''Togail Bruidne Dá Derga'' (''The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel'') is an Irish tale belonging to the

Ulster Cycle The Ulster Cycle ( ga, an Rúraíocht), formerly known as the Red Branch Cycle, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the Ulaid. It is set far in the past, in what is now eastern Ulster and northern Leinster, particularly coun ...

Irish mythology Irish mythology is the body of myths native to the island of Ireland. It was originally oral tradition, passed down orally in the Prehistoric Ireland, prehistoric era, being part of ancient Celtic religion. Many myths were later Early Irish ...

. It survives in three

Old Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England * Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, M ...

and

Middle Irish Middle Irish, sometimes called Middle Gaelic ( ga, An Mheán-Ghaeilge, gd, Meadhan-Ghàidhlig), is the Goidelic language which was spoken in Ireland, most of Scotland and the Isle of Man from AD; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old Engl ...

recensions, it is part of the Book of Dun Cow. It recounts the birth, life, and death of

Conaire Mór Conaire Mór (the great), son of Eterscél, was, according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition, a High King of Ireland. His mother was Mess Búachalla, who was either the daughter of Eochu Feidlech and Étaín, or of Eochu Airem and ...

son of

Eterscél Mór Eterscél Mór ("the great"), son of Íar mac Dedad, a descendant of Óengus Tuirmech Temrach, of the Érainn of Munster was, according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition, a High King of Ireland. He succeeded Eochu Airem. He featu ...

, a legendary

High King 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 an ...

, who is killed at Da Derga's hostel by his enemies when he breaks his '' geasa''. It is considered one of the finest Irish

saga is a series of science fantasy role-playing video games by Square Enix. The series originated on the Game Boy in 1989 as the creation of Akitoshi Kawazu at Square. It has since continued across multiple platforms, from the Super NES to th ...

s of the early period, comparable to the better-known ''

Táin Bó Cúailnge (Modern ; "the driving-off of the cows of Cooley"), commonly known as ''The Táin'' or less commonly as ''The Cattle Raid of Cooley'', is an epic from Irish mythology. It is often called "The Irish Iliad", although like most other early Iri ...

''. The theme of gathering doom, as the king is forced through circumstances to break one after another of his taboos, is non-Christian in essence, and no Christian interpretations are laid upon the marvels that it relates. In its repetitions and verbal formulas the poem retains the qualities of oral transmission. The tone of the work has been compared with

Greek tragedy Greek tragedy is a form of theatre from Ancient Greece and Greek inhabited Anatolia. It reached its most significant form in Athens in the 5th century BC, the works of which are sometimes called Attic tragedy. Greek tragedy is widely believed t ...

.Byrne, pp. 59–64.

Summary

After

has already broken several of his taboos, he travels south along the coast of Ireland. He is advised to stay the night at Da Derga's Hostel, but as he approaches it, he sees three men dressed in red riding red horses arriving before him. He realises that three red men have preceded him into the house of a red man (as Dá Derga means "Red God"), and another of his ''geasa'' has been broken. His three foster-brothers, the three sons of Dond Désa, whom Conaire had exiled to Alba (

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

) for their crimes, had made alliance with the king of the Britons, Ingcél Cáech, and they were marauding across Ireland with a large band of followers. They attack Da Derga's Hostel. Three times they attempt to burn it down, and three times the fire is put out. Conaire, protected by his champion Mac Cécht and the Ulster hero Conall Cernach, kills six hundred before he reaches his weapons, and a further six hundred with his weapons. He asks for a drink as he is cursed with a magical thirst, but all the water has been used to put out the fires. Mac Cécht travels across Ireland with Conaire's cup, but none of the rivers will give him water. He returns with a cup of water just in time to see two men cutting Conaire's head off. He kills both of them. Conaire's severed head drinks the water and recites a poem praising Mac Cécht. The battle rages for three more days. Mac Cécht is killed, but Conall Cernach escapes.

Manuscript tradition

The tale exists in three recensions:

Recension I

Recension I is the earliest version of the saga, which briefly summarises the main events of the narrative. It is alternatively known as ''Orgain Bruidne Uí Dergae'' (''The Massacre of Ua Derga's Hostel''), the title given in Lebor na hUidre, to keep it distinct from the later recensions. *

23 N 10 Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 N 10, formerly Betham 145, is a Gaelic– Irish medieval manuscript. Overview MS 23 N 10 is a late sixteenth-century Irish manuscript currently housed in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. It w ...

(

RIA A ria (; gl, ría) is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea. Definitions Typically rias have a dendritic, treelike outline although they ca ...

): p 72. * Egerton 88: f 13rb ( BL) * G 7: col. 5 ( NLI) * H 3.18: XVIII, p 556a-556b col. 2 ( TCD) * 23 E 25 or Lebor na hUidre (LU): p 99a (f 98b-99a). Later version.

Recension II

Recension II, a composite text, is the most famous version of the tale. On the basis of a number of contradictions, inconsistencies and duplicates in the tale, scholars such as Heinrich Zimmer, Max Nettlau and Rudolf Thurneysen suggested, each in his own way, that the recension represents a conflation of two, possibly three, variant sources. However, Máire West has pointed out the weaknesses inherent to their approach and instead favours the more flexible view that the author drew from a greater variety of written and oral sources. * H 2.16 or Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL): III, col. 716–739 (facs.: p 91a¹-104a¹⁷). Complete. * H 2.16 or Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL): p 432-3. Fragment. * RIA MS D IV 2: f 79ra 1 – 92ra 40. Complete. * 23 E 25 or Lebor na hUidre (LU): p 83ra-99ra (+H). Beginning missing * Additional 33993: I, f 4r-5v – or f 2b-5b (?) -( BL). Beginning only. *

Egerton 1782 Egerton MS 1782 is the index title of an early sixteenth-century Irish vellum manuscript housed in the Egerton Collection of the British Library, London. Overview The compilation dates from ''c''. 1517 and is the work of several scribes of the ...

: f 108vb-123vb. Composite text. * Egerton 92: f 18ra-23v. Fragment = Fermoy. * 23 E 29 or Book of Fermoy: II, p 213a-216b. Fragment. * H 2.17: p 477a-482b ( TCD). Three fragments. * H 3.18: XVII, p 528-533. Glossed extracts.

Recension III

The youngest and longest version is represented by Recension III, to which further materials have been added, including a king-list, a version of '' Tochmarc Étaine'' and further dindsenchas lore. * Egerton 1782, f 106r-123vb (ends in hiatus) ( BL) * H.1.14, f 24-52b ( TCD). Copy of previous text. The translation by J. Gantz, in ''Early Irish Myths and Sagas'' (1986) has an introduction that discusses its probable relationship to a king's ritual death, more fully explored by John Grigsby, ''

Beowulf and Grendel ''Beowulf & Grendel'' is a 2005 Canadian- Icelandic fantasy adventure film directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, loosely based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem ''Beowulf''. It stars Gerard Butler as Beowulf, Stellan Skarsgård as Hrothgar, Ingvar Egger ...

'' 2005:150-52.

Related tales

A related tale is ''De Sil Chonairi Móir''.

Influence

It has been argued that

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

's '' The House of Fame'' borrows features from the ''Togail Bruidne Da Derga''. McTurk, pp. 67–68. A version of the saga appears in the second half of ''Sons of the Swordmaker,'' a 1938 novel by Irish author

Maurice Walsh Maurice Walsh (2 May 1879 – 18 February 1964) was an Irish novelist, now best known for his short story "The Quiet Man", later made into the Oscar-winning film ''The Quiet Man'', directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Har ...

Notes

Primary sources

Recension I

* Nettlau, Max (ed.). "On the Irish text ''Togail Bruidne dá Derga'' and connected stories art 4" ''Revue Celtique'' 14 (1893): 151–2 3.18 * Stokes, Whitley (ed.). "The Destruction of Dá Derga's Hostel." ''Revue Celtique'' 22 (1901): 401–3 U See below for further details on Stokes' edition. * Best, R.I. and O. Bergin (eds.). ''Lebor na hUidre. Book of the Dun Cow''. Dublin, 1929.

Diplomatic edition Diplomatics (in American English, and in most anglophone countries), or diplomatic (in British English), is a scholarly discipline centred on the critical analysis of documents: especially, historical documents. It focuses on the conventions, p ...

of LU. * Mac Mathúna, S. (ed. and tr.). ''Immram Brain, Bran's Journey to the Land of the Women''. Tübingen, 1985. 449-50. Based on H.3.18, 23 N 10 and Egerton 88, with variants from LU. * Hull, Vernam (ed.). "Togail Bruidne Da Derga. The Cín Dromma Snechta Recension." ''

Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie The ''Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie'' is an academic journal of Celtic studies, which was established in 1897 by the German scholars Kuno Meyer and Ludwig Christian Stern.Busse, Peter E. "''Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie''." In ''Ce ...

'' 24 (1954): 131–2. Based on G 7. * Thurneysen, Rudolf (ed.). ''Zu irischen Handschriften und Literaturdenkmälern''. Berlin, 1912, pp. 27–8. Based on 23 N 10 and Eg 88 (at the time, Thurneysen was unaware of the existence of the text in G 7). On date of the text, see p. 30 and Thurneysen, ''Heldensage'' 15-8.

Recension II

* Knott, Eleanor (ed.). ''Togail Bruidne Da Derga''. Dublin, 1936. YBL and variants from D IV 2
Edition available from CELT
* Stokes, Whitley (ed. and tr.). "The Destruction of Dá Derga's Hostel." ''Revue Celtique'' 22 (1901): 9–61, 165–215, 282–329, 390–437; 23 (1902): 88. LU, supplemented by YBL and variants. Translation available in HTML fro
CELT
an

* Stokes, Whitley (ed.). ''The Destruction of Dá Derga's Hostel''. Paris, 1902. Reprint of publication in ''Revue Celtique'' 22 and 23. * Best, R.I. and O. Bergin (eds.). ''Lebor na hUidre. Book of the Dun Cow''. Dublin, 1929.

of LU. * Draak, Maartje and Frida de Jong (trs.). "De verwoesting van Da Derga's Hal." In ''Van helden, elfen en dichters. De oudste verhalen uit Ierland''. Amsterdam, 1979. 148–201. Dutch translation.

Secondary literature

* Byrne, Francis John, ''Irish Kings and High-Kings.'' Batsford, London, 1973. * Carney, James Patrick, "Language and Literature to 1169" in Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (ed.), ''A New History of Ireland, volume 1: Prehistoric and Early Ireland.'' Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005. * Thomas Charles-Edwards. "Geis, Prophecy, Omen, and Oath", in
Celtica 23: Essays in honour of James Patrick Carney
' (1999): 38–59
PDF
* Gantz, J. ''Early Irish Myths and Sagas'' (Harmondsworth: Penguin) 1986 * McTurk, Rory W., ''Chaucer and the Norse and Celtic Worlds.'' Ashgate, Aldershot, 2005. * West, Máire. "The genesis of ''Togail Bruidne da Derga'': a reappraisal of the `two-source' theory." ''Celtica 23 (Essays in honour of James Patrick Carney)'' (1999): 413–35.
Available as PDF from DIAS
* West, Máire. "Leabhar na hUidhre's Position in the Manuscript History of ''Togail Bruidne Da Derga'' and ''Orgain Brudne Uí Dergae." '' Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies'' 20 (Winter 1990): 61–98. * O'Connor, Ralph. ''The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel: Kingship and Narrative Artistry in a Mediaeval Irish Saga''. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2013.

External links

Translation Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

(by

Whitley Stokes Whitley Stokes, CSI, CIE, FBA (28 February 1830 – 13 April 1909) was an Irish lawyer and Celtic scholar. Background He was a son of William Stokes (1804–1878), and a grandson of Whitley Stokes the physician and anti-Malthusian (1763� ...

) at

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.
Old Irish edition
at

University College Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh) is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one o ...

'
''CELT''
project. {{DEFAULTSORT:Togail Bruidne Da Derga Early Irish literature Irish texts Irish-language literature Medieval literature Ulster Cycle

Summary

Manuscript tradition

Recension I

Recension II

Recension III

Related tales

Influence

See also

Notes

Primary sources

Recension I

Recension II

Secondary literature

External links