''Baile Chuind Chétchathaig'' (, "The Vision of
Conn of the Hundred Battles") is an
Old Irish
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writt ...
list of
Kings of Tara or
High Kings of Ireland
High King of Ireland ( ga, Ardrí na hÉireann ) was a royal title in Gaelic Ireland held by those who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over all of Ireland. The title was held by historical kings and later sometimes assigned ana ...
which survives in two 16th-century manuscripts,
23 N 10 and
Egerton 88. It is the earliest such king-list known, probably dating from around 700 AD. The later ''
Baile In Scáil
Conn Cétchathach (; "of the Hundred Battles"), son of Fedlimid Rechtmar, was a semi-legendary High King of Ireland and the ancestor of the Connachta, and, through his descendant Niall Noígiallach, the Uí Néill dynasties, which dominated Irel ...
'' is closely related.
Date
''Baile Chuind Chétchathaig'' was first edited by
Rudolf Thurneysen
Eduard Rudolf Thurneysen (March 14, 1857 – 9 August 1940) was a Swiss linguist and Celticist.
Biography
Born in Basel, Thurneysen studied classical philology in Basel, Leipzig, Berlin and Paris. His teachers included Ernst Windisch and H ...
who dated it to about 700 AD and believed it to have been included in the lost ''
Cín Dromma Snechtai
or ("book of Druimm Snechta"; la, label= Modern Irish, Leabhar Dhroim Sneachta, ) is a now lost early Irish manuscript., thought to have been written in the 8th century AD.
Name
Old Irish ''cín'', derived from the Latin ''quinio'' "five", was ...
'' manuscript. Thurneysen later revised this opinion on the basis of the content of the poem, supposing that the poem's "Glúnshalach" represented 10th-century king
Niall Glúndub
Niall Glúndub mac Áeda (Modern Irish: ''Niall Glúndubh mac Aodha'', "Niall Black-Knee, son of Áed"; died 14 September 919) was a 10th-century Irish king of the Cenél nEógain and High King of Ireland. Many Irish kin groups were members of th ...
. Later editors and writers have generally preferred Thurneysen's first estimate, taking the work to have been begun in the lifetime of
Fínsnechta Fledach
Fínsnechta Fledach mac Dúnchada (died 695) was High King of Ireland. Fínsnechta belonged to the southern Síl nÁedo Sláine sept of the Uí Néill and was King of Brega, in modern County Meath, Ireland. He was a grandson of Áed Sláine. His ...
(died 695).
In recent studies
Edel Bhreathnach
Edel Bhreathnach is an Irish historian and academic and former CEO of the Discovery Programme.
Bhreathnach was a Tara Research Fellow for the Discovery Programme from 1992 to 2000. In 2005 she was appointed Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Mícheál ...
has suggested that the current form of the poem may be somewhat later: while the kings who follow Fínsnechta were previously interpreted as imagined future kings, he suggests that these are in fact historical figures from the first quarter of the eighth century disguised by
kenning
A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech in the type of circumlocution, a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English ...
s. If this is correct, the poem as a whole dates from around 720 or was revised at about that time.
[Bhreathnach, "Political Context", p. 50; Murray, "Manuscript Tradition", p. 70; Mac Shamhráin & Byrne, "Prosopography", pp. 159 & 204–212.]
Content and context
Analogues
Notes
References
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* Gerard Murphy
"On the Dates of Two Sources Used in Thurneysen's Heldensage: I. ''Baile Chuind'' and the date of ''Cín Dromma Snechtai''" in ''Ériu 16'' (1952): 145-51. includes edition and translation.
*
External links
a summary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baile Chuind Chetchathaig
Irish texts
Early Irish literature
Early medieval literature
King lists