Stories

Links to, summaries of, notes on … the stories and tails from pre-Christian Irish lore

• tain bo cuailnge (the cattle raid of Cooley)

  • set in the ulster cycle

  • set in 1st century in a pagan heroic age

  • often considered Irelands national epic- sometimes compared to the Iliad

• Lebor Gabala Erenn (the book of invasions, or the book of the taking of ireland)

  • christian stories merging with irish ones, in an attempt to reconsile irish lore with catholic lore

  • made up of poems and prose

  • lists 6 invasions of ireland

    • the people of Cessiar

    • the people of Partholon

    • the people of Nemed

    • the Fir Bolg

    • the Tuatha De Dannan

    • the Milesians

  • has some potentially original irish stories

• origin myth for the tuatha de dannan

  • the story is inconsistent and heavily changed by catholic writers

    • a group of warriors(?) flee from some land overseas

    • the group, in their ships, are enveloped in mist as they approach ireland. catholic stories often list this as god trying to slow them down, but some sources suggest the mist was actually a protection from the goddess danu

    • danu takes them in as her own, forming the tuatha de dannan (the clan or tribe of danu) and ireland becomes their home. in some stories she is the one to give them their powers and make them gods