dindsenchas

{{short description|Class of onomastic text in early Irish literature}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Dindsenchas or Dindshenchas (modern spellings: Dinnseanchas or Dinnsheanchas or Dınnṡeanċas), meaning "lore of places"dind "notable place"; senchas "old tales, ancient history, tradition" - Dictionary of the Irish Language, Compact Edition, 1990, pp. 215, 537 (the modern Irish word dinnseanchas means "topography"),Collins Pocket Irish Dictionary p. 452 is a class of onomastic text in early Irish literature, recounting the origins of place-names and traditions concerning events and characters associated with the places in question. Since many of the legends being related also concern the acts of mythic and legendary figures, the dindsenchas has been an important source for the study of Irish mythology.

Works

The literary corpus of the dindsenchas comprises about 176 poems plus a number of prose commentaries and independent prose tales (the so-called "prose dindsenchas" is often distinguished from the "verse", "poetic" or "metrical dindsenchas"). As a compilation the dindsenchas has survived in two different recensions. The first recension is found in the Book of Leinster, a manuscript of the 12th century, with partial survivals in a number of other manuscript sources. The text shows signs of having been compiled from a number of provincial sources and the earliest poems date from at least the 11th century. The second recension survives more or less intact in thirteen different manuscripts, mostly dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. This recension contains a number of poems composed after the Book of Leinster text. Dindsenchas stories are also incorporated into saga texts such as Táin Bó Cúailnge and Acallam na Senórach.

Although they are known today from these written sources, the dindsenchas are clearly a product of oral literature and are structured so as to be a mnemonic aid as well as a form of entertainment. They are far from an accurate history of how places came to be named. Many of the explanations given are made to fit the name and not the other way around, especially in the many cases where a place was much older than the Middle Irish spoken at the time of the poems' composition.{{Cite web |url=http://www.maryjones.us/jce/dindsenchas.html |title=Jones Celtic Encyclopedia: Dindsenchas |access-date=2006-12-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180410013201/http://www.maryjones.us/jce/dindsenchas.html |archive-date=2018-04-10 |url-status=dead }} In other cases, the dindsenchas poets may have invented names for places when the name of a place, if it had one, was not known to them. A detailed analysis points to a pre-Christian origin for most of the tales. For example, many placenames appear which had fallen out of use by the 5th century A.D., when Irish written records began to appear in quantity. Furthermore County Clare is given as part of Connaught suggesting a date before ~610 AD and the Battle of Knocklong. {{Citation needed|reason=Many modern scholars would disagree|date=November 2018}} Christian references, and the Graeco-Roman myths and tales of Pagan atrocity associated with that influence are also mostly absent.{{citation| title = Notes and Folklore from the Rennes Copy of the "Dindsenchas"| first = T. J. | last = Westropp| journal = The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland| series = Fifth Series| volume = 9 | pages = 21–27 | number =1 | date = 31 Mar 1899 | jstor = 25508581 }}

Knowledge of the real or putative history of local places formed an important part of the education of the elite in ancient Ireland.{{cite book

| last =Hughes

| first =Kathleen

| author-link=Kathleen Hughes (historian)

| title =Early Christian Ireland: An introduction to the sources

| publisher =Cornell University Press

| year =1972

| location =Ithaca

| pages =[https://archive.org/details/earlychristianir00hugh/page/166 166–167]

| isbn =9780801407215

| url = https://archive.org/details/earlychristianir00hugh

| url-access =registration

}} This formed part of the training of the military, for whom a knowledge of the landscape was essential. It was also essential knowledge for the bardic caste, who were expected to recite poems answering questions on place name origins as part of their professional duties. An early example of this are the tales about Mongán mac Fíachnai which date from at least as early as 750, where the poet Forgoll is asked to recite the lore of different places.{{citation |last=White |first=Nora |title=Compert Mongáin and three other early Mongán tales |date=2006 |location=Maynooth |series=Maynooth Medieval Irish Texts |volume=5 |publisher=Department of Old and Middle Irish, National University of Ireland |issn=1393-970X}} Consequently, the dindshenchas may well have grown by accretion from local texts compiled in schools as a way of teaching about places in their area.

Edward Gwynn compiled and translated dindsenchas poems from the Lebor na hUidre, the Book of Leinster, the Rennes Manuscript, the Book of Ballymote, the Great Book of Lecan and the Yellow Book of Lecan in The Metrical Dindshenchas, published in four parts between 1903 and 1924, with a general introduction and indices published as a fifth part in 1935.

Texts and translations

  • {{citation| work = Royal Irish Academy Todd Lecture Series | publisher = Hodges, Figgis, & Co., Dublin ; Williams and Norgate, London| title = The Metrical Dindshenchas| editor-first = Edward| editor-last = Gwynn| editor-link= Edward Gwynn}}
  • {{citation| title =The Metrical Dindshenchas Part 1 | volume = VIII | url = https://archive.org/details/toddlectureseri02acadgoog | year =1903 | publisher = The Academy. }} , e-text at CELT : [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G106500A/index.html text] and [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T106500A/index.html translation]
  • {{citation| title =The Metrical Dindshenchas Part 2 | volume = IX | url = https://archive.org/details/metricaldindsenc02royauoft | year =1906 | publisher = Dublin : Academy House }} , e-text at CELT : [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G106500B/index.html text] and [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T106500B/index.html translation]
  • {{citation| title =The Metrical Dindshenchas Part 3 | volume = X | url = https://archive.org/details/toddlectureserie10royauoft | year =1913 | publisher = Dublin }} , e-text at CELT : [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G106500C/index.html text] and [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T106500C/index.html translation]
  • {{citation| title =The Metrical Dindshenchas Part 4 | volume = XI | url = https://archive.org/details/metricaldindsenc04royauoft| year =1924 | publisher = Dublin : Academy House }} , e-text at CELT : [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G106500D/index.html text] and [http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T106500D/index.html translation]
  • {{citation|title =The Metrical Dindshenchas Part 5 | volume = XII | url = https://archive.org/details/p5toddlectureser12royauoft | year =1935 | publisher = Dublin }}
  • {{citation| volume = VII | title = Poems from the Dindshenchas | year = 1900 | url =https://archive.org/details/toddlectureserie09royauoft | publisher = Dublin }} , by the same author in the same series
  • {{citation| editor-first = Whitley| editor-last = Stokes | editor-link = Whitley Stokes (scholar) | title = The Prose Tales from the Rennes Dindshenchas | journal = Revue Celtique | language = Irish, en}} {{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/revueceltique16pari/page/n7/mode/2up|title=Revue celtique|year=1870|publisher=Paris}}
  • {{citation| year = 1894 | pages = 272–336 | title = [Tales 1-32] | volume = 15 }} , e-text via CELT : [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/text/ws.rc.15.001.text.html text] and [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/trans/ws.rc.15.001.t.text.html translation]
  • {{citation| year = 1894 | pages = 418–484 | title = [Tales 33-80] | volume = 15 }} , e-text via CELT : [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/text/ws.rc.15.002.text.html text] and [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/trans/ws.rc.15.002.t.text.html translation]
  • {{citation| year =1895 | pages = 31–83 | title = [Tales 81-130] | volume = 16}} , e-text via CELT : [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/text/ws.rc.16.001.text.html text] and [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/trans/ws.rc.16.001.t.text.html translation]
  • {{citation| year = 1895 | pages = 135–167 | title = [Tales 131-153] First Supplement, Extracts from the Book of Lecan | volume = 16 }} , e-text via CELT : [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/text/ws.rc.16.002.text.html text] and [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/trans/ws.rc.16.002.t.text.html translation] {{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/revueceltique16pari/page/134/mode/2up|title = Revue celtique|year = 1870|publisher = Paris}}
  • {{citation| year = 1895 | pages = 269–312 | title = [Tales 154-161] Second Supplement, Extracts from the Book of Leinster | volume = 16 }} , including index, notes, and corrections.{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/revueceltique16pari/page/268/mode/2up|title = Revue celtique|year = 1870|publisher = Paris}}
  • {{citation| journal = Folk-Lore| volume = III| year = 1892 | number = 4 | pages = 467–516 |editor-first = Whitley| editor-last = Stokes | editor-link = Whitley Stokes (scholar) | url =https://archive.org/details/folklore03folkuoft | title = The Bodleian Dinnshenchas }} , e-text : [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/text/ws.fl.3.001.text.html text] and [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/trans/ws.fl.3.001.t.text.html translation] {{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/folklore03folkuoft#page/516/mode/2up|title = Folklore| year=1890 }}
  • {{citation| journal = Folk-Lore| volume = IV| year = 1893 | number = 4 | pages = 471–497| editor-first = Whitley| editor-last = Stokes | editor-link = Whitley Stokes (scholar) | url = https://archive.org/details/folklore04folkuoft | title = The Edinburgh Dinnshenchas}} , e-text : [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/text/ws.fl.4.001.text.html text] and [http://www.ucd.ie/tlh/trans/ws.fl.4.001.t.text.html translation] {{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/folklore04folkuoft#page/496/mode/2up|title = Folklore| year=1890 }}

Other uses

There was also an Irish- and English-language journal Dinnseanchas, published by An Cumann Logainmeacha between 1964 and 1975 to a sixth volume, which focused on placename research and scholarship.{{Cite web | url=http://www.logainm.ie/en/res/ | title=Toponymy resources}}

References