Through an examination of Old Norse and Celtic parallels to certain works of Chaucer, McTurk here identifies hitherto unrecognized sources for these works in early Irish tradition. He revives the idea that Chaucer visited Ireland between 1361 and 1366, placing new emphasis on the date of the enactment of the Statute of Kilkenny. Examining Chaucer's House of Fame, McTurk uncovers parallels involving eagles, perilous entrances, and scatological jokes about poetry in the Topographia Hibernie by Gerald of Wales, Snorri Sturluson's Edda, and the Old Irish sagas Fled Bricrend and Togail Bruidne Da Derga. He compares The Canterbury Tales, with its use of the motif of a journey as a framework for a tale-collection, with both Snorri's Edda and the Middle Irish saga Acallam na SenA(3)rach. McTurk presents a compelling argument that these works represent Irish traditions which influenced Chaucer's writing. In this study, McTurk also argues that the thirteenth-century Icelandic LaxdA|la Saga and Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale each descend from an Irish version of the Loathly Lady story. Further, he surmises that Chaucer's five-stress line may derive from the tradition of Irish song known as amhrA!n, which, there is reason to suppose, existed in Ireland well before Chaucer's time.

Ollam ("ollav"), named for the ancient title of Ireland's chief poets, celebrates the career of Tomas O Cathasaigh, Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies at Harvard University, who is one of the foremost interpreters of the rich and fascinating world of early Irish saga literature. It is a complement to his own book of essays, Coire Sois, the Cauldron of Knowledge: A Companion to Early Irish Saga, also edited by Matthieu Boyd (University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), and a sequel to his classic monograph The Heroic Biography of Cormac mac Airt (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1977) and as such it begins to show the richness of his legacy. The essays in Ollam represent cutting-edge research in Celtic philology and historical and literary studies. They form three clusters: heroic legend; law and language; and poetry and poetics. The 21 contributors are among the best Celtic Studies scholars of their respective generations, whether they are rising stars or great professors at the finest universities around the world. The book has a Foreword by William Gillies, Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh and former President of the International Congress of Celtic Studies, who also contributed an essay on courtly love-poetry in the Book of the Dean of Lismore. Other highlight include a new edition and translation of the famous poem Messe ocus Pangur ban; a suite of articarticles on the ideal king of Irish tradition, Cormac mac Airt; and studies on well-known heroes like Cu Chulainn and Finn mac Cumaill. This book will be a must-have, and a treat, for Celtic specialists. To nonspecialists it offers a glimpse at the vast creative energy of Gaelic literature through the ages and of Celtic Studies in the twenty-first century.

Through an examination of Old Norse and Celtic parallels to certain works of Chaucer, McTurk here identifies hitherto unrecognized sources for these works in early Irish tradition. He revives the idea that Chaucer visited Ireland between 1361 and 1366, placing new emphasis on the date of the enactment of the Statute of Kilkenny. Examining Chaucer's House of Fame, McTurk uncovers parallels involving eagles, perilous entrances, and scatological jokes about poetry in the Topographia Hibernie by Gerald of Wales, Snorri Sturluson's Edda, and the Old Irish sagas Fled Bricrend and Togail Bruidne Da Derga. He compares The Canterbury Tales, with its use of the motif of a journey as a framework for a tale-collection, with both Snorri's Edda and the Middle Irish saga Acallam na SenA(3)rach. McTurk presents a compelling argument that these works represent Irish traditions which influenced Chaucer's writing. In this study, McTurk also argues that the thirteenth-century Icelandic LaxdA|la Saga and Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale each descend from an Irish version of the Loathly Lady story. Further, he surmises that Chaucer's five-stress line may derive from the tradition of Irish song known as amhrA!n, which, there is reason to suppose, existed in Ireland well before Chaucer's time.

The essays here, united by their appreciation of the centrality of translation to the interpretation of the medieval past, add to our understanding of how the old is continually made anew The first decades of the twenty-first century have seen an unprecedented level of creative engagement with early medieval literature, ranging from the long-awaited publication of Tolkien's version of Beowulf and the reworking of medieval lyrics by Ireland's foremost poets to the adaptation of Eddic and Skaldic poetry for the screen. This collection brings together scholars and accomplished translators working with Old English, Old Norse and MedievalIrish poetry, to take stock of this extraordinary proliferation of translation activity and to suggest new ways in which to approach these three dynamic literary traditions. The essays in this collection include critical surveysof texts and traditions to the present day, assessments of the practice and impact of individual translators from Jorge Luis Borges to Seamus Heaney, and reflections on the particular challenges of translating poetic forms and vocabulary into different languages and media. Together they present a series of informed and at times provocative perspectives on what it means to "carry across" early medieval poetry in our contemporary cultural climate. Dr Tom Birkett is lecturer in Old English at University College Cork; Dr Kirsty March-Lyons is a scholar of Old English and Latin poetry and co-organiser of the Irish Research Council funded conference and translation project "Eald to New". Contributors: Tom Birkett, Elizabeth Boyle, Hannah Burrows, Gareth Lloyd Evans, Chris Jones, Carolyne Larrington, Hugh Magennis, Kirsty March-Lyons, Lahney Preston-Matto, Inna Matyushina, Rory McTurk, Bernard O'Donoghue, Heather O'Donoghue, Tadhg O Siochain, Bertha Rogers, M.J. Toswell.

Ollam ("ollav"), named for the ancient title of Ireland's chief poets, celebrates the career of Tomas O Cathasaigh, Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies at Harvard University, who is one of the foremost interpreters of the rich and fascinating world of early Irish saga literature. It is a complement to his own book of essays, Coire Sois, the Cauldron of Knowledge: A Companion to Early Irish Saga, also edited by Matthieu Boyd (University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), and a sequel to his classic monograph The Heroic Biography of Cormac mac Airt (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1977) and as such it begins to show the richness of his legacy. The essays in Ollam represent cutting-edge research in Celtic philology and historical and literary studies. They form three clusters: heroic legend; law and language; and poetry and poetics. The 21 contributors are among the best Celtic Studies scholars of their respective generations, whether they are rising stars or great professors at the finest universities around the world. The book has a Foreword by William Gillies, Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh and former President of the International Congress of Celtic Studies, who also contributed an essay on courtly love-poetry in the Book of the Dean of Lismore. Other highlight include a new edition and translation of the famous poem Messe ocus Pangur ban; a suite of articarticles on the ideal king of Irish tradition, Cormac mac Airt; and studies on well-known heroes like Cu Chulainn and Finn mac Cumaill. This book will be a must-have, and a treat, for Celtic specialists. To nonspecialists it offers a glimpse at the vast creative energy of Gaelic literature through the ages and of Celtic Studies in the twenty-first century.

Celebrated Icelandic writer Gerdur Kristny's Drapa is a novel-poem which takes its form from Old Norse shield poetry and its mood from modern Nordic crime. But the poem is no fiction: it is about a real woman's murder in the city of Reykjavik, and, through this lens, about all women's deaths. This is Viking poetry at its most contemporary.

This is Gerdur Kristny's third collection from Arc and the third of the trilogy which already comprises the highly-acclaimed Bloodhoof and Drapa. In all three poetic sequences, the poet employs the archaic form of the saga to conjure up razor-sharp dark and bewildering images of the fates of women in a world where the boundaries between life and death and what lies beyond are unclear. In this particular sequence, Gerdur Kristny gives a voice to a woman whose story was one that society was not ready to hear at the time, a woman who was abused as a child but who committed suicide before her own account of what had taken place was published. At its heart is the very notion of articulation, of how our language and culture determine what stories we can tell and what words we can use.

Celebrated Icelandic writer Gerdur Kristny's Drapa is a novel-poem which takes its form from Old Norse shield poetry and its mood from modern Nordic crime. But the poem is no fiction: it is about a real woman's murder in the city of Reykjavik, and, through this lens, about all women's deaths. This is Viking poetry at its most contemporary.