Table Of ContentA CELTIC MISCELLANY
ADVISORY EDITOR: BETTY RADICE
PROFESSOR KENNETH JACKSON was born in 1909 and educated at
Whitgift School and St John’s College, Cambridge, where he read classics and
archaeology and anthropology. He was a Fellow of St John’s College and a
lecturer at Cambridge University from 1934 to 1939. He was Professor of Celtic
Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, and from 1950 until 1979 was
Professor of Celtic Languages, Literatures, History and Antiquities at Edinburgh
University. His most notable books include Language and History in Early
Britain, The International Popular Tale and Early Welsh Tradition, The Oldest
Irish Tradition, A Historical Phonology of Breton, The Gododdin and The
Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy
in 1957 and appointed CBE in 1985.
Kenneth Jackson died in 1991; in his obituary The Times declared him ‘a master
of all four of the major Celtic languages… and a world authority on most, if not
all, of the subjects his Edinburgh chair called upon him to profess’.
A CELTIC MISCELLANY
Translations from the Celtic Literatures
KENNETH HURLSTONE JACKSON
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V
3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New
Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Private Bag 102902, NSMC, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 5 Watkins Street, Denver Ext 4,
Johannesburg 2094, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Routledge & Kegan Paul 1951
Revised edition published in Penguin Books 1971
25
Copyright 1951 by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson
Copyright © Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson, 1971
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding
or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-193523-2
TO
JANET, STEPHANIE
AND ALASTAR
CONTENTS
Preface
Maps:
(i) Ireland
(ii) Wales
HERO-TALE AND ADVENTURE
Note
1. How Cú Chulainn Got His Name
2. Cú Chulainn and the Charioteer
3. The Killing of Edarcomhol
4. Cú Chulainn’s Meeting with Findabhair
5. Ceithern’s Blood-transfusion and Death
6. Cú Chulainn in the Valley of the Deaf
7. The Story of Deirdre
8. The Death of Conchobhar
9. How Celtchar Killed the ‘Brown Mouse’
10. How Cobhthach Contrived his Brother’s Death
11. The Recognition of Ulysses
NATURE
Note
12. May-time
13. The Coming of Winter
14. Winter Cold
15. Winter
16. The Four Seasons
17. A Storm at Sea
18. The Hermit’s Hut
19. Arran
20. The Hill of Howth
21. Deirdre Remembers a Scottish Glen
22. The Ivied Tree-Top
23. Suibhne the Wild Man in the Forest
24. Suibhne Praises the Garbh
25. To May and January
26. The Birch-wood Bower
27. The Snow
28. The Mist
29. The Stars
30. The Burial of the Poet, Dead for Love
31. The Poet’s Arbour in the Birch-wood
32. To a Birch-tree Cut Down, and Set Up in Llanidloes for a Maypole
33. The Mansion of the Woods
34. To the Sun
35. To the New Moon
36. To the Moon
37. The Mountain Stream
38. Winter and Summer
LOVE
Note
39. The Dream of Oenghus
40. How Trystan Won Esyllt
41. Secret Love
42. The Jealous Husband
43. The Seagull
44. In Defence of Women
45. To Her Hair
46. Reconciliation
47. The Lover’s Doubts
48. Do Not Torment Me, Woman
49. The Hidden Love
50. Take Those Lips Away
51. Trust No Man
52. Happy for You, Blind Man!
53. Hate Goes Just as Far as Love
54. The Blackthorn Pin
55. The Indifferent Mistress
56. Parted Lovers
57. The Message of the Eyes
58. She’s the White Flower of the Blackberry
59. How Glad Are the Small Birds
60. Young Lad of the Braided Hair
61. At the Fiddlers’
62. He Whose Hand and Eye are Gentle
63. The Black-haired Lad
64. The Laundress’s Sweetheart
65. Mary, My Darling
66. Kate of Garnavilla
67. The Ballad of Marivonnik
68. Fhir a’ Bhàta
69. The Slender Lad
EPIGRAM
Note
70. The Wayside Fountain
71. The Blackbird’s Song
72. The Hermit Blackbird
73. The Spring
74. Heather Flowers
75. Mountain Lakes
76. Sliabh gCua
77. Merioneth
78. The Pole Star
79. Night
80. Night and Morning
81. The Wind
82. The Storm
83. Thick Snow
84. The Snowfall
85. Flood-tide
86. Autumn
87. Winter Has Come
88. Women’s Tongues
89. Women’s Hats
90. The Proud Lady
91. The Twig and the Root
92. Love Gives Wings
93. Her Light Step
94. Like the Birch-tree
95. Lovelier than the Sun
96. Red and White Roses
97. Promiscuity
98. Dream and Reality
99. The End of the Day
100. The Boorish Patron
101. Finn’s Generosity
102. Weariness of Body and Weariness of Spirit
103. How Happy Are the Wild Birds
104. Quando Ver Venit Meum?
105. Sorrow
106. Woe Is Me that I Ever Was Born
107. Old Age Comes not Alone
108. Old Age and Death
109. Life’s Uncertainty
110. Thoughts of Death
111. Stealthy Death
112. Not Divided in Death
113. On the Tomb
114. The Lover’s Grave
115. For a Grave at Trawsfynydd
116. Epitaph on a Little Girl
117. Everyman’s Epitaph
118. On Two Shipwrecked Sailors
119. The Praises of God
120. Christ before Pilate
121. A Vain Pilgrimage
122. The Monk’s Mistress
123. On Mael Mhuru the Poet
124. Dinas Bran
125. Imperial Caesar Dead and Turned to Clay
126. The Court of Ifor Hael
‘CELTIC MAGIC’
Note
127. The Adventure of Conle
128. The Story of Lludd and Llefelys
129. Ruadh in the Land Under the Wave
130. The Creation of Blodeuwedd
131. The Magic Gaming-board
132. From The Voyage of Mael Dúin
133. The Magic Pigs of Cruachu
134. The Black and White Sheep and the Blazing Tree
135. From The Voyage of the Uí Chorra
136. The Three Werewolves from the Cave of Cruacha
137. How the Fenians Found the Fairy Hill
138. The Air Ship
139. The Burial of the Priest’s Concubine
140. Drowned Giantesses
DESCRIPTION
Note
141. Froech in the Dark Pool
142. Froech and the Fairy Women
143. Midhir’s Invitation to the Earthly Paradise
144. The Islands of the Earthly Paradise
145. The Arrival at the Earthly Paradise
146. Morning Sun
147. Sunshine through the Window
148. The Mowers
149. The White Lake of Carra
150. Iubhdhán’s Fairy House
151. Uncomfortable Lodgings
152. The Cliff of Alternan
153. Édaín the Fairy
154. Olwen
155. Gruffudd ap Cynan’s Wife
156. The Reign of Gruffudd ap Cynan
157. From The Misty Corrie
158. From The Song of Summer
159. You Are Whiter than the Swan
160. At the Battle of Magh Mucraimhe
161. The Battle of Ventry
162. The Monster of Scattery Island
163. St Brendan’s Vision of Hell
164. The Homeward Voyage
165. The Troublesome Gillie
HUMOUR AND SATIRE
Note
