The literary, historical, and linguistic confluence that characterized the Irish Sea region in the pre-modern period is reflected in the interdisciplinarity of these new research essays, centered on the literatures, languages, and histories of the Irish-Sea communities of the Middle Ages, much of which is still evoked in contemporary culture. The contributors to this collection dive deep into the rich historical record, heroic literature, and story lore of the medieval communities ringing the Irish Sea, with case studies that encompass Manx, Irish, Scandinavian, Welsh, and English traditions. Manannán, the famous travelling Celtic divinity who supposedly claimed the Isle of Man as his home, mingles here with his mythical, legendary, and historical neighbors, whose impact on our image and understanding of the pre-modern cultures of the Northern Atlantic has persisted down through the centuries.
Author(s): Charles MacQuarrie, Joseph Nagy
Series: The Early Medieval North Atlantic
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 212
City: Amsterdam
Cover
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Manannán and His Neighbors
Charles W. MacQuarrie
1. Hiberno-Manx Coins in the Irish Sea
Helen Davies
2. Hunferth and Incitement in Beowulf
M. Wendy Hennequin
3. Cú Chulainn Unbound
Ron J. Popenhagen
4. Ragnhild Eiríksdóttir
Cross-cultural Sovereignty Motifs and Anti-feminist Rhetoric in Chapter 9 of Orkneyinga saga
Brian Cook
5. Statius’ Dynamic Absence in the Narrative Frame of the Middle Irish Togail na Tebe
Stephen Kershner
6. The Stanley Family and the Gawain Texts of the Percy Folio
Rhonda Knight
7. Ancient Myths for the Modern Nation
Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf
Maria McGarrity
8. Kohlberg Explains Cú Chulainn
Developing Moral Judgment from Bully to Boy Wonder to Brave Warrior
Ethel B. Bowden
9. Language Death and Language Revival
Contrasting Manx and Texas German
Marc Pierce
Index
List of Illustrations
Map of the Irish Sea and Northern Sea Area c. 1000–1200 CE
Figure 1 Glenfaba hoard
Figure 2 Hiberno-Manx coin, reverse
Figure 3 Hiberno-Manx coin, obverse
Figure 4 Stanley family tree
