Landscape and Myth in North-Western Europe BordErs, BouNdariEs, LaNdscapEs Volume 2 Landscape and Myth in North-Western Europe Edited by Matthias Egeler British Library cataloguing in publication data a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. © 2019, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. d/2019/0095/44 isBN: 978-2-503-58040-1 e-isBN: 978-2-503-58041-8 doi: 10.1484/M.BBL-EB.5.115581 printed in the Eu on acid-free paper contents List of illustrations vii introduction: ‘Landscape’, ‘Myth’, and the North-Western European perspective Matthias EgELEr 1 Myth and real-World Landscapes spaces, places, and Liminality: Marking out and Meeting the dead and the supernatural in old Nordic Landscapes tErry guNNELL 25 aesthetic appreciation of Landscape in the sagas of icelanders rEiNhard hENNig 45 Landscape Meditations on death: The place-Lore of the hvanndalur Valley in Northern iceland Matthias EgELEr 63 Myth and the creation of Landscape in Early Medieval ireland grEgory toNEr 79 codal and Ériu: Feeding the Land of ireland grigory BoNdarENko 99 Contents vi Finn’s Wilderness and Boundary Landforms in Medieval ireland ELizaBEth Fitzpatrick 113 ‘here, Finn… take This and give him a Lick of it’: two place-Lore stories about Fi(o)nn Mac cum(h)aill in Medieval irish Literature and Modern oral tradition tiziaNa soVEriNo 147 The Mélusine Legend type and the Landscape in insular and continental tradition grEgory r. darWiN 163 Myth and the Landscapes of Literature king sverrir’s Mythic Landscapes NicoLas MEyLaN 183 Mythologizing the conceptual Landscape: religion and history in Imago mundi, Image du monde, and Delw y byd NataLia i. pEtroVskaia 195 The road Less travelled: cú chulainn’s Journey to Matrimony and the Dindshenchas of Tochmarc Emire MariE-LuisE thEuErkauF 213 ‘if we settled in the forest…’: tracing the Function of Wooded spaces from old irish Literature to contemporary poetry Edyta LEhMaNN index 239 257 List of illustrations Figures Figure 1.1: The paps, county kerry, ireland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Figure 1.2: one of the entrances of the cave surtshellir, hallmundarhraun, western iceland. in the background is the mountain Eiríksjökull.. . . . . . . . 4 Figure 4.1: Looking at Víkurbyrða from the direction of Vík. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Figure 4.2: The Ódáinsakur in the valley hvanndalur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Figure 4.3: The ruins of the romanesque church of Monaincha. . . . . . . . . . . 72 Figure 6.1: The paps of anu. Note the cairns erected on both summits which further emphasize the anthropomorphism of this landscape feature.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Figure 7.1: The landscape of Formoyle hill near coleraine, county derry, was the scene of two major conflicts in the seventh century.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Figure 7.2: distribution of formaoil place-names in ireland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Figure 7.3: Formoyle, north of Lough gill, county sligo, a typical formaoil landform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Figure 7.4: The cairn-like outcrop on the front-slope of Formoyle, Lough gill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Figure 7.5: The expansive view north and north-west from carn an Fhéinneda on the front-slope of shelmartin hill, Benn Étair, county dublin.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 viii list of iLLUSTRATIONS Figure 7.6: The caves of keshcorran, Bricklieve Mountains, county sligo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Figure 7.7: The hill called ‘Formeald’ on pont’s map of Edrachilles in north-west scotland.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Figure 7.8: The ‘giant’s grave’ court tomb at deerpark, south of Formoyle, Lough gill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Figure 7.9: The knock of Formal, to the east of the forest of alyth, angus, scotland. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Figure 7.10: The archaeological landscape setting of the Battle of Formaoil ad 967, Formil, county tyrone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Figure 11.1: The t-o-type mappae mundi tradition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Figure 12.1: cú chulainn’s and Emer’s pedigrees combined, according to Tochmarc Emire and Cath Maige Tuired. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Maps Map 9.1: some sites in Wales connected with Mélusine legends. . . . . . . . . . 169 Map 9.2: some sites in ireland connected with Mélusine legends . . . . . . . . . 172 Map 12.1: identified places on cú chulainn’s itinerary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Tables table 4.1: The negative variety of the Ódáinsakur and the island of the Living in Loch cre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 table 11.1: chapter sequences in Image du monde and Imago mundi . . . . . 204 table 11.2: chapter sequences in Munich 536 and cccc 66 . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Introduction: ‘Landscape’, ‘Myth’, and the NorthWestern European Perspective Matthias Egeler* Two Vignettes Ireland: The Paps of Anu Following the N22 road from cork westwards towards killarney, immediately beyond the boundary between the counties of cork and kerry, a view opens up of two remarkably symmetrical hills that are at the same time prominent and gently rounded (Fig. 1.1). Each of these two hills is crowned by a man-made cairn big enough to be visible from miles away. This pair of rounded hills with their summit cairns has provoked an anthropomorphizing interpretation from a very early time. The shorter and oldest version of the old irish glossary Sanas Cormaic, ‘cormac’s glossary’, probably was compiled by or at least under the aegis of Bishop cormac ua cuilennáin of cashel, who traditionally is held to have died in the year 908;1 this dates this text to the late ninth or early tenth century. an entry in this glossary contains the oldest mentioning of these two hills, the ‘paps of anu’ (Dá Chích Anann, ‘anu’s two Breasts’), as well as an explanation of their mythological significance which connects them with a primordial goddess named ana or, in old irish, anu:2 * i owe thanks to John henry Levin for corrections to my English style and grammar. russell, ‘sanas chormaic’. text: ‘sanas cormaic’, ed. by stokes. 2 text: ‘sanas cormaic’, ed. by stokes, p. 2; translation adapted after Three Irish Glossaries, ed. by stokes, p. xxxiii. For a critical discussion of the passage, whose value as a source for the pre-christian mythology of ireland is unclear and which may reflect medieval christian fantasy more than ancient mythology, see Williams, Ireland’s Immortals, pp. 187–91. 1 Landscape and Myth in North-Western Europe, ed. by Matthias Egeler, BBL 2 (turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 1–21 puBLishErs 10.1484/M.BBL.5.115988 BrEpoLs