If you like Icelandic sagas (and I do), this is pretty cool.

Chapter 18: Concerning Leia and the Sons of Dítú
A woman was named Leia; she was the daughter of Beilorgana, king of the Aldiran Regions in Ireland. Relations were cool between Beilorgana and Falfadinn, for Falfadinn, King of Norway, claimed to be King of Ireland as well, and he raided widely in the Aldiran Regions.
There were many chieftains in many lands who greatly disliked King Falfadinn, but did not like Jabbi, King of the Danes, either. Many went to new lands, to the Faroes or to Iceland or to the Hebrides or to the Orkneys or to the Shetlands. But the army of Falfadinn was great, and he had many large warships, and he raided the lands of those who would not acknowledge his absolute authority. He had many good men killed, and others he enslaved. He was a very unpopular king. And because King Falfadinn wanted to intimidate all who stood against him, he ordered to be built the greatest ship which men had ever seen upon the seas, and that ship held such a store of men and weapons that they could pillage an entire large city. And a name was given to that ship, and it was called Daudastjarna (Death-Star).

--from Tattúínárdǿla saga: Star Wars as an Icelandic saga, and other fun with Old Norse 

You know, every time I think I'm burned out on Star Wars, something like this happens, and it's very much up my alley.

Was Hamlet Irish?

The Guardian has an article about the recently-published theories of Dr Lisa Collinson, a professor of medieval Scandinavian at Aberdeen, wherein Hamlet's name is traced to a medieval Irish story; she sums up her ideas at the Oxford University Press blog:

[I]n an article published online last week in the OUP journal Review of English Studies, I have set out my own  – no doubt even less perfect – theory, which I hope will be of as much interest to artists of various kinds as to scholarly specialists.

In this new article, I conclude that Hamlet probably came ultimately from Gaelic Admlithi: a name attached to a player (or ‘mocker’) in a strange and violent medieval Irish tale known in English as ‘The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel’. If I’m right, this means that some version of the Hamlet-name was associated with players hundreds of years before Shakespeare lived or wrote.

 And she gives an interesting argument which you really should read in full.

But I'd like to see if anyone has ever traced the story of Hamlet to the Old Irish story The Destruction of Dind Ríg.

In that tale, Loegaire Lorc is king of Ireland, and his brother Cobthach is a petty king of Bregia. Out of envy, Cobthach kills Loegaire, and then proceeds to kill his nephew Ailill. He only leaves Ailill's son, Moen Ollam, who is driven mute by the events, until he was an adult. Then, upon being struck, he regains the ability to speak, and is renamed Labraid. His uncle welcomes him to a banquet at Tara, but then has him driven out because the people say that Labraid is more generous than Cobthach. Labraid/Moen goes off into exile, and then takes on a wife and allies. They plot to return to Cobthach's lands, and proceed, using both force and a magic harp that puts people to sleep, to sack the stronghold Dind Ríg.

Cobthach and his great-nephew make peace, and Labraid/Moen rules over Leinster. But he isn't satisified, sicne he still hasn't had revenge over his great-uncle for the murder of his father and grandfather. Labraid/Moen constructs a house of iron, and invites Cobthach and his people into it for a feast--but Cobthach would only enter if Labraid/Moen's own mother was also in the house. And so they enter to feast, while outside, Labraid's men start building a fire. They point out that his mother is still in the house, but she tells him to go through with it. And so Cobthach is killed, as is Labraid's mother. But unlike Hamlet, Labraid survives.

It's not hard to see some parallels with Hamlet: the murderous brother; the muteness perhaps akin to Hamlet's madness; the exile and return in order to get revenge; the uncle inadvertently killing the mother. If Hamlet's name comes from Irish is it possible that his story--deriving from an unrelated source, though both stories deal with the destruction of a royal house--does as well? That it somehow filtered into medieval Norse literature?

Sure? Why not? But then again, how would it have happened? I don't know, but I'd be curious to find out.

A (Very Late) Happy Imbolc!

For those who don't know, Imbolc--falling roughly halfway between the winter solstice and spring equinox (or, Christmas and Easter)--is the old Irish start of spring; it's a feast of purification¹, and comes a day after the feast of Brigit, the goddess and the saint. In the Catholic calendar, it's also Candlemas/the Feast of the Purification of Mary. But you probably know it best as Groundhog Day.

Using this day for prognosticating the future weather goes way back, certainly long before some Pennsylvanian marmot chewed his way out of the ground. Plus, before him, it used to be a snake. To read a good summary of how Brigit relates to spring and predicting the weather in February, check out Alexander Carmichael's classic Carmina Gadelica:

The serpent is supposed to emerge from its hollow among the hills on St Bride's Day, and a propitiatory hymn was sung to it. Only one verse of this hymn has been obtained, apparently the first. It differs in different localities:--

'Moch maduinn Bhride, Thig an nimhir as an toll, Cha bhoin mise ris an nimhir, Cha bhoin an nimhir rium.'

Early on Bride's morn The serpent shall come from the hole, I will not molest the serpent, Nor will the serpent molest me.

Other versions say:--

La Feill na Bride, Thig nighean Imhir as a chnoc, Cha bhean mise do nighean ’S cha dean i mo lochd.' [Imhir, 'La Fheill Bride brisgeanach Thig an ceann de in chaiteanach, Thig nighean Iomhair as an tom Le fonn feadalaich.' 'Thig an nathair as an toll    La donn Bride, Ged robh tri traighean dh’ an    Air leachd an lair.' [t-sneachd

The Feast Day of the Bride, The daughter of Ivor shall come from the knoll, I will not touch the daughter of Ivor, Nor shall she harm me. On the Feast Day of Bride, The head will come off the 'caiteanach,' The daughter of Ivor will come from the knoll With tuneful whistling. The serpent will come from the hole    On the brown Day of Bride, Though there should be three feet of snow    On the flat surface of the ground.

The 'daughter of Ivor' is the serpent; and it is said that the serpent will not sting a descendant of Ivor, he having made 'tabhar agus tuis,' offering and incense, to it, thereby securing immunity from its sting for himself and his seed for ever.

In America, the day has become associated with the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. In one of those wonderful cosmic convergences, the theme of the movie actually fits the original theme of the holiday: Phil Connors, the miserable, venal weatherman played by Bill Murray, spends lifetimes living the same day over and over again, indulging in every vice you can find in a small Pennsylvania town, before slowly learning to become a better person. What's funny, of course, is that the origin of Imbolc--like the Roman Lupercalia, or the Catholic Lent--is in a time of purification. Like Phil, we're all living the same day over and over again; sometimes we waste our time, which is easy, especially in winter when we're miserable. But hey, unlike Phil, we don't have an eternity to get it right.  We invent times like Imbolc to get ourselves back on track, to remind ourselves that winter doesn't last forever, that spring is coming, and we need to get our heads together. To purify ourselves, to make ourselves better people.

Hey--the groundhog called for an early spring. Better get crackin'.

1. Eric Hamp, 'Imbolc, Oimelc', Studia Celtica, 14/15 (1979/1980)

Google Finds a New Way to be Awesome

A new project from Google is the totally cool "Art Project", which uses the tech behind Google Streetview to take you on a tour of famous museums around the world, like the Tate and the NY Met. On the list is the always wonderful Cloisters Museum of medieval art in New York. Check it out to see the famous Unicorn Tapestries, the Nine Worthies tapestries (which includes a famous image of King Arthur), and a whole host of medieval art.

Mumming--It's Not Just For Old People On Two Street Anymore

Philebrity has a post on Nerd Island, a new mummer brigade which directly tries to appeal to younger artists and activists in the Philly area.

For those who don't know, the Mummer's Parade is held on New Year's Day here in Philadelphia; it's a day-long parade of people in costumes, divided into four groups--comics, string bands, fancies (which combine elements of comics and string bands with small floats), and the fancy brigades, which have very elaborate, feather- and sequin-covered costumes.

It's something to see, usually while drunk--which is OK, since the comics are usually still drunk from the night before. All of which is keeping in the tradition of mumming, which goes back to medieval Europe. Mumming plays, wren boys, the Mari Lwyd, and the Philadelphia Mummers are all part of a larger tradition wherein the working classes (both urban and agricultural), given freedom from work for two weeks, drank and ate and partied, often to the dismay of their social "betters". It's one of the reasons the Puritans outlawed Christmas in both Britain and America in the 17th century (see the fantastic The Battle for Christmas for more on this).

What's interesting about Nerd Island is that unlike the other brigades, these aren't from the old neighborhoods--these are young people, seeing an opportunity to carry on a tradition, while getting it back to its anarchic roots. Like the best comic brigades, they're using pop culture and politics for their inspirations (for Nerd Island, it's the environment), and in keeping with the spirit of Christmas, taking donations for charity (in this case, Haiti).

This is one reason I love Philly--here we have this drunken, crazy parade, and it's entirely keeping with a medieval tradition, even if we don't realize it.

Plus ça change...

Saving the St Chad Gospels

Via Heavenfield, there's apparently work being done by the University of Kentucky and the Litchfield Cathedral to digitize the St Chad Gospels:


Video via Heavenfield

For those who are wondering, this gospel contains the Surrexit Memorandum, one of the earliest texts in the Welsh language (which you can see at my website, with a translation of one section by John Rhys.)

I'm sure this hasn't been done before...

There are 5092 novels set in the Middle Ages

Which is why my (hypothetical) mystery novel will be set during the beginning of the Roman colonization of Britain. And the detective is a druid.

Wait, what's that you say? It sounds like Cadfael or The Name of the Rose with white robes and hard-to-pronounce names? Dammit. Yeah, well... You and my husband can go back to reading Conan Doyle; I have genius to tap into.

And they didn't even need those stupid glasses.

Here's a fascinating article about how medieval monks "saw" their designs in "3d":

The Book of Kells and similarly illustrated manuscripts of seventh- and eighth-century England and Ireland are known for their entrancingly intricate artwork -- geometric designs so precise that in some places they contain lines less than half a millimeter apart and nearly perfectly reproduced in repeating patterns -- leading a later scholar to call them "works not of men, but of angels."

But behind the artwork's precision is a mystery: How did illustrators refine the details, which rival the precision of engravings on a modern dollar bill, centuries before microscope lenses were invented?

The answer, says Cornell University paleontologist John Cisne, may be in the eyes of the creators. The Celtic monks evidently trained their eyes to cross above the plane of the manuscript so they could visually superimpose side-by-side elements of a replicated pattern, and thereby create 3-D images that magnified differences between the patterns up to 30 times.

Read the whole thing, it's fascinating.