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Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits pp 79–101Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Secrets of the Síd: The Supernatural in Medieval Irish Texts

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic ((PHSWM))

Abstract

To the early medieval Irish, the non-Christian Otherworld—the síd—was at once familiar and exotic. Its immortal creatures moved in and out of human reality, unseen; its portals lay concealed in the ancient religious monuments and placenames of local landscapes. Early medieval authors (ca 650–800 CE) conveyed the complexities of this inherited Otherworld in vernacular tales of otherworldly folk set in the Iron Age past of their ancestors. Although scholars have debated the relative Christian or “pagan” nature of Irish otherworldly literature and its locations, in fact, the síd and its folk were neither—they were supernatural. Tales of the síd attest to the pace and texture of religious change in early medieval Ireland, and sketch the ways that ordinary people made and remade their religion on the ground.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Yeats, Irish Folk Stories, 2.

  2. 2.

    Silver “On the Origins of Fairies,” 141–156; Briggs, Fairies in Tradition, 3–13.

  3. 3.

    Ó Súilleabháin, Folklore of Ireland; Lysaght, Banshee; Uí Ogáin, Otherworld.

  4. 4.

    Ní Bhrolcháin, Introduction, 5–25.

  5. 5.

    Ibid., 78–92; Mac Cana, Learned Tales; Toner, “Reconstructing the Earliest Irish Tale Lists”; Byrne, Airec Menman Uraird Maic Coisse.

  6. 6.

    Mac Cana, Celtic Mythology; Carey, “Native Elements”; Waddell, “Cave of Crúachain”; O’Connor, Destruction.

  7. 7.

    Carney, Studies in Irish Literature; McCone, Pagan Past; Nagy, Conversing with Angels.

  8. 8.

    Ní Bhrolcháin, Introduction, 26.

  9. 9.

    Nongbri, Before Religion.

  10. 10.

    Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt, 34–38.

  11. 11.

    Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious.”

  12. 12.

    Carey, “Sequence and Causation”; Hogan, Onomasticon.

  13. 13.

    Macalister, Lebor Gabála Érenn; Gray, Cath Maige Tuire.

  14. 14.

    Sharpe, Life of Columba, sec. II. 10–11, 16, 17, 33, 34, et passim.

  15. 15.

    Stout, Newgrange, 18–22.

  16. 16.

    O’Kelly and O’Kelly, Newgrange, 102–108; Stout, Newgrange, 40–57.

  17. 17.

    Aalen, Whelan, and Stout, Atlas, 37–38; O’Kelly and O’Kelly, Newgrange, 122–124.

  18. 18.

    Stout, Newgrange, 70–71.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 38–39; Cunliffe and Koch, Celtic from the West; Cassidy et al., “Neolithic and Bronze Age Migration”; Forster and Toth, “Toward a Phylogenetic Chronology.”

  20. 20.

    Stout, Newgrange, 72–73.

  21. 21.

    O’Sullivan, Early Medieval Ireland.

  22. 22.

    Stout, Newgrange, 68; Gwynn, “Dubad,” 270–273.

  23. 23.

    Schot, “Monuments, Myths, and Other Revelations”; Gwynn, “Dubad,” 38–45.

  24. 24.

    O’Sullivan, “Resting in Pieces.”

  25. 25.

    Newman, “Sacral Landscape”; Newman, “Re-composing.”

  26. 26.

    Binchy “Fair of Tailtiu”; Carney, Studies in Irish Literature, 333–338; McCone, Pagan Past, 107–137.

  27. 27.

    Byrne, “Irish Kings,” 48–69.

  28. 28.

    Slavin, “Supernatural Arts.”

  29. 29.

    Biele, Patrician Texts, 61–122.

  30. 30.

    McCone, Pagan Past, 33–34, 88–91.

  31. 31.

    Stokes, Annals of Tigernach, under 559.

  32. 32.

    Numerals refer to text sections as edited and translated in Bieler, Patrician Texts, 61–122.

  33. 33.

    Swift, “Tírechán’s Motives,” 59–60; Hollo, “Cú Chulainn,” 13–22.

  34. 34.

    Stevenson, “Literacy and Orality,” 11–22.

  35. 35.

    Smyth, “Word of God,” 23–44.

  36. 36.

    Swift, “Tírechán’s Motives,” 53–82.

  37. 37.

    Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (eDIL) under erdathe; Carey, “Saint Patrick,” 42–53. Numbers in parentheses represent sections of Tírechán’s Itinerary in Bieler, Patrician Texts.

  38. 38.

    Borsje, “Monotheistic to a Certain Extent,” 53–82.

  39. 39.

    Nagy, Conversing with Angels, 100–109.

  40. 40.

    Waddell, “Cave of Crúachain,” 77–92; Waddell “Rathcroghan,” 21–46.

  41. 41.

    Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, 317.

  42. 42.

    Stokes, Martyology of Oengus, 26–27.

  43. 43.

    Shaw, Aislinge Óenguso; Gantz, Early Irish Myths, 108–112.

  44. 44.

    Plate, History of Religion, 104–114.

  45. 45.

    Gray, Cath Maige Tuired.

  46. 46.

    Waddell, “Rathcroghan,” 21–46.

  47. 47.

    Gray, “Reading Aislinge Óenguso,” 16–39.

  48. 48.

    Gantz, Early Irish Myths, 56.

  49. 49.

    Meyer, Sanas Cormaic, 85.

  50. 50.

    Bitel, Land of Women, 25–26.

  51. 51.

    Stapleton and Kin, Baedae Opera, vol. 1, 417–425.

  52. 52.

    Bray, List of Motifs, 91, 97–100, 111–112.

  53. 53.

    Augustinus Hibernicus, De mirabilibus, 2164.

  54. 54.

    Ibid.; Carey, King of Mysteries, 58; Smyth, “Word of God,” 112–143.

  55. 55.

    Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus Paleohibernicus, vol. 2: 354–358.

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  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

    Lisa Bitel

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  1. Arizona State University, Tempe, USA

    Michael Ostling

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Bitel, L. (2018). Secrets of the Síd: The Supernatural in Medieval Irish Texts. In: Ostling, M. (eds) Fairies, Demons, and Nature Spirits. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58520-2_3

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