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This is the first book to examine the full range of the evidence for Irish charms, from medieval to modern times. As Ireland has one of the oldest literatures in Europe, and also one of the most comprehensively recorded folklore traditions, it affords a uniquely rich body of evidence for such an investigation. The collection includes surveys of broad aspects of the subject (charm scholarship, charms in medieval tales, modern narrative charms, nineteenth-century charm documentation); dossiers of the evidence for specific charms (a headache charm, a nightmare charm, charms against bleeding); a study comparing the curses of saints with those of poets; and an account of a newly discovered manuscript of a toothache charm. The practices of a contemporary healer are described on the basis of recent fieldwork, and the connection between charms and storytelling is foregrounded in chapters on the textual amulet known as the Leabhar Eoin, on the belief that witches steal butter, and on the nature of the belief that effects supernatural cures.

List of Illustrations and Maps
List of Tables
Abbreviations
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
1. Jacqueline Borsje – European and American Scholarship and the Study of Medieval Irish ‘Magic’ (1846–1960)
2. John Carey – Charms in Medieval Irish Tales: Tradition, Adaptation, Invention
3. Cathinka Dahl Hambro – The Religious Significance of the sén 7 soladh in Altram Tige Dá Medar
4. Ilona Tuomi – Nine Hundred Years of the Caput Christi Charm: Scribal Strategies and Textual Transmission
5. Ksenia Kudenko – In Defence of the Irish Saints who ‘Loved Malediction’
6. Barbara Hillers – Towards a Typology of European Narrative Charms in Irish Oral Tradition
7. Nicholas M. Wolf – Nineteenth-Century Charm Texts: Scope and Context
8. Joseph J. Flahive – A Toothache Charm in a Manuscript Fragment of John Lysaght
9. Bairbre Ní Fhloinn – ‘The Cure for Bleeding’: Charms and Other Cures for Blood-stopping in Irish Tradition
10. Deirdre Nuttall – ‘Cahill’s Blood’: Mr Cahill Makes the Cure
11. Denis McArdle – Aisling na Maighdine: The Virgin’s Dream in Irish Oral Tradition
12. Gearóid Ó Crualaoich – An Leabhar Eoin: The ‘In Principio’ Charm in Oral and Literary Tradition
13. Shane Lehane – The Cailleach and the Cosmic Hare
14. Stiofán Ó Cadhla – ‘We’ll talk now about charms’: Knowledge as Folklore and Folklore as Knowledge
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

Europe

History

Ireland

Histoire

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Publié par	University of Wales Press
Date de parution	15 octobre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781786834942
Langue	English

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NEW APPROACHES TO CELTIC RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY
CHARMS, CHARMERS AND CHARMING IN IRELAND
NEW APPROACHES TO CELTIC RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY
Series Editor
Jonathan Wooding, University of Sydney
Editorial Board
Jacqueline Borsje, University of Amsterdam
John Carey, University College Cork
Joseph F. Nagy, University of California, Los Angeles
Thomas O’Loughlin, University of Nottingham
Katja Ritari, University of Helsinki
NEW APPROACHES TO CELTIC RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY
CHARMS, CHARMERS AND CHARMING IN IRELAND
FROM THE MEDIEVAL TO THE MODERN
EDITED BY
ILONA TUOMI, JOHN CAREY, BARBARA HILLERS AND CIARÁN Ó GEALBHÁIN
© The Contributors, 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library CIP Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78683-492-8 eISBN: 978-1-78683-494-2
The right of the Contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Cover image: John Lysaght MS fragment, a toothache charm (main image); Add. MS 30512 (folio 72), the ‘Caput Christi’ charm (background image) © The British Library Board.
Cover design: Olwen Fowler
CONTENTS
Preface
Table, Illustration and Maps
List of Abbreviations
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
1 European and American Scholarship and the Study of Medieval Irish ‘Magic’ (1846–1960)
Jacqueline Borsje
2 Charms in Medieval Irish Tales: Tradition, Adaptation, Invention
John Carey
3 The Religious Significance of the sén 7 soladh in Altram Tige Dá Medar
Cathinka Dahl Hambro
4 Nine Hundred Years of the Caput Christi Charm: Scribal
Strategies and Textual Transmission Ilona Tuomi
5 In Defence of the Irish Saints who ‘Loved Malediction’
Ksenia Kudenko
6 Towards a Typology of European Narrative Charms in Irish Oral Tradition
Barbara Hillers
7 Nineteenth-Century Charm Texts: Scope and Context
Nicholas M. Wolf
8 A Toothache Charm in a Manuscript Fragment of John Lysaght
Joseph J. Flahive
9 ‘The Cure for Bleeding’: Charms and Other Cures for Blood-stopping in Irish Tradition
Bairbre Ní Fhloinn
10 ‘Cahill’s Blood’: Mr Cahill Makes the Cure
Deirdre Nuttall
11 Aisling na Maighdine : ‘The Virgin’s Dream’ in Irish Oral Tradition
Denis McArdle
12 An Leabhar Eoin : The In Principio Charm in Oral and Literary Tradition
Gearóid Ó Crualaoich
13 The Cailleach and the Cosmic Hare
Shane Lehane
14 ‘We’ll talk now about charms’: Knowledge as Folklore 205 and Folklore as Knowledge
Stiofán Ó Cadhla
Bibliography
PREFACE
T he study of charms is now again a burgeoning field, with research networks exploring the transnational phenomenon of charms and words of power across Europe and beyond. The richness of Celtic tradition is a byword, so many people would see Irish Studies as a natural participant in these networks. Access to the Irish sources is challenging even for specialists, however, and Celtic Studies has moreover only recently emerged from a period of fraught reflection on the nature – even the validity – of oral tradition, as well as upon the diversity, or otherwise, of early Irish religious culture. The contributions in this volume, however, demonstrate the great strength of work now being done on Irish charms, as well as the energy that Irish studies of religion have recently derived from collaborations with Europe. Many of the contributions in this volume also bear witness to the advances that have been made in cataloguing the material collected by our predecessors. Jacqueline’s Borsje’s further proposal, in her opening contribution, that we should now seek to reassess the theorising of religion by the pioneering scholars who gathered so much of our primary data is a timely one. I hope prospective contributors to this series will rise to her challenge, which chimes strongly with our manifesto.
An especially attractive aspect of the study of charms is the unarguably performative character of the genre. As performative texts, whilst often found in a literary context, charms remind us that much of what comes down to us on the page cannot be solely confined to it – which is a salutary reminder in the context of some recent approaches to Celtic Studies. In the context of the editors’ stated aim to ‘encompass the medieval and modern traditions equally’, we should also celebrate the diachronic richness of this collection. Charms, being formulaic and conservative in form, offer something for those who still wish to reach beyond the present text into the mentalities of the past. They are a data-set over which medieval philologists can meet with folklorists, to their mutual benefit. All the studies in this collection, by an international selection of scholars of Irish culture, folklore and literature, offer both a vision of the potential of this data set, as well as excellent models for the approaches required to it.
Jonathan M. Wooding, Series Editor
TABLE, ILLUSTRATION AND MAPS
7.1 Medical-theme charms found in nineteenth-century texts, arranged by function
8.1 The manuscript fragment, containing a toothache charm, in the hand of John Lysaght
11.1 Aisling na Maighdine : Distribution of both redactions throughout Ireland
11.2 Aisling na Maighdine : Distribution of both redactions in Clare, Galway and Mayo
11.3 Aisling na Maighdine : Gender of informants
11.4 ‘Google My Maps’ interface for Aisling na Maighdine
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ATDM
Altram Tige Dá Medar
DIL
E. G. Quin, Dictionary of the Irish Language
HDA
H. Bächtold-Stäubli (ed.), Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens
ITS
Irish Texts Society
KZ
‘Kuhns Zeitschrift’; i.e., Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete des Deutschen, Griechischen und Lateinischen ; Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen
NFC
National Folklore Collection
NFC S
NFC Schools’ Collection
RC
Revue celtique
RIA
Royal Irish Academy
TCD
Trinity College Dublin
UCD
University College Dublin
ZCP
Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Jacqueline Borsje is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
John Carey is Professor of Early and Medieval Irish at University College Cork.
Joseph J. Flahive is Project Assistant to the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources at the Royal Irish Academy.
Cathinka Dahl Hambro is Associate Professor of English at UiT the Arctic University of Norway.
Barbara Hillers is Associate Professor of Folklore in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology in Bloomington, Indiana. From 2013 to 2018 she taught in the Delargy Centre for Irish Folklore and the National Folklore Collection at University College Dublin.
Ksenia Kudenko holds a PhD in Irish and Celtic Studies from Ulster University.
Shane Lehane lectures in Folklore, Archaeology and History in CSN College of Further Education, Cork.
Denis McArdle is the recipient of the Máire MacNeill Scholarship in Irish Folklore, 2016, with a Higher Diploma in Irish Folklore, from University College Dublin.
Bairbre Ní Fhloinn lectures in Irish Folklore and Ethnology at University College Dublin, where she is Head of Subject.
Deirdre Nuttall is an independent researcher based in Dublin.
Stiofán Ó Cadhla is Head of Roinn an Bhéaloidis: Department of Folklore and Ethnology, University College Cork.
Gearóid Ó Crualaoich is Professor Emeritus of Folklore and Ethnology at University College Cork.
Ciarán Ó Gealbháin lectures in Béaloideas/Folklore and Ethnology at University College Cork.
Ilona Tuomi is a doctoral candidate in Early and Medieval Irish at University College Cork.
Nicholas M. Wolf is an assistant curator, New York University Library, and affiliated faculty, Glucksman Ireland House.
INTRODUCTION
T he study of Irish charms has received attention from both medievalists and folklorists since the nineteenth century. Jacqueline Borsje’s contribution to the present volume traces scholarly investigation of the medieval evidence from John O’Donovan’s edition of a lorica or protective prayer in 1846, and the first general surveys of the material by Heinrich Zimmer (1895) and Louis Gougaud (1911–12), down to the collection of charms published by James and Maura Carney in 1960. As Nicholas M. Wolf notes in another of the chapters in this book, the popular use of charms in rural Ireland was already being documented in the 1820s, and specimens collected from oral tradition made their way into printed journals, as they did into the paper manuscripts of nineteenth-century Gaelic scribes. The first substantial collections appeared towards the turn of the century, in such works as Lady Wilde’s Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland (1888) and particularly her Ancient Cures, Charms and Usages of Ireland (1890). Two important works were based on Irish-speaking areas: the second volume of Douglas Hyde’s Abhráin Diadha Chúige Connacht (1906), which contained several dozen charms, and Lady Gregory’s Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland (1920). The abundant material amassed by the Irish Folklore Commission (1935–70), now curated by t