Fedelm (also Feidelm ; irl. Fedelm or Feidelm ) is a prophetess and filid in the Uladian cycle of Irish mythology . In the saga “ The Abduction of a Bull from Kualnge ”, she portends the death of the army of Medb and Ailil poppy Mata . The soothsayer with that name appears in another text from the Ulad cycle, where she is associated with Kuhulin .
Abduction of a Bull from Kualge
The episode of the meeting of Medb with the prophetess Fedelm is present in all known editions of “Kidnapping a Bull from Kualge” in an almost unchanged form [1] . In preparation for the invasion of Ulster , Queen Medb and Aylil poppy Mata , the rulers of Connaught , gathered a large army from all four provinces of Ireland. On the road, they met Fedelm, a beautiful young girl with golden hair, who walked next to a chariot and weaved fringe [2] . In the First Edition, the girl calls herself a poetess ( banfhili ) from Connaught and says that she returns from Alba (the name of Scotland in Gaelic ) after learning poetry, in the Second Edition - a prophetess ( banfáid ) from Sid Kruahan [3] [4] . It is assumed that Fedelm could be a student of the legendary Scottish warrior Skatach , from whom Kuchulin was a student of martial arts and who was also a soothsayer [5] . Medb asks Fedelm to predict the fate of the army (which can also be interpreted as a request for blessing [1] ), and Fedelm predicts bloodshed: “I see red at all, I see scarlet ...” [2] Medb refuses to accept this, knowing that the settlements are covered by a mysterious weakness, and repeats his request several times, but the answer of the soothsayer remains the same. She describes in the “things of the song” an impending battle in which Kukhulin will be the most terrible enemy of the Medb army [2] .
Name and other appearances
It is assumed that the name “Fedelm” comes from the proto-Celtic * w (e) id - “to know, to see” - and, thus, corresponds to the role of the character in “Abduction of the bull from Kualge”. She is compared with Veleda , the prophetess described by Tacitus [6] . The name is not too rare, "Abduction" and other sources mention Fedelm Neukrutah, daughter of Konkhobar Mack Ness . Probably, it is associated with the common male name Fedlimid [6] .
Although the name is not unique, it is possible that Fedelm from Abduction may be one character with Fedelm the Fair-haired ( Foltcháin ), which appears in a short Irish text known as “Ces Ulad” (“Illness of the Ulad”) [6] . The surviving copy of the text is imperfect, so the translations of Vernam Hall and John Carey differ in many details. It is said that one day (before the invasion of Medb), Kuhulin with his charioteer Laeg goes to the Boyne River to learn imbas forosnai ( Irl. Imbas forosnai ) - a special technique of ecstatic inspiration that reveals secret knowledge for the field , which is mentioned in relation to Fedel in the First Edition “ Abductions ” [1] - (translated by Carey) or receive“ wealth ”(translated by Hull). The search for imbas is more likely in the original Irish text, since the banks of the river can serve as a place for poetic wisdom - as they are mentioned, for example, in the text “Immacallam in Dá Thuarad” [5] .
On the opposite bank are Fedelm and her husband Elkmar, they notice uninvited guests and their chariot. When Kuhulin tries to catch a salmon with a spear, Elkmar enters the water and throws a stone pillar into the chariot, but Kuhulin cuts off his thumbs. Fedel then utters a prophecy (for Hull - “promises”) that she will appear naked in front of the Ulad and be the mistress of Kuhulin. This happens in a year and one day. The text ends with the assertion that it was the appearance of Fedel before the Uladas that caused their mysterious weakness [7] . This explanation is significantly different from the one in Noinden Ulad and related texts.
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 T.A. Mikhailova. Mistress of fate. The image of a woman in traditional Irish culture. - Languages of Slavic culture, 2004. - (Studia philologica. Series minor). - ISBN 5-9551-0007-5 .
- ↑ 1 2 3 Abduction of a bull from Kualge. - Science, 1985 .-- 496 p. - (Literary monuments).
- ↑ Táin Bó Cúalnge Recension I . CELT: The Corpus of Electronic Texts . Date of treatment October 9, 2012. Archived December 13, 2012.
- ↑ Táin Bó Cúalnge from the Book of Leinster . CELT: The Corpus of Electronic Texts . Date of treatment October 9, 2012. Archived December 13, 2012.
- ↑ 1 2 Bernhardt-House, Phillip A. Warriors, words and wood: oral and literary wisdom in the exploits of Irish mythological warriors // Studia Celtica Fennica 6. - 2009 .-- S. 5-19 .
- ↑ 1 2 3 John T. Koch. Fedelm // Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia. - 2005.
- ↑ Cú Chulainn and Fedelm , ed. Meyer; tr. Carey