Ideas - Otherworld: Astonishing Tales of Romance in Medieval Ireland

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Medieval Irish tales are sexier, funnier, and bloodier than any of the better-known myths of the medieval era. They reveal a world full of mighty demi-gods, shapeshifting beauties, and determined heroes. In her book, Otherworld, Lisa M Bitel retells Irish tales of wonder and romance, acting as our guide in the tradition of ancient storytelling.

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC Podcast. So we'll go from the top of 63, 63 to the end of the poem at the top of 64. Okay.

Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayed. Medjir called her Beifin, his shining lady, and he sang to her. O Beifin, come away with me to a lovely harmonious land where everyone's hair is primrose gold, their snow-white skin soft to the hand. I think these stories tell of a past that people wished had been. That place has no mine or yours. How delightful the blue of blackbird's eggs A glorious past filled with magic

And people from the other world The she and daring kings and queens And beautiful maidens More marvellous is that land than all Where youth lingers so much longer It would be nice to have a past like that rather than probably the dreadful one that was actually the truth. A distinguished people without flaws, conception without sin or blame. We see you and the world you're in, but none of you sees us.

You're listening to an ancient story, one of hundreds, if not thousands, that have woven their way through centuries of Irish storytelling. A woman, if you come among my proud kin, A circlet of gold will crown your head, Honied wine, ale, fresh milk to drink, We will sip there together, bathed in. I try to imagine a scene where somebody is telling one of these tales and, you know, it's winter and they're all gathered in what would have been a large house,

a big circular one-room thing with a fire in the middle, everybody huddling together trying to get warm and drinking. On this episode of Ideas, Lisa Battelle is our guide. Her book, Otherworld, is a collection of medieval Irish tales. What were they thinking about the past that they were listening to, about the antiquity of the tales? And in that moment of the storyteller connecting them to a possible past, that's where I find the multiplicities blurring together. Lisa Battelle has studied these tales for decades, at Harvard and later at University College, Dublin. She's now professor of religion and history at the University of Southern California's Dornsife College.

But hers is not just an academic translation. I realized people won't, they won't laugh at the jokes. They're not going to get these names and know who these people are. And so instead of a translator, I became a reteller, and it freed me to think of these stories in the ways I love them rather than in the ways I've learned them, which is what conjugation of the verb is that? It didn't matter what mattered were the stories. You know, at one point you say, well, by now you're probably starting to notice a few things. And I'm literally at that moment, I'm like, I'm starting to notice a few things.

You know, I mean, it's pretty amazing what you've managed to do. Ideas producer Sean Foley read Otherworld over Halloween and into November, a period known in the Celtic world as Samhain. into November, a period known in the Celtic world as Samhain. That's when the portals between this world and the she, the other world, open up. They were roaring and gabbing when they saw Midger inside the king's house. He was always handsome, to be sure, but that night he was even more magnificent. The troops were dumbstruck. And Samhain is when you're most likely to encounter the people of the she. I have come for this, Midr said.

Let what was pledged to me be handed over. What was promised is due. Aedain herself promised me that she would leave you. Aedain blushed, at last a sign of love from her. Do not be ashamed, Aedirn, Midr said to her softly. I have been courting you for a year, offering the greatest treasures and wealth in Eiru. I did not try to carry you off without Ahu's permission. I would not win you by my powers alone. The she-people are fascinating and their powers are impressive. But best not to get too close to them. It doesn't usually go very well for us mortals.

He seized his spear in his left hand and caught the woman tightly in his right arm. Then together they rose up into the air and disappeared through the smoke hole of the roof. The warriors surrounding the king leapt up at this outrage as they watched two swans circling high above Chamor. I'm Lisa Patel. I'm an Irish historian and a medievalist, and I teach at the University of Southern California for a few more years until I get to do what I really want to do, which is write. Great. Thank you for doing that. So I feel like I want to begin with a question that came up as I was reviewing our earlier interview. Now, what I mean here by earlier interview is known in broadcast lingo as the pre-interview,

the informal chat you have with a guest before you record the real conversation. You said that you live in the 7th century. And I wanted to ask what that's like. Well, for one thing, you can avoid politics from various media. But it means that I'm thinking about the stuff I know, the stuff I've learned about the past all the time. It just comes to me in dreams and in waking. it. It just comes to me in dreams and in waking. And I've been studying this stuff for so long that I almost feel like I'm living there. Although it would have been a terrible place to live, Ireland in the seventh century, but nonetheless. What would be the most terrible thing about it, you think? Well, for women, especially women who were not nobility, it would have been a very,

very hard life. You'd be responsible for having the kids and bringing them up and for doing the wash and weaving the clothes and keeping the barnyard animals. And if war came along, you'd probably get kidnapped, killed, or raped, or all of them. It was not a good life for women. or all of them, it was not a good life for women. Oh, my goodness. That sounds rather grim. And yet, in this book, some of the most amazing characters are women.

Yeah. You know, I mean, we have to remember that whatever the conditions were, legally or politically or environmentally, you know, people were still people. And men still loved their women, their daughters and wives and cousins and whatever, sisters. And together they made a community, and together they thought up wonderful stories. Yes. When we were chatting, you suggested that maybe we begin with the tale

and go from there. And I'm wondering if there's a section of your book that you would read almost to set the tone or something for our conversation. Ooh, that's a hard one. It would have to come from my favorite story, which is the courtship of Aideen. There's a wonderful point somewhere in the middle of the story where the hero, who is an otherworldly man, approaches the love of his enduring life. But she doesn't know who he is because she's been reborn as a different person. And he comes upon her and a bunch of other young ladies bathing in a river. And he's beautiful.

bathing in a river and he's beautiful. The horsemen wore a green mantle folded about him with a red embroidered tunic beneath. A gold brooch pinned the cloak from shoulder to shoulder. He slung a silver shield rimmed in gold over his shoulder by a strap of gold-bossed silver. He held a five-pointed spear with golden bands running from its haft to its socket. Golden hair fell upon the man's brow and a twisted band of gold held it from his face. He paused to watch the girls. They were smitten with him. Then he chanted a poem. Aedain is here today, at the shee of Bay Find west of Alva, dawdling with little lads on the bank of Inver Keefman. She once hailed the eye of the king at the well of Loth-da-Lych. It was she downed in a drink from the cup of Ithar's wife. For her a king will chase the

birds of Teithba and drown his two horses in Loth-da-Eirbrath's waters. Many battles will surge over Aith-Mede because of you, girl. Destruction will come to the She-Mounds and a war against thousands. It is she who returns to the land. It's she that seeks the king. It is she once called Beifind. Soon she shall be our Aideen. When he finished chanting his verses, he wrote off.

They did not know whence he came or where he went. It's very mysterious. It is, and it is a strange love song. He's referencing things that he knows It is, and it is a strange love song. Mm-hmm. He's referencing things that he knows happen in stories, the story and other stories related to her and to him. So this book is called Otherworld,

and I'm wondering if you could, for the uninitiated, kind of give us a, what is the other world? Well, they called it the she, which is a strange word because it meant all at once the other world entire, this alternative reality, which was past but present as well, which was invisible to humans. And it also meant the place where you could enter that world, the prehistoric mounds that you still see all over Ireland.

That was one major way of getting to the she, going to the mounds or under the mounds, into the mounds. Not all of them were prehistoric burials, but most of them were. Or it meant the people, the creatures of the she, the ishi, all at once. the people, the creatures of the Shi, the Ishi, all at once. And the curious thing is that the word is also differently a word for peace. So they make puns on the word Shi in the stories sometimes. For actual, for peace. So what would be a good pun?

What would be a good Shi pun that would involve? In the very first tale in the book, which is about the adventure of Conla, it's really about him having a dream and running off with an otherworldly woman. One day, Conla Rua, the Ruddy, son of Con Keheha of the Hundred Battles, was standing next to his father on the top of the hill at Ishnach, in the centre of Eiru when he saw a woman in unusual clothing approaching. He asked her, where have you come from, unearthly woman? She chants a poem about how she comes from the people of the she, or maybe she's saying the people of peace, the land of the she, the land of peace. I have come from lands of the living, where there's no death, no sin, no guilt. We have feasts without any effort, consent without any strife.

In utter peace we live. We are called the people of peace, the e-she. The woman punned, for she in old times was a word for peace, as well as a word for the other world. In fact, it's this double meaning that has led some scholars to say a lot of these poems are Christian allegories. Okay, so now that brings us into how these got written down. And I'm trying to figure out how to, when to bring the Christian element in here. For Celticists, it's always there. Yes, I guess, is it? We've been fighting about it for ages. So you say it's always there. What do you mean by that?

Well, writing came into Ireland actually with Christians. I mean, the Irish before that had a sort of rudimentary alphabet borrowed from Latin, but it consisted of lines and dots called om cut into usually stone used for inscriptions and things, you know, epitaphs and so forth. They didn't have writing. And so when writing came to Ireland, it was Latin at first. Church language was all Latin until, having mastered grammar and Latin and so forth, they began to experiment with writing down their own language,

which they did very early, much earlier than anywhere else in Europe. And as soon as they started writing in Irish, they started writing everything down. A massive, massive collection of literature and so many different genres. Not too many people know about because they wrote it in old and middle Irish, which is a horrible language, very difficult. So let's talk about your favorite story a little bit more. So this is the courtship of a dean. Now, reading a courtship story, I made an assumption, which was that I'm going to get a very linear tale, that the suitor will be easily identified, and that there will be a little intrigue, but the job will get done in due course.

Now, what's wrong with this line of thought? It's such a complex tale. I mean, you know, I must have read it 30 times or more, and every time I learn a little more about it, it's sort of three tales in one. It starts out in the dawn of time, practically, before the rivers were dug in Ireland or the plains were cleared. It's almost like a paradise and wilderness where the people of the She live, the Twoatha Dei, the tribes of the goddess.

And it takes place in that sort of godly time when all the characters are Shi people, immortal and beautiful and heroic and so forth. And there's a sort of backstory where one of the famous men of the she is born, Angus the Macoag, who's sort of a god of love in other tales, and he helps his foster father win the most beautiful woman in Ireland as payback for an insult. He does. He ends up, after many feats, paying her weight in silver and gold to take her away from her greedy father and give her to Mither.

Allil gained wealth and the MacGough took Aideen home with him. What did they talk about, the young woman and the young warrior? She had not witnessed the MacGque's challenges and feats. She was not there when they haggled over her bride price. When they weighed her, she was silent, so far as the poets tell. Who knows whether before that moment in the chariot, leaving her child at home, anyone told her that the macaque

had sought her hand, not for himself but on behalf of another, older, more cunning man. And so Mither and Nadine sleep together. She doesn't say a word in this whole part of the tale. They go home

and uh-oh, who's there? Mither's wife! He already has a wife. And you could have more than one in the scheme of the tale. They go home, and uh-oh, who's there? Mither's wife. He already has a wife. And you could have more than one in the scheme of the times. But he sort of leaves Aideen with the first wife, and the first wife is a witch, a druid. So she whacks Aideen with a stick, a rowan stick, and Aideen dissolves. She dissolves into a puddle. And the witch wife, Fonach, runs away and Mither comes into the house and there's nothing but a puddle. And he's like, uh-oh, lost my women.

And then what happens is she, the puddle in combination with the heat of the earth and the mist in the air, she turns into a fly, a beautiful, beautiful fly, the size of a man's head, which is to me terrifying, not beautiful. But her wings make music and drop sweet dew upon men and all this stuff. And the witch wife sends her tossing and turning in the winds of the world for years and years and years and years until eventually she drops into the cup of a

queen in her homeland in the North Ireland and Ulster. The queen drinks her up and gets pregnant and has a child named Aideen. And that's the second part of the story. So we've only just reached part two, by the way. If you want me to speed up, just let me know. No, it's okay. We have time. And then in the second part of the tale, Aideen is born and she is again the most beautiful princess in the land. And they describe her. She's blonde and gorgeous. And one day she's bathing in the river and along comes this mysterious, beautiful stranger on a horse and chants this weird poem to her. horse and chants this weird poem to her. Aideen remained still. No flick of her eyes betrayed a memory of the astonishing bard and horseback. Yet the mysterious poem proposed both a past and a future with him. It warned her that her mute beauty would summon its own storms of

destruction. Perhaps she then whispered a forgotten name to herself, tasting it on her lips. We shall leave her with her secrets for now. Please bear with me for just a moment now as I become an assistant teller to the teller of this tale. So after marrying this cunning mither character and being turned into a puddle by his jealous wife and then becoming a giant fly and flying around forever and a day and then being ingested by a queen and reborn, Aideen is once again young and beautiful and frolicsome. She may even be destined for a reunion with Mither, but more mundane earthly things await

her, like a royal wedding and maybe a dalliance with her smitten brother-in-law. She is eventually sought out as the most beautiful woman in Ireland by the king of Ireland, Echid Eirb, Echid the ploughman. So they get married, and the king has to go away and collect all his dues and rents and so forth, and he leaves her with his brother. But his brother has fallen in love with Aideen. And meanwhile, remember, there's this mither guy off in the wings looking for her or waiting for her. But at any rate, the brother, Alil, falls in love with Aideen and sort of hints around and finally sort of says, I'm sick of love. There's one thing that's going to cure me. What caused your illness? Love of you, Alyal said.

A shame that you did not tell me before, she responded. You would have been cured long before if I had known. I could still be cured if you want, said Alyal. I want it, surely, she said. Were they speaking the same language? she said. Were they speaking the same language? Aideen had spent her life,

her lives, hovering over men who stared and longed for her and Alil, the extra brother. Aideen faced a desperate choice. She could heal her husband's brother by lying with him, or she could let him waste away

while preserving her honor. So, you know, meet me, not in the house, but in the hill behind the king's house, and we'll make you well again. So she's promising, we think, to sleep with him. And so they arrange the tryst, and they go out at night to meet, and she meets him, and it doesn't say specifically what they got up to. She comes back to the house, and in the morning, he's weeping because he fell asleep through the tryst, and he didn't feel well, and he couldn't go out and meet her, and

she's thinking, what? Who was that? She never says anything. She says very little, but at least in this part of the tale, she speaks. And so he says, you know, we'll do it again. And eventually she runs back and forth from the house where she sees Alil asleep to the hill where she sees Alil having a tryst with her. And she confronts the guy. And he says, I'm Mither. We were married in another life. Will you come away with me? we were married in another life. Will you come away with me? And she says, no, I'm married to the king of Ireland. Why would I run off with you? I don't even know who you are, you shapeshifter. And the king comes home and his brother is cured and everything's fine.

And that's the end of the second part. The ancient Aedain lacked speech and purpose. The recreated Aedain listened and observed before she chose and spoke. She had the wit to detect the imposter. She emerged honourably from a perilous situation, no matter what went on atop the hill behind the King's Hall. Yet the voice of Midger, of Brílaí, of unknown descent and kindred, whispered in her ear, Céimhuitseir, he had called her, you were my wife.

Midger had spent a thousand lonely years regretting his careless treatment of his bride. Again and again, he had failed her. She had good reason to mistrust him and his otherworldly wiles. So this time, he plotted an honest courtship of Aideen. Well, almost honest. Now Mither begins to circle closer and closer to Aideen through a series of

chess-type games with the king. Although he could rely on his otherworldly powers to seize her for his own, he wants her to genuinely fall for him. So in this third part, the king, happy king, collected all his dues. He's walking around the ramparts of his fort at Tara, and he sees a beautiful man, very well-dressed, coming up to him. He doesn't recognize the guy. No idea how the guy got there.

And the guy says, you know, hello, know hello you know nice to meet you the king's what's your name he says very slyly well you probably won't know it now but i was mither and that's sort of a clue to the audience oh they've forgotten the people of the she already how could the king not know but at any rate mither proposes a game of physical, which is like chess. Let's play chess. The king's an addict. But he says, oh, the queen is sleeping. My board is in her room.

And Mither says, it's okay. I brought one. And he brings out this board of silver and gold with gemstones and everything. So they make a bet. And they play. Mither loses. And he says, okay, I'll bring you your rewards. The next day, everything he promised the king is there. The next morning, there he is on the

ramparts again, meeting Echid. Shall we play again? And they do. And this time the stakes are much higher. Boars and pigs and warriors and all sorts of wonderful things. And you know, anybody hearing this story knows that guy's from the she, because only they could come up with this stuff instantly. But the king seems clueless. The next bet they make is when Mither loses, he has to clear a bunch of plains and lay a causeway across the bogs so people can cross the bogs safely. And Mither, but Mither says to the king, this is going to happen, I'll do all this,

but you can't spy on me doing it. Nonetheless, after he won their game and Mither left to fulfil his death, Oí sent his stewards to oversee the undertaking of the causeway. The steward crept to the bog where it seemed that all the men in the world had gathered after sunset. They made a mound of their cloaks and Midr climbed the mound to watch.

Whole trees with their trunks and roots were logged in for the base of the causeway. Midr stood in the middle conducting the troops on all sides. It seemed as if every man alive was making a racket. After that, they hauled clay and gravel and rocks into the bog. And these were the words on the lips of the marvellous troop as they laboured on the causeway. Put here, put there, famous yoked beasts, in the hours after sunset, tis a burdensome demand, who shall profit, who shall lose, from the causeway over Moen Lamreige.

So the last time, they're playing for stakes to be named in the future. And this time, Mither wins, and he tells the king, I could have won any of those games, and here's what I want. I want a kiss from your wife. And Echeth finally realizes something is up. So he says, come back in a year to my fort and you can have your kiss. And so all of this happens. But when Mithr returns, there's a circle of warriors outside the fort and a circle within the fort and people guarding the king and Aideen. And Mithr appears in the midst of all of these near Aideen and says, okay, time for my kiss. And the king can't say no because what's due is due. So Mither approaches

Aideen, puts an arm around her, starts kissing her, and they fly through the roof in the shape of swans, which is legal according to the bat. He never said anything about turning into swans but off they go. And finally the lovers are reunited. Midger may have manoeuvred Ochi like one of his silver game pieces in order to win back Aideen but Ochi never stipulated against shifting shape

or flying away while the couple enjoyed their embrace. Midger knew the rules of play and the ways of bending time better than anyone. Let us hope Midger also got his kiss. The king is not happy about this. So he gathers his armies and they start going around to every she-mound they can find, all those mounds that are portals to the she. Everyone they find, they try to dig up, looking for Aedin and Mither, because he wants his wife back, Akath does.

Finally, Mither comes to Akath to say, stop doing this. You can have your wife back. And of course, the audience thinks, what's he up to now? So, Echid comes to Mither's house in the sheep, and there's not one, but there are 50 Adines there, and they're all identical. And Echid has to choose the one that is the real Adine. So, Echid says, well, my wife pours ale better than anyone in Ireland. They start pouring ale, one and then another one. It comes down to two. And Echid makes his choice. That one, that's Eidin. I know how she pours. That's her. She's a little off today, but that's her.

So he goes off with her. Mither goes over to Echid and says, are you pleased now? We're all done, right? What's due is due. We've given everything. No more fighting. Echid says, yeah, I have her back. And then Mither says, nope. When I stole Aideen away from you in the shape of birds, she was already pregnant with your daughter. And that's the woman you chose. And you've already had a child by her. And that's the end of the story. Burn. Yeah, I know. What would the significance of that be to these audiences, these people in seventh century Ireland, which we've described as so horrible for the lives of women? You know, I'm immediately putting on my scholar cap because a lot of people who interpret this tale are very interested in Aideen as a figure of sovereignty. She represents, you know, a kingdom, power.

The pouring of the mead represents the fertility of the land, the land that can be prosperous, giving herself to the king. And when she's taken from Ehud, it's like taking the kingship from him. But on the other hand, you know, what I was trying to do is think through sort of gender interpretations. And I think her transformation from just chattel, from an object that men take or give, into somebody who thinks for herself, makes decisions and speaks, is an important lesson of this tale. It's very purposeful. You can actually see her evolution into that in this tale,

which I think probably must have been loved by women. Lisa Battelle, author of Otherworld, Nine Tales of Wonder and Romance from Medieval Ireland, published by Oxford University Press. You're listening to Ideas on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, on US Public Radio, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National,

and on World Radio Paris, or around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. You can also find us on the CBC News app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayed. Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This Is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401,

check out This Is Toronto wherever you get your podcasts. All the women I follow loved Cú Chulainn the best because of his skill at feats, for his nimble leaps and twists, for the charm of his face, and for his dear expression. No collection of Irish tales about the she or other world would be complete without the great Cú Chulainn, warrior, lover, demigod, demigod, both boyish and fearsome. He had seven pupils in his kingly eyes, that is four pupils in one eye and three in the other. He had seven fingers on each of his hands and seven toes on each foot. And by our standards, um, kind of unusual looking, but... It's kind of unusual looking.

But he had plenty of other talents and gifts. The first gift was his wisdom. Except, that is, when his warrior's frenzy came upon him. USC professor Lisa Battelle knows Cú Chulainn as well as any mortal can. She studied and taught about medieval Ireland for much of her career. He had the gift of tricky feats, and the gift of boonach playing, that's a game, the gift of physical playing, the gift of strategy, the gift of foresight, the gift of reason, and the gift of manly beauty.

In her book, Otherworld, she retells the tales for today's audiences. And she sat down with Ideas producer Sean Foley for some Cujolan 101. So that was something. Seven fingers, each hand. That is something. Continue down to the bottom of the... That's where the

storyteller intervenes here. That's good, because I want to make sure we get some of this in here. You might think that seven digits on each foot and hand would diminish his beauty, but not so in the eyes of the Ullith men and women, not to mention more than one from the she. Caholan also had three faults back then. He was too young. His testicles were not fully descended yet, so strangers made fun of him. Now that's in the tale, that's not me. He was too bold and he was too good looking. Okay. Interesting faults. Well, he's very young. He's, you know, he's very, he's ahead of himself.

Okay. He is the most famous hero in medieval Irish literature. And he's the main figure in the national epic of Ireland, which is called the Toynbó Cholinha, which is the cattle raid of Cooley. Now, let's just skip, just so we get a good portrait, a good solid portrait here. We'll skip ahead to page 160. Yeah. And I want to talk about the warped one. I just want to get a description of the warped one, and then we can kind of talk a little more about Cajolan. So whenever Cajolan gets really angry and ready for battle, he has what people translate as a warp spasm. I don't even know what else we would call it.

It's a Riastra. Everyone called Cú Chulainn the Warped One. He was literally Riastrae, the contorted, stretched, warped one, when he was set aflame by the inner furor of battle lust. This is what happened to him when he entered his warp spasm. He expanded to enormous size, trembling while his legs reversed, so that his feet faced backward. One of his eyes sank into his head and another popped out onto its stalk. into his head and another popped out onto its stalk.

His mouth reached his ears and he blew out fire while a geyser of blood shot from his head, while his hair formed a kind of mist around his head. No one could withstand Koo the Re-Estreha. Oof. Yeah. So, so he sounds monstrous. Yes. Yes. But according to the stories, he's magnetic too, and he's attractive. Yeah. And he, you know, in his warp spasm, he cannot be defeated. He can take on, you know, a hundred warriors and all lie around with their heads chopped off. Um, and in order to bring him out of his spasm, if he hasn't

killed enough people, they have to sort of cool him down. And there are all sorts of tricks for cooling him down. One thing they do when Cahalan comes back from war is the women of Ulster gather and open their tunics to him so he can see their breasts. And that shames him. He has to look away and get calm. But they also dunk him in three vats of water. So three cold vats. The first one, he gets in and the water boils. The second one, he gets in and the water's too hot for anyone else. And the third one finally cools him off.

Man. Now, I wonder if that water was used for anything helpful. It may be people use it for their baths afterwards. That would be handy. I mean, hot water. It was probably, was that a premium?

Whole vats of it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so how do you account for this disparity? I guess, according to the modern sensibility, like I'm sensing a disparity here between the grotesque and the attractive

in this guy and in these tales in general. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Caholan's a good example because especially in the Toyn, which is not here, but some tales related to it are in the book, he doesn't always play fairly. He's very cruel sometimes

in the way he dispatches his villains. He even in the time in his last battle has to he kills his most beloved foster brother with a secret trick that only he knows. And then when he is himself, not in

his warp spasm, he's lovable and handsome and kind of a playboy and, you know, interested in all the women that are interested in him. And he's kind of a jerk, right? Yeah, he's kind of a jerk.

He's a teenager, you know. By the time of the Toyne, he's only a teenager. And so, you know, what does that mean? I don't know. Sometimes I try to compare him to heroes from other traditions, you know, what does that mean? I don't know. Sometimes I try to compare him to heroes from other traditions, you know, Beowulf, for example, or, you know, Lancelot. And I just

can't. He's just like different. There are other people who turn into monsters, but it's not a good thing. But here, it's a good thing when he goes into his warp spasm. It protects his people. Ireland was never united politically under a king. When they wrote about a supposed king of Tara who ruled all Ireland, it was symbolic or simply untrue. What it meant was that one king of a kingdom among many, many tribes that were always feuding had managed to collect enough client kings that he could claim to be a sort of over king. But to collect so many that you ran all of Ireland, that was very rare. And it really only happened in history a couple of times. But you needed people who could prevent others coming in and burning down your houses and your crops and taking your cattle and your women and just, you know, making devastation. You needed people like Cahan. And, you know, it's just a sort of, I think, reaction to that state of politics.

reaction to that state of politics. Finally, a message called him back to his own country. He bade everyone farewell. Before he went, though, Skaha revealed his future. She sang these words to him. You will always be a lone warrior whom a world of danger awaits. It's you against an endless herd. Heroes prepare to fight you. You will always be a lone warrior whom a world of danger awaits.

It's you against an endless herd. Heroes prepare to fight you. You will snap their greedy gullets, cutting your backward slash. Blood spurts will shower Satanta. Just one against the reavers, your blood spatters battered shields. Like a river of bloody plague, you will track the flea-bitten band, And so on. That is the shorter version of Scea's words. You can find much longer versions with many more blood-soaked phrases in other books. The tale of Cúilhálin's trials during the Great Pain, brought by Alil and Maeve, and hinted other adventures of the hero of heroes.

His duels with the greatest warriors, whom of course he overcame. His duels with the greatest warriors, whom of course he overcame. The wounds, goring, stabbings, slicings, cleavings and beheadings that he wreaked. And the women that he left unhappy. Enjoy yourself. You write that stories are about two worlds, which, when you say that, you don't necessarily just mean the other world and this world, but you also identify these two worlds as the world of the storytellers,

the people you just described, and the audiences listening to them, and of those who wrote them down. And they're sort of separated by, you know, in some cases by centuries. Yeah, yeah. Well, all the stories are set in what we would call the Iron Age, the Celtic Iron Age, before about 300 of the Common Era, and before writing and Christianity. So Christianity slips into these stories, but not in direct ways. And the manuscript tradition in Ireland was long.

It lasted into maybe the 18th century. And it's not really even just two worlds or three worlds. I mean, you're looking at tales that have survived for centuries, going through the hands and minds and tongues of many different people, including the Toine. So history is sort of encapsulated in some of these, what seem like very, very old stories. It's many worlds. The teller shapes the tale, and the tale returns the favor. That's your epigraph in your book, and it comes up at the end as well. What does that say about how you made this book and how it's made you?

Yeah, what a great question. Thank you. I mean, it changed me. I did this book because I was in Oxford while my husband was a resident professor there for a year, and I was bored, and he said, Why don't you just translate some stories? You can get a contract. I'm like, oh, my Irish isn't good enough, but I'll give it a try. And while I was translating, I realized people won't, they won't laugh at the jokes. They're not going to get these names and know who these people are. And so instead of a translator, and know who these people are.

And so instead of a translator, I became a reteller, and it freed me to think of these stories in the ways I love them rather than in the ways I've learned them, which is what conjugation of the verb is that? Is that really how you translate it? Is that precise? And it didn't matter what mattered were the stories. And that meant I was the storyteller I was writing about, in a way. You know, and the tale changed me, and I certainly changed the tale, which is what the reviewers are probably going to say. But, you know,

it was an enlightening process. The Eighth Tale, which, I'm going to try, okay, I'm going to try to say the title. I did Der Forgal? I did Derbegall?

Derbegall. Yeah. Okay. The death of Derbegall. Now, it's a sad story, essentially about a perfectly lovely woman meeting with terrible, terrible outcome, but it also has, and I don't want to emphasize this, but it also has this bizarre contest that's described in it where, you know, women, where, where a woman who can, who can most efficiently melt a snow, a pillar made of snow with their urine wins a particular contest.

It's a gruesome story, isn't it? It's a story about a woman who loves Cajolan, but for various reasons can't have him and he's sorry about it. So he gives her his foster son to marry, but she's an outsider. She literally flew in as a bird to Ulster, where Cajolan is, and the women are wary of her because she's someone else and she's beautiful. Sort of like Cajolan is so handsome, they have to find him a wife. She's so fabulous and wonderful, they basically have to get rid of her. that contest, I remember sitting with my professor, John Kelleher, talking about this. I was so mystified by what the hell was going on, you know, because it snows, kind of rare in Ulster, but it snows, and the men go out and have literally a

pissing contest, you know. They're trying to piss the farthest. And then when the men are done, the women go up in the snow mound, and the idea is to piss through the snow, make a hole in the snow, and she's the best at it. And why should that make all the women angry? They immediately go into this sort of bockic frenzy where they want to tear her apart. They mutilate her. And I remember, you know, I remember my professor turning a little pink and laughing that I couldn't figure it out. And he's, well, she can hold it for a long time. So she has good muscles down there. And so, and I'm like, oh, he's talking about, you know, sexual ability. That's why they hate her. Though she never tries to, you know,

to take any of their men, but they're afraid she will. And she's an outsider. So they basically, yeah, mutilate her and send her to die. She chooses to die. She speaks this poetry which she's locked herself in her home.

And so her mournful poem is expressing a very sincere love, both of Cú Chulainn and of his foster son. Yeah. And they're not in competition with one another. Right, yeah. It's not like, I mean, she did kind of, she was, flew in for Cú Chulainn, but she's learned to love and cherish her husband. And she mourns both of these relationships, which I found fascinating.

Yeah, it's strange, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Cú Chulainn bids me farewell, the one I sought far from home, and Louis too, eager to have me, the one whom I came to love. That I will not see, Cu Chulainn, has made me tearfully morbid. Cu Chulainn, he loved boasting. And my high-born, happy companion, Louis MacLoughran of Cruaghan, gifted with manliness, with more skills than anyone.

Cú Chulainn, whose shapely body was famous. A talent with weapons, had-ly Louis. And I was granted beauty above all women. Still, every gift is lost in time. Anyone may attract envy. All treasure is useless in the grave. Every strong man ends up woeful, wretched. Every tryst in this world leads to longing. Whatever you do, it won't lead to heaven. When we used to drive around Eamon, there was never a bad adventure. Cú Chulainn was happy then, and Louis, son of Clothroo. Cú Chulainn conversing with me, with feats, with gifts. But my heart grew whole when I shared a bed with Louis. We were torn from our play, that we might have been at it forever.

I doubt we shall meet again. I am destined for death. No, it's just I love you you both, and you're great warriors, and you're really good looking, and I'm going to miss you. I'm destined for death. But then, of course, when they break into the house and find her mutilated and dead, Louis drops dead from sorrow. But Cajolan goes on and sings some poems.

Yeah, yeah. He tells the rest of the tale. This is what happened, and man, it's heavy. And now here's their grave. Yeah. And that's where the tale would have ended, right? And then you give us this paragraph. Would you read that paragraph for us? Sure. The one I wrote. Yeah. A woman on her own in a place far from home except for her handmaid. A husband she had not sought and the man she had wanted. No kin, no status but wife, no place but her house. Wives and daughters whose homeland she invaded were jealous of their men.

The conflicts and triumphs of women wrecked lives and caused death, just as men did, but not usually on the pages of stories. Right, so this is a unique story precisely because it tells that tale. Yeah, it tells it, the consequences for her. You know, I mean, we don't know how Aideen thought after they went off and lived in the she, she and Mither, and we don't know how the, whatever Cahalan's wife thought when she, well, we do know when she found out he was having a tryst with another woman. But he had tons of trysts with other women.

We don't know what she did or how she felt. It's an unwritten story. You have to pick it up in bits and pieces from the tales. And that is one of the great things about what you've done here, which is, that's awesome. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's great to live in a world where this can happen, right? The 7th century?

Yes. Or the 8th or the 12th? One of those. That you could be carrying these messages to us from there. Oh, I'm obsessed with them. And I think of all the stories I didn't put in here. So what do you, would you like to do this again? Or what's your... I better see the reviews first, I think. I'm hoping, or like just normal people read the book. And I'm hoping my

fellow Celticists aren't too angry about it. So you really feel like you might have taken on something that could be quite controversial? Yeah, it's hard, especially, you know, I'm like poor Dervagel here. You know, I did stints in Ireland during my education and had fellowships there and everything. I go quite often, you know, but I'm an American and I had a professor tell me once in Dublin, well, Americans can never learn the language properly. You know, you have to be a native speaker. And there's that divide in the field. There are the people who are Irish who do Irish and know the stuff in their bodies and hearts and in their minds. And then there are the rest of us. But, you know, I wanted the rest of us to have some of these stories and to love them the way I do. So they aren't exactly totally scholarly translations, as my editor pointed out, but they're stories.

Yeah. And you had the courage to go for it and you felt freed by it. So it's got to be some good at the heart of that. Yep. Time to move on and write novels. Ooh, yeah. All right. All right. Well, stay tuned. Yeah. Thanks so much for doing it. And thanks for spending all this time. Yeah. Thanks, Sean. I hope I get to talk to you again. On Ideas, you've been listening to Otherworld,

tales of wonder and romance from medieval Ireland. Featuring author and storyteller Lisa Battelle, professor of religion and history at the University of Southern California, Dornsife College. This episode was produced by Sean Foley. Readings by... Special thanks to... And Kenyon Eights in Los Angeles.

Technical producer, Danielle Duval. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our senior producer is Nikola Lukšić. The executive producer of Ideas is Greg Kelly, and I'm Nala Ayed. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.