So, You Wanna Study Irish Mythology?

One of the questions I get hit with a lot is “If I’m getting into Irish Mythology, what sources do you recommend?” It’s a sad, sad truth about the field that a lot of really valuable info is kept locked away in books and journals that the lay person wouldn’t know about (and then we wonder why information about the field is so bad.) So, I decided to compile a list of sources that I’ve personally used and found helpful in my time. It’s not a complete bibliography because, frankly, that would take up a TREMENDOUS amount of space and you’d be scrolling forever to find what you wanted, and I don’t AGREE with every single thing they say, and it’s by no means exhaustive (keep in mind: scholars from all over the field use mythological texts to study things as diverse as law, geography, tribal names, material culture, etc. and here I’m mainly focusing on sources that are JUST mythological-focused) but they’re a good starting point to forming your own opinions. The journal articles are, tragically, generally kept confined to academia, but….perhaps….if you were to ask around, someone might be able to provide you with a copy. As a whole, Celticists tend to be quite generous when it comes to sharing articles.

List subject to change, check back as time goes on to see if I’ve added anything. Also, as always, feel free to either drop me an ask or a pm if you’re curious about digging further into a given text/figure. I can’t act as a consultant on a religious question; I’m a very firm atheist with all the spirituality of a dull spoon, except with the existence of ghosts. My interest in the Tuatha Dé is purely scholarly; all that I can say is what I know about these topics from the perspective of the medieval sources, but I can definitely do my best on that one front, and I won’t reject anyone who has a different interest in the Tuatha Dé from contacting me.

This list only deals with the Mythological Cycle, not the other strands of the literary tradition that is generally if not uncontroversially referred to as “Irish Mythology”. For Fenian Cycle traditions, a similar bibliography has been compiled by Dr. Natasha Sumner of Harvard, here.

Editions/Translations of Texts (many of these are available at UCC’s CELT archive or on Irish Sagas Online):

Tochmarc Étaíne, Osborn Bergin and Richard Best

Cath Maige Tuired, Elizabeth Gray (If you can and you’re serious about the field, I highly recommend getting the actual Irish Text Society Edition, which includes a wonderful index of every time a given figure shows up in other sources. An absolute must for a mythographer.)

Lebor Gabála Érenn, J.R.S Macalister, 5 vols. (The entirety of this is available on archive.org. Personally…while the rest of it is obviously important and worthy of study, if you’re interested in just the mythological stuff, I recommend Volume IV, which includes both the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha Dé. Unless you really, really want to read five volumes of medieval Irish pseudohistory, the last volume of which was finished posthumously.) i ii iii iv v

The Metrical Dinshenchas, Edward Gwynn. (5 vols.) (These are difficult, with many scholars outright ignoring them except when absolutely necessary. These are in a later form of Irish, which means that, while some of the contents in them could very well be Pre-Christian in nature, they very much do reflect a later medieval world. Some of them are just as much about contemporary politics as they are about mythology, and many of them also bring in content from the Ulster Cycle and the Fenian Cycle. My personal favorites to look up are Tailtiu, Carn Hui Néit, Duirgen, and Carmun, though there are MANY others.) i ii iii iv v

“The First Battle of Moytura”, John Fraser (Note: It’s a VERY late text, with the question of the Fir Bolg/Tuatha Dé battle and how far the tradition really goes back being one that’s very important to keep in mind. It’s a personal favorite of mine. But it’s very late.)

Baile in Scáil, Kevin Murray (Thurneyson also did an older edition that’s more readily accessible, hence why I linked it here, but Murray is the most recent and up to date.)

“How the Dagda got his magic staff”, Osborn Bergin

Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann, Richard Duffy (This is an Early Modern Irish text, so it was written down comparatively late. That doesn’t mean that there’s NO mythological content here, it’s a personal favorite of mine, but it means that it very much reflects the cultural context of around….the 15th-17th century or thereabouts. It’s very chaotic, very violent, and the heroic figures are….not….heroic.)

Scél Tuáin Meic Chairill, John Carey

Echtra Nerai, it’s available in a fairly recent translation by John Carey in Celtic Heroic Age (pub. 2003) , listed below, though Kuno Meyer also did an edition/translation for it that I’ve linked to here.

Books:

Proinsias Mac Cana, Celtic Mythology (Personally, I’d recommend this one first - It’s designed for someone who isn’t a specialist and, while a lot of what he’s saying has been disputed back and forth, it’s still a handy primer and will get you into the myths.)

John Koch and John Carey, The Celtic Heroic Age (Once you have an idea of what you’re looking at, I recommend this one, since it’s a sourcebook. A TON of material from across the Celtic world, featuring classical sources, medieval Irish sources, and Welsh, all of it in one place.)

Mark Williams, Ireland’s Immortals (I personally recommend you read this one after you read CHA, giving you a bit of context for what Williams is saying here.)

O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology (note: A lot of what he says here is no longer considered recent in the field, but his knowledge of his own sources is, frankly, without any other peer. Use with a grain of salt)

John Carey, The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature

Kim McCone, Pagan Past, Christian Present

Koch, Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia

Articles:

John Carey, “Myth and Mythography in ‘Cath Magh Tuired’”

John Carey, “Donn, Amairgen, Ith and the Prehistory of Irish Pseudohistory”

Proinsias Mac Cana, “Aspects of the theme of King and Goddess in Irish Literature”

Máire Herbert, “Goddess and king: the sacred marriage in early Ireland.”

Gregory Toner, “Macha and the invention of myth”

Elizabeth A. Gray, “Cath Maige Tuired: myth and structure“

Thomas Charles-Edwards, “Tochmarc Étaíne: a literal interpretation”

Tómas O’Cathasaigh, “Cath Maige Tuired as Exemplary Myth”

Joseph Nagy, “Close encounters of the traditional kind in medieval Irish literature”

Mark Scowcroft, “Leabhar Gabhála. Part I: the growth of the text”

Mark Scowcroft, “Leabhar Gabhála. Part II: the growth of the tradition”

Joseph Nagy, “‘Talking myth’ in medieval Irish literature.”

John Carey, “The Location of the Otherworld in Irish Tradition”

Máire Bhreathnach, “The sovereignty goddess as goddess of death?“

John Carey, “Notes on the Irish war-goddess.”

Veronica Philipps, “Exile and authority in Lebor gabála Érenn”

Kevin Murray, “Sources of Irish mythology. The significance of the dinnṡenchas”

Fanfiction Trope MASH-UP

Rules: Send me two (2) tropes from this list + a ship and I’ll describe how I’d combine them in the same story.

Historical AU

Royal AU

Modern AU

Coffee Shop AU

Bar/Restaurant AU

Bookshop AU

Florist AU

Hospital AU

Dance AU

Airport/Travel AU

Neighbour AU

Roommate AU

Detective AU

Bodyguard AU

Criminal AU

Prison AU

War AU

Circus AU

Summer Camp AU

Teacher AU

Dystopian AU

Space AU

Performer AU

Soulmate AU

Fairy Tale AU

Massage Fic

Sick/Injured Fic

Proposal Fic

Wedding Fic

Holiday Fic

Birthday Fic

Pregnancy Fic

Baby Fic

Vacation Fic

Bathtub Fic

Text/Letter Fic

Coming Out Fic

Grief Fic

Survival/Wilderness Fic

Almost Kiss

First Kiss

The Big Damn Kiss

Dance of Romance

Flowers of Romance

Chocolate of Romance

Blind Date

Not a Date

Fake Dating

Fake Married

Arranged Marriage

Accidentally Married

Marriage of Convenience

Mutual Pining

Secret Relationship

Established Relationship

Awful First Meeting

Forgotten First Meeting

Accidental Eavesdropping

Interrupted Declaration of Love

Poorly Timed Confession

Love Confession

Love Confessor (Character A confessing their love for Character B to Character C)

Everybody Knows/Mistaken for Couple

Star Crossed Lovers

It’s Not You, It’s Me

It’s Not You, It’s My Enemies

Character in Peril

Heroic Sacrifice

Flirting Under Fire

Locked in a Room

Twenty-Four Hours to Live

Stranded on A Desert Island

Stranded Due to Inclement Weather

Huddling for Warmth

Bed Sharing

Did They or Didn’t They?

In Vino Veritas

Above the Influence

Anger Born of Worry

Green-Eyed Epiphany

The Missus and the Ex

Second Love

Intimate Artistry

Married to the Job

Innocent Physical Contact

I Didn’t Mean to Turn You On

Aroused By Her Voice

Erotic Dreams

First Time

Unexpected Virgin

PWP

Kink

Makeovers

Hair Brushing/Braiding

Sleep Intimacy

Scars

Time Travel

Curses

Magical Accidents

Accidentally Saving the Day

hello google chrome refugees

don't use any of these browsers, they're also chrome

Here are my favorite firefox plugins for security/anti-tracking/anti-ad that I recommend you get

please get off chrome google is currently being investigated for being an Illegal Monopoly so get outta there okay love you bye

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library-of-alex

2 years ago

Subtle suggestive smut prompts :

1. "I've missed your touch." 2. "I think about you. Ceaselessly." 3. "You feel so good." 4. "Let me look at you." 5. "Don't stop." 6. "Say it again." 7. "Tell me again." 8. "Your wish is my command." 9. "I am yours to do as you please." 10. "You don't know what you do to me." 11. "You are all I can think about." 12. "The things I want to do to you..." 13. "I want you. All of you." 14. "Take it off." 15. "Close your eyes." 16. "Tell me what you want. In details." 17. "I could come just from looking at you." 18. "Just for me." 19. "You're not playing fair." 20. "Leave it on." 21. "Please." 22. "You'll be the end of me." 23. "I can't wait to take this off you." 24. "Slower. I want to make this last." 25. "Tighter." 26. "Show me." 27. "Just for you." 28. "You blush so beautifully." 29. "I can't get enough of you." 30. "Make me yours."

Feel free to reblog, send and use! I'm also gladly accepting these!

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library-of-alex

1 year ago

A skeleton crew doesn't mean a site is going away (though it likely won't get updates and bugs/outages will take longer to fix), but just in case anyone is concerned, here's a link to instructions to download your entire blog

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library-of-alex

2 years ago

for writers new to AO3—you know how people sometimes leave comments in their bookmarks? did you know you can search for other people’s bookmarks of your own fic, so that you can view them all at once and don’t have to manually go through each fic’s individual bookmarks page? and even better, if you don’t want to figure out the search parameters for that, you can just go to this handy lil web page;

Fandom Stats

AO3 Bookmark Viewer

For Writers New To AO3—you Know How People Sometimes Leave Comments In Their Bookmarks? Did You Know

^ just enter your username, click the second box for ‘bookmarks with notes only’, and there u go. all* bookmarks of your fics with comments in one easy to view space

*obviously private bookmarks won’t show, but it also won’t show bookmarks that only have added tags and no comment

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library-of-alex

2 years ago

So uh….some dude apparently recreated Adobe Photoshop feature-for-feature, for FREE, and it runs in your browser.

Anyway, fuck Adobe, and enjoy!

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library-of-alex

1 year ago

I want everyone in this fandom to know that the origins of Stockholm Syndrome are misogynistic, based on twisting the narrative of the actual victims of the Stockholm bank robbery, and it is not recognized by the DSM-5. Further studies of it have failed to establish it as a real condition.

Lima Syndrome is similar in that there's little understanding and information on it, and people tend to put them hand in hand or suggest that LS is taking place instead. However, the origin of the term is more accurate to the events and is not based on media romanticizing a trauma response as much as SS.

If you plan to discuss any characters of the show in the context of SS, please be aware of its origins and careful about how you apply it to the characters in question.

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library-of-alex

1 year ago

how to find literally any post on a blog in seconds (on desktop)

there are so many posts about ~tumblr is so broken, you can’t find any post on your own blog, it’s impossible, bluhrblub~

I am here to tell you otherwise! it is in fact INCREDIBLY easy to find a post on a blog if you’re on desktop/browser and you know what you’re doing:

url.tumblr.com/tagged/croissant will bring up EVERY post on the blog tagged with the specific and exact phrase #croissant. every single post, every single time. in chronological order starting with the most recent post. note: it will not find #croissants or that time you made the typo #croidnssants. for a tag with multiple words, it’s just /tagged/my-croissant and it will show you everything with the exact phrase #my croissant

url.tumblr.com/tagged/croissant/chrono will bring up EVERY post on the blog tagged with the exact phrase #croissant, but it will show them in reverse order with the oldest first

url.tumblr.com/search/croissant isn’t as perfect at finding everything, but it’s generally loads better than the search on mobile. it will find a good array of posts that have the word croissant in them somewhere. could be in the body of the post (op captioned it “look at my croissant”) or in the tags (#man I want a croissant). it won’t necessarily find EVERYTHING like /tagged/ does, but I find it’s still more reliable than search on mobile. you can sometimes even find posts by a specific user by searching their url. also, unlike whatever random assortment tumblr mobile pulls up, it will still show them in a more logically chronological order

url.tumblr.com/day/2020/11/05 will show you every post on the blog from november 5th, 2020, in case you’re taking a break from croissants to look for destiel election memes

url.tumblr.com/archive/ is search paradise. easily go to a particular month and see all posts as thumbnails! search by post type! search by tags but as thumbnails now

url.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/audio will show you every audio post on your blog (you can also filter by other post types). sometimes a little imperfect if you’re looking for a video when the op embedded the video in a text post instead of posting as a video post, etc

url.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/croissant will show you EVERY post on the blog tagged with the specific and exact phrase #croissant, but it will show you them in the archive thumbnail view divided by months. very useful if you’re looking for a specific picture of a croissant that was reblogged 6 months ago and want to be able to scan for it quickly

url.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/audio/tagged/croissant will show you every audio post tagged with the specific phrase #croissant (you can also filter by photo or text instead, because I don’t know why you have audio posts tagged croissant)

the tag system on desktop tumblr is GENUINELY amazing for searching within a specific blog!

caveat: this assumes a person HAS a desktop theme (or “custom theme”) enabled. a “custom theme” is url.tumblr.com, as opposed to tumblr.com/url. I’ve heard you have to opt-into the former now, when it used to be the default, so not everyone HAS a custom theme where you can use all those neat url tricks.

if the person doesn’t have a “custom theme” enabled, you’re beholden to the search bar. still, I’ve found the search bar on tumblr.com/url is WAY more reliable than search on mobile. for starters, it tends to bring posts up in a sensible order, instead of dredging up random posts from 2013 before anything else

if you’re on mobile, I’m sorry. godspeed and good luck finding anything. (my one tip is that if you’re able to click ON a tag rather than go through the search bar, you’ll have better luck. if your mutual has recently reblogged a post tagged #croissant, you can click #croissant and it’ll bring up everything tagged #croissant just like /tagged/croissant. but if there’s no readily available tag to click on, you have to rely on the mobile search bar and its weird bizarre whims)

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