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I roinnt téacsanna Rúraíochta, castar orainn mná osnádúrtha a bhfuil an cumas acu éin (ealaí go háirithe) a dhéanamh díobh féin: Derbforgaill in Aided Derbforgaill, Fand in Serglige Con Culainn, Caer in Aislinge Óengusa, srl. Go hiondúil, bíonn laoch an scéil sa tóir ar an mbean seo. Cuireann a leithéid seo de mhná i gcuimhne dúinn móitíf na heala-mhná (nó swan maiden) agus an finscéal idirnáisiúnta ATU 400 ’Man on a Quest for his Lost Wife’.  Insítí an scéal seo ar fud na hEoraipe, agus bailíodh scórtha de leaganacha in Éirinn sa 19ú agus 20ú aois.

Séard atá i gceist agam sa gcaint seo ná an bhaint a d’fhéadfadh a bheith ag na scéalta meán-aoiseacha seo leis an bhfinscéal a phlé. Arbh ea go raibh an finscéal ar eolas ag údair na dtéacsanna seo? Cén chaoi a d’athraigh siad an traidisiúin béil nuair a chuaigh siad i mbun scríbhneoireachta? Agus cén chaoi is féidir úsáid a bhaint as na scéalta seo mar fhoinse eolais do stair agus scaipeadh an traidisiúin béil seo?

Ingnad echtra is a poem consisting of eighteen stanzas in ollbairdne aiclech íarcormarcach which recount the adventure of Aodh, the chief poet of Fergus mac Leite, in the land of the Túath Luchra, a race of diminutive supernatural beings who can be identified with the leprechauns of later folklore. 

This poem is preserved within two manuscript witnesses. In British Library Egerton MS 1782, it appears as part of the Early Modern Irish prosimetrum Imtechta Tuaithi Luchra ocus agedh Fergusa, which recounts Fergus mac Leite’s dealings with the Túath Luchra and his violent death while fighting a lake monster in Dundrum Bay. It is also preserved as an independent poem in the Book of the Dean of Lismore, where it is presented in that manuscript’s distinctive Scots-based orthography.

In addition to the divergent orthographies, the two witnesses present noteworthy textual differences: entire quatrains unique to each manuscript and several metrical irregularities in the Dean of Lismore text. In this presentation, I argue that these textual differences can best be explained by positing a period of oral transmission between the poem’s original composition and being copied or transcribed in the Book of the Dean of Lismore. 

This poem was composed to Richard de Burgh, second Earl of Clanrickarde, most likely on the occasion of his inauguration in 1550. The apologue of the poem, which recounts the adventures of Hercules in the Island of the Purple Sheep, is drawn from Stair Ercuil ocus a bás, a late fifteenth-century adaptation by Uilleam Mac an Leagha of either Raoul Lefèvre's Le recoeil des histoires de Troyes or William Caxton's English translation, The recuyell of the historyes of Troye. The apologue was previously edited from RIA MS 3 C 13, along with a glossary but no translation, by Eleanor Knott in Irish syllabic poetry, and a 'lightly edited' transcription was published in A bardic miscellany. A complete edition of the poem, based on the Book of the O'Connor Donn's text, is presented here for the first time, along with an introduction, notes on sources and analogues with other bardic poems, and an English translation.