of places was an important part of the education of the Old Irish elite - both secular nobles and educated classes - fields and bards . "The old places" is not an accurate account of the history of the names of places. On the contrary, many of the explanations are tailored to the names, especially in those numerous cases when the name dates back to a period earlier than the Mid-Irish language , in which both the poetic and the prose part of the "Antiquities" is written.

According to legend, set out at the beginning of the Rennes (C) edition of the "Old Folk", this text was compiled during the reign of Diarmaid, the son of Kerbell (mid-6th century), by the poet Amargen, the son of Amalgad, who came from the Dessi tribes living around Tara . He fasted for three days and nights, after which Fintan, the oldest resident of Ireland, who arrived there before the Great Flood, appeared to him. Fintan told Amargen the "olden days" ( senchasa dind ) of Ireland - from Kesayr to King Diarmyde. In fact, the linguistic features of both the poetic and prosaic versions point to the 11th – 12th centuries. as at the time of compilation. Separate poems as part of Dinnhenhas are attributed to famous medieval Irish poets: Mael Moore (d. 887), King Cormac, son of Coulnnan (d. 908), Flann Manistrech (d. 1056).

Texts dedicated to explaining how a particular name appeared are found not only in such specialized literature as dinnhenhas, but also in sagas. So, in the sir “Pier Brikren”, the appearance of the name Call Buana (“Hazel Buan”) is explained - by the name of the girl who died because of love for Kuhulin , “The abduction of a bull from Kualge” tells about the origin of various geographical names from body parts torn to pieces of the Findbennach’s bull (for example, Athlone дрth . úth . Lth Lúain “Wade of the back of the [bull]”).

Revision A

Revision A - a poetic (or metric) version - consists of 107 poems. This edition is contained in the manuscript of the XII century. The Leinster Book and partially in other handwritten sources. There are signs in the text that it was compiled from a large number of peripheral sources and earlier poems of at least the 11th century . This version was published by Edward Gwynn. Gwynn considered edition A the most ancient: in his opinion, the prosaic dinnhenhas, primarily edition C, are an abridged retelling of the poetic text.

Revision B

Revision B, prosaic, consists of approximately one hundred separate dinnhenhas. It has been preserved in three manuscripts: Leinster Book (XII century), Rawlinson B 506 (Bodleian Library, Oxford) and Gaelic MS XVI at the National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh). Dinnhenhas from the Bodleian and Edinburgh manuscripts were published separately by Whitley Stokes.

Revision C

Revision C is the most extensive: it includes 176 prose and poetic passages. It has been preserved in a number of manuscripts of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries: these are the Rennes manuscript , the Ballimot book , the Great Book of Lekan and the Yellow Book of Lekan . Material from the Rennes manuscript published by Whitley Stokes; excerpts from the Rennes dinnhenhas were translated into Russian by S.V. Shkunaev ^[2] . According to the Irish philologist T. O Conghianann ^[3] , revision C is the oldest; Version B is an abridged retelling of C, and Revision A is a collection of poems contained in one of the earlier versions of Revision C.

Dinnhenhas editions

• The Bodleian Dinnshenchas / Ed. and trans. by Wh. Stokes. Folk-Lore. Vol. 3 (1892). P. 467-516 [Rawl. B 506] [1]
• The Edinburgh Dinnshenchas / Ed. and trans. by Wh. Stokes. Folk-Lore. Vol. 4 (1893). P. 471-97 [Kilbride MS 16] [2]
• The prose tales in the Rennes Dindsenchas / Ed. and trans. by Wh. Stokes // Revue Celtique . Vol. 15 (1894) 272-336, 418-84; Vol. 16 (1895) 31-83, 135-67, 269-312

Research

• Bowen C. A historical inventory of the Dindshenchas // Studia Celtica. Vol. 10.1975-76. P. 113-137.
• Ó Concheanainn T. The three forms of Dinnshenchas Érenn // The Journal of Celtic Studies. Vol. III. No. 1. 1981. P. 88-131.
• Ó Cuív B. Dinnshenchas: the literary exploitation of Irish place-names // Ainm. Vol. 4. 1989-90. P. 90-106.
• Bondarenko G.V. Mythology of the space of medieval Ireland. M., 2003 ISBN 5-94457-127-6

Online Publishing

• The Metrical Dindshenchas , edited and translated by Edward J. Gwynn, at CELT
  • Volume 1: (Irish text) and (English translation)
  • Volume 2: (Irish text) and (English translation)
  • Volume 3: (Irish text) and (English translation)
  • Volume 4: (Irish text) and (English translation)
• The Prose Tales from the Rennes Dindshenchas , edition and translation of Whitley Stokes , see Thesaurus Linguae Hibernicae
  • Part 1: (Irish text) and (translation)
  • Part 2: (Irish text) and (translation)
  • Part 3: (Irish text) and (translation)
  • Part 4: (Irish text)
• The Bodleian Dinnshenchas : (Irish text) and (translation) Whitley Stokes , see Thesaurus Linguae Hibernicae
• The Edinburgh Dinnshenchas : (Irish text) and (translation) Whitley Stokes , at Thesaurus Linguae Hibernicae
• Separate poems

About Dinnhenhas

• Jones Celtic Encyclopedia: The dindsenchas