Review by Helen Parry
A king’s son pines for a beautiful woman who only he can see. A god’s jealous wife turns a princess into a puddle of water, which grows into a worm, then a scarlet fly, and is then swallowed by another woman and reborn. Challenged by his king, a spear-carrier ties a willow branch around the feet of a hanged convict and is granted a vision that will save his kingdom.
These are just some of the strange occurrences in the stories Lisa M. Bitel has collected here. Originally written down by Irish monks a thousand years ago and more, these stories of demi-god kings, fearsome warriors and shape-shifting women are the seeds from which many later romances and fairy tales of Ireland, Britain and France have grown. But these earliest surviving tales are – not quite like the later stories that developed from them. They are ‘sexier, funnier and more exotic’ than subsequent versions. (I don’t remember Marie de France writing about ladies’ pissing contests in the snow.) They are strange and fragmentary. They offer a glimpse of a world quite different to our own, with other values.
It was not long after when they saw two birds upon the lake, linked with a red-gold chain. They sang a little and […] skimmed away over the water.
Cú Chulainn went after them. After a while, though, he decided to sit and rest with his back against a large stone. He fell asleep, still disgruntled.
He seemed to see two women coming towards him. One wore a green cloak, and the other had a five-fold crimson cloak around her. The woman in the green cloak came to him smiling, but she raised a horsewhip and struck him. The other one also approached smiling but began to beat him in the same way. They were at it a long time, taking turns flogging him until he was almost dead. They left him there asleep.
Bitel has collected together nine of these ancient tales, stories ‘about love and magic […] about the boundaries between the present moment and the distant past, about parallel worlds and the strange borderlands between them’. There are battles in them, but they are principally about love. Reading them, we are taken to a place which hovers between historical reality and myth, a place which both once existed and never existed. Archaeologists of story, we can see glimpses of everyday life in sixth-century or eighth-century Ireland, find threads of those people’s world view, morals and humour.
Alongside admiration for strength, beauty and a woman’s skill at pouring ale, the tales reveal an appreciation of literary and linguistic complexity. The stories are interspersed with songs, and involve wordplay and puns. These are difficult for us, so removed from their world, to interpret. For example, in the Courtship of Becfola, a beautiful woman, finely dressed, comes riding a chariot to a ford, where she exchanges lewd banter with King Diarmuit. She sells herself to him for a cheap pin, and he names her Becfola, a pun on her low price. No sooner is she married, however, than her eye begins to wander… The story takes us to a failed elopement, a wolf attack, a magical island and a strange battle. Becfola is not chaste, but perhaps surprisingly to us, the story doesn’t punish her. ‘Every awful decision made by Becfola turns out to be the right one,’ Bitel comments. But Becfola herself remains mysterious. What do we make of her? ‘Is she a heroine, a wanton, a pagan, or a ban síde?’ The story doesn’t tell us.
The tales have all been translated before; what makes this book special and delightful is Bitel’s voice. Bitel has combined academic rigour with a novelist’s skill to create lively, funny stories; she comments on the action, explains obscure references, brings out the humour. Helpfully, she has included an excellent introduction to the book in general, and a short preface to each tale. The whole work is enriched by nine exquisite drawings by Saba Joshagani which capture their beauty, strangeness, simplicity and complexity. It is just an unusual and enchanting book. However, be warned: once you’ve read it, you won’t be able to resist looking for more old Irish stories, digging out old maps of Ireland and looking up ancient history…
Helen blogs at A Gallimaufry
Lisa M. Bitel, Otherworld: Nine Tales of Wonder and Romance from Medieval Ireland, Illustrated by Saba Joshagani.(Oxford University Press, 2025). 978-0197600610, 248pp., hardback.
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Beautiful review, Helen! I rarely read work from this period – the past really is another country this far back in time – but the thought of having a kind of running commentary alongside it makes it much more enticing.