minstrel: "book of the dun cow" (Lebor na Huidre)

[hrjones at socrates.berkeley.edu]

On Mon, 12 Oct 1998, Russell Gilman-Hunt wrote:

> Does anyone have a list of the stories 
> in the 12th centuryish Irish "Book of the
> Dun Cow?"  My sources say that "Connla and
> the Fairy Maid" is from there as well as 
> parts at least of "Destruction of Da Derga's
> Hostel," "Birth of CuCullaind" "The Wasting
> Sickness of Cu Cullaind", "Bricriu's Feast",
> the "Wooing of Etain" and some recognizable
> bits of "The Cattle Raid of Cuailnge."

The various "named" collections of medieval Irish material -- if they are
anything like their medieval Welsh counterparts -- would probably tend to
be highly ecclectic assortments of a wide variety of genres. (As a
'ferinstance', the Welsh 'Red Book of Hergest' -- one of the primary
sources for the Mabinogi -- contains: two legendary-histories including a
Welsh version of Geoffey of Monmouth, a collection of historic annals, the
'native' Welsh tales, Welsh translations of a variety of popular medieval
tales such as the story of Roland and the Seven Wise Men of Rome, a
grammar and collection of proverbs, some medical material associated with
the 'Physicians of Myddfai', a collection of triads, and a substantial
collection of poetry.) I would guess that the Book of the Dun Cow is going
to be a similarly ecclectic collection -- copies of everything that struck
the copyist as interesting, valuable, or worth preserving.

It is extremely rare to find published versions of complete collections of
this sort, due to the interests of the scholars doing the publishing.
Generally, they are interested in looking at all the various versions of
one particular tale or block of material.

> I may never see the book; one used book store
> search gave me a copy at about $80(US) and I
> can't afford that, but if I could get a list
> of the stories in that book, then I could at
> least work from secondary sources.

Are you interested in the complete contents as a sort of "what would my
persona know" type of thing? Your best bet for finding this information
would be some highly academic "the contents of Irish manuscripts of period
X" report, but that won't actually give you the contents themselves.

If I remember when I'm in the library tomorrow, I'll see if there's
something easy to lay hands on.

Tangwystyl

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