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Although many of the manuscripts containing texts relating to Irish mythology have failed to survive, and much more material was probably never committed to writing, there is enough remaining to enable the identification of four distinct, if overlapping, cycles: the Mythological Cycle, The Ulster Cycle, the Fenian Cycle and the Historical Cycle. There are also a number of extant mythological texts that do not fit into any of the cycles. In addition, there are a large number of recorded folk tales that, while not strictly mythological, feature personages from one or more of these four cycles.1 The sources
The three main manuscript sources for Irish mythology are the late 11th / early 12th century Lebor na hUidre which is in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, the early 12th century The Book of Leinster in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Rawlinson manuscript B 502 (Rawl.), housed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Despite the dates of these sources, most of the material they contain predates their composition and some can, on linguistic grounds, be dated back as far as the 5th or 6th centuries.
Other important sources include a group of four manuscripts originating in the west to Ireland in the late 14th or early 15th centuries: The Yellow Book of Lecan, The Great Book of Lecan, The Book of Hy Many, and The Book of Ballymote. The first of these contains the earliest know version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge and is housed in Trinity College. The other three are in the Royal Academy. Other 15th century manuscripts, such as The Book of Fermoy also contain interesting materials, as do such later syncretic works such as Geoffrey Keating 's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (The History of Ireland) (c. 1640), particularly as these later compilers and writers my have had access to manuscript sources that have since disappeared.
When using these sources, it is, as always, important to question the impact of the circumstances in which they were produced. Most of the manuscripts were created by Christian monks, who may well have been torn between the desire to record their native culture and their religious hostility to pagan beliefs resulting in some of the Gods being euhemerized . Many of the later sources may also have formed part of a propaganda effort designed to create a history for the people of Ireland that could bear comparison with the mythological descent of their British invaders from the founders of Rome that was promulgated by Geoffrey of Monmouth and others.
2 Mythological cycle
The Mythological Cycle is the least well preserved of the four cycles. The most important sources are the Metrical DindshenchasThe Metrical Dindshenchas or Lore of Places is probably the major surviving monument of Irish bardic verse. It is a great onomastic anthology of naming legends of significant places in the Irish landscape and comprises about 176 poems in total. The text A or Lore of Places and the Lebor Gabála ÉrennLebor Gabala Erenn The Book of the Taking of Ireland is the Middle Irish title of a loose collection of poems and prose narratives recounting the mythical origins and history of the Irish race from the creation of the world down to the Middle Ages. An imp or Book of Invasions. Other manuscripts preserve such Mythological tales as The Dream of Aengus, The Wooing Of Étain and the stories of the first and second battles of Mag Tuireadh. One of the greatest of all Irish stories, Oidheadh Clainne Lir, or The Tragedy of the Children of Lir, is also part of this cycle.
Lebor Gabala Erren is a pseudo-history of Ireland, tracing the ancestry of the Irish back to NoahNoah or Noach ("Rest", Standard Hebrew Noa Tiberian Hebrew No Arabic Nu is a character from the Bible story that describes him building the ark to save the people and animals from the Deluge, the universal flood. Noah was the son of Lamech and the grandso. It is concerned with the people known as the Tuatha de DanaanThis article is about a mythical people of Ireland. See Achaeans for the homeric Greek Danaans. The doings of the mythical Irish fairy folk and gods, the Tuatha de Danaan ("people/children of Danu" in Irish; alternative: Tuatha De Danann, "People of the g, who were believed to have inhabited the island before the arrival of the Celts. They faced opposition from their enemies, the FomoriansIn Celtic mythology, the Fomorians or Fomors were a race of giants who were the occupants of Ireland before the Gaels. They were said to be the offspring of Noah's son, Ham. They are said to have had the body of a man and the head of a goat, according to, led by BalorIn Goidelic mythology, Balor was the god of death and King of the Fomorians. His father was Buarainech. His wife was Cethlenn. Balor only had one eye which was usually closed; its gaze killed anyone that saw it. According to a prophecy, Balor was to be ki of the Evil Eye. Balor was eventually slain by LughThe God Lugh whose name means "shining one" is a Celtic sun god. He is handsome, perpetually youthful, and full of life and energy. This energy manifests itself especially in the number of skills he has, according to legend, mastered. He was the patron go Lamfada (Lug of the Long Arm) at the second battle of Mag Tuireadh. With the arrival of the Celts, the Tuatha de Danaan retired underground to become the fairy people of later myth and legend.
The Metrical Dindshenchas is the great onomastic work of early Ireland, giving the naming legends of significant places in a sequence of poems. It includes a lot of important information on Mythological Cycle figures and stories, including the Battle of Tailtiu, in which the Tuatha de Danaan were defeat by the Milesians, or Celtic Irish.
It is important to note that the Tuatha de Danaan were not viewed so much as gods as the shape-shifting magician population of an earlier Golden Age Ireland. Although the Irish revered the fairy folk, there is little evidence to support the assertion that, with the possible exception of the pan-Celtic figure of Lugh, they ever actually worshiped them as gods.
