This thesis explores the literary figure of the mythical early Irish judge, Fíthal, from the earliest literary reference to him, c. 800, until MacPherson’s Ossian of the mid-eighteenth century. It does so by close study of the texts within which Fíthal appears, with close attention to their assumptions and purposes. From this series of close studies we can chart the developing character of Fíthal from juridical authority in the legal and legalistic texts to ideal judge or chief judge in the wider literary tradition. The thesis is divided into seven chapters, a general introduction, and one appendix. Chapter 1 contains a literature review of the major authors and disciplines which contributed to the thesis. Chapter 2 explains Fíthal’s position as a Wisdom Figure and the international background of Irish didactic literature. Chapters 3 and 4 contain the survey of Fíthal’s existence in Irish literature including discussion of the authorial intent underlying each manifestation. Chapter 5 is a new critical edition of the most important poem concerning Fíthal. Chapter 6 is a discussion of some hitherto unexplored but important facets of Fíthal’s character and an assessment of the theoretical writings which have implications for an understanding of his status. This thesis contributes to the continuing debate concerning the relationship between early Irish law and early Irish literature while simultaneously updating and revising scholarly knowledge concerning Fíthal. The thesis ranges widely over early Irish literature as it touches on Fíthal and explains his role in the literature in both its native and international context. It is hoped that this treatment of a relatively obscure but widespread figure will demonstrate how it is possible within the extant evidence to capture a character with a continuing presence in the tradition – a conclusion with considerable implications for our understanding of the tradition itself.

It has long been observed that there is a correlation between the physical qualities of a watercourse and the linguistic qualities of its name; for instance, of two river-names, one having the linguistic quality of river as its generic element, and one having burn, one would expect the river to be the longer of the two. Until now, a phenomenon such as this had never been formally quantified. The primary focus of this thesis is to create, within a Scottish context, a methodology for elucidating the relationship between various qualities of hydronyms and the qualities of the watercourses they represent. The area of study includes every catchment area which falls into the sea from the River Forth, round the east coast of Scotland, up to and including the Spey; also included is the east side of the River Leven / Loch Lomond catchment area. The linguistic strata investigated are: Early Celtic, P-Celtic, Gaelic and Scots. In the first half of the introduction scholarly approaches to toponymy are discussed, in a Scottish and hydronymic context, from the inception of toponymy as a discipline up to the present day; the capabilities and limitations of these approaches are taken into consideration. In the second half the approaches taken in this thesis are outlined. The second chapter explains and justifies in more detail the methodology and calculus used in this thesis. The subsequent chapters examine the following linguistic components of a hydronym: generic elements, linguistic strata, semantics and phonological overlay. In each of these chapters the methodology is harnessed as an analytical tool to generate new findings for hydronymic research. The conclusion consists of a summary of the findings and a review of the performance of the calculus. It emerges that these analytical tools are of use to the field of toponymy in two ways. Firstly, they formalise and challenge previously unquantified statements made in the field of toponymy. Secondly, they elucidate hitherto unnoticed phenomena. It is suggested that in the future this methodology be applied to other datasets (particularly hill-names) and to other regions in Scotland and the world at large.

This PhD dissertation investigates the construction of identities in the early Middle Ages, focusing on three key texts conventionally dated to the ninth and tenth centuries: Historia Brittonum, Asser's Life of King Alfred, and Armes Prydein Vawr. I examine the way these writers constructed ideas of Welsh identity in the wider context of their perception of peoples more broadly. Particular attention is paid to the texts that may have influenced the three sources, investigating, for example, Historia Brittonum's use of the works of writers such as Orosius, Jerome, and Prosper. This thesis also examines the possibility of wider trends through placing the Welsh material alongside evidence from across Europe. I compare, for example, the construction of a Trojan origin legend for the Britons in Historia Brittonum with similar accounts of the Trojan origins of the Franks. In Chapter 1 I investigate the names used for Wales and the Welsh, and suggest that, whilst these texts continued to view the Welsh as Britons, the rightful inhabitants of all Britain, there is nevertheless an indication of the construction of a specifically Welsh identity, focused on the geographical unit roughly equivalent to modern-day Wales. Chapter 2 discusses the relationship between language and identity, considering the use of Welsh place- and river-names in the Life of King Alfred, and the use of English loan-words in both Historia Brittonum and Armes Prydein Vawr. Contrary to the tendency in scholarship to downplay the role of language, I argue that it is a crucial component in the construction of identity. Chapter 3 focuses on the presentation of origin legends in Historia Brittonum and Armes Prydein Vawr. I compare the origins of the Saxons as presented in the two sources to illustrate the recycling and adaptation of material to suit varying agendas, and place Historia Brittonum's origin legend of the Britons in a wider context, examining both the sources used in its construction and its relationship with the origin legends of the Franks. Chapter 4 investigates the writing of history more broadly in Historia Brittonum and Asser's Life of King Alfred, examining the adaptation of material to create a past which suited the construction of a specific group identity. Particular attention is paid to Asser's depiction of the vikings as pagans, in contrast to the Christian Anglo-Saxons. These chapters combine into a coherent whole, offering significant new insights into the construction of identities in early medieval Wales.

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John Gwenogvryn Evans was an important figure in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Welsh Celtic Studies, because he published accurate diplomatic editions of medieval manuscripts that are still used today. He also compiled an important and detailed Report on Welsh Manuscripts for the Historic Manuscripts Commission that was of significant utility to scholars of his day, and still has uses for its detailed description of manuscripts. His extraordinary talent for accuracy in the reproduction of medieval script came to the attention of John Rhŷs, then Professor of Celtic at Jesus College, Oxford. Through Rhŷs he was exposed to the best scholarship of his day, and with the assistance of scholars such as Egerton Phillimore and John Morris Jones, he was enabled to produce work of enduring value. Due to his limited training in Welsh linguistics, and in research methodology, there were, from the start, serious flaws in his interpretation of early Welsh. Later, on losing contact with academic influences due to unwise actions, he fell into a pseudoscientific mentality more common earlier in the 19th century, seeking to find historical fact in poetry of legend and prophecy. Major errors arose from his later inclination to consider the date of a manuscript and the date of the content to be identical, and the ridicule that resulted from his 'amendments and translations' to early poetry so undermined his credibility that he never completed the full range of his intended series of texts. This study traces the origins, manifestations, and consequences of his dual nature through seven chapters. It considers the value of his solid earlier work, and balances it against the follies of his later translations, and seeks to give a fairer view of the value of his work to his own generation, and to those that followed on from him.

Mermaids and human-seal hybrids, called selkies, are a vibrant part of Celtic folklore, including ballad and song traditions. Though some of these songs have been studied in-depth, there is a lack of research comparing them to each other or to their contemporary renditions. This research compares traditional melodies and texts of the songs “The Mermaid,” “The Grey Selchie of Sule Skerry,” and “Hó i Hó i” to contemporary recordings by top female vocalists in Scottish and Irish music. The texts and melodies I have identified as “source” material are those most thoroughly examined by early ballad and folklore scholars. The source material for “The Grey Selchie of Sule Skerry” is a 1938 transcription by Otto Andersson. The source of notation and text for “The Mermaid” is the ballad’s A version from the Greig-Duncan Collection. The melody of “Hó i Hó i,” collected by folklorist David Thomson and published in 1954, serves as the third source version. Modern recordings included in the study are “The Mermaid” by Kate Rusby, “The Grey Selchie” by Karan Casey with Irish-American band Solas, and “Òran an Ròin,” a variant of “Hó i Hó i,” by Julie Fowlis. This study compares the forms, melodic contours, and texts of these variants, examining ways that contemporary recordings have maintained the integrity of traditional songs and ballads from which they are derived while adapting them to draw in a contemporary audience. The thesis illustrates the continued and evolving presence of mermaids and selkies in Scottish and Irish song.

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This thesis will argue that the Beowulf Manuscript, which includes the poem Judith, Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, and the Old-Norse-Icelandic Laxdæla saga highlight and examine the tension between the female pagan characters and their Christian authors. These texts also demonstrate that Queenship grew fragile after the spread of Christianity, and women’s power waned in the shift between pre-Christian and Christian Europe.

Dans le cadre général d’une sémiotique des cultures, cette recherche a utilisé les propositions épistémologiques et méthodo-logiques de la sémantique interprétative pour renouveler l’analyse de textes irlandais médiévaux. Le but était d’apporter une contribution à une problématique générale intéressant les sciences du langage, mais aussi les sciences historiques : comment fonder la pertinence scientifique d’une interprétation de textes et signes anciens appartenant à une culture différente ? Pour cela il a été choisi de viser les faits sémantiques qui interviennent dans les processus de transfert de sens que la tradition rhétorique nomme comparaison, métaphore ou symbole. L’approche méthodologique a nécessité l’édition d’un corpus interlinéaire offrant un accès direct aux données de l’Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language. L’étude du lexique a confronté les possibilités définitoires aux afférences contextuelles observées par un relevé systématique des isotopies ciblées.Sur le plan sémantique, l’analyse des processus différentiels qui structurent les molécules sémiques a permis d’observer la circulation des sèmes marquant les analogies intentionnelles. Sur le plan diachronique, la description du système de valeur, pris dans sa globalité, fonde la pertinence de l’interprétation en ce qu’il intègre les normes sociales du contexte historique du signe. Sur le plan des études celtiques, l’analyse des correspondances entre les domaines de l’orientation spatiale, des cycles temporels et des fonctions sociales donne un nouvel accès à la complexité du système de pensée de cette culture. Les formes sémantiques décrites fournissent de nouveaux modèles pour des comparaisons. Sur cette base, les expressions de l’association arbre-savoir ont été décrites pour apporter une solution aux problèmes de l’étymologie de la lexie druid- et proposer le dépassement des approches lexicales monographiques par l’approche intertextuelle. / Within the general framework of a semiotic of cultures, this research has used the epistemological and methodological propositions of the interpretative semantic to renew the analysis of the medieval Irish texts. The aim was to make a contribution to a general question concerning the language sciences but also the historical sciences : How to set up the scientific relevance of a text interpretation and ancient signs that belongs to a different culture ? With this mind, it has been decided to aim at semantic facts which intervene in the transfer process of meaning that the rhetoric tradition name comparison, metaphor or symbol. The methodological approach has required the edition of an interlinear corpus giving a direct access to the data of the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language. The study of the lexis has compared the defining possibilities to the contextual afferences has been observed by a systematic survey of targeted isotopies.On the semantic level, the analysis of the differential processes that structures the semic molecules has enabled the possibility to observe the semes circulation that highlight the intentional analogies. On the diachronic approach, the description of the value system taken as a whole, set up the interpretation’s relevance because it’s integrating the social standards of the sign’s historical background. With regard to the Celtic studies, the analysis of correspondence between the fields of spatial orientation, the time cycle and the social functions gives a new access to the complexity of this culture’s system of thought. The described semantic patterns provide new models for comparisons. On this basis, the expressions of association tree-knowledge has been described to find a solution to etymological problems of the lexis druid- and suggest to go beyond the monographic lexical approaches by the intertextual approach.

Numerous studies examine Irish traditional music influencing old-time music, but few examine the influence of old-time on contemporary Irish. As our societies become more global, folk music travels faster and becomes more open to influence. Thes influences can be heard in the music of “Alfi” and “Lankum,” two ensembles steeped in Irish traditional music. This study defines common musical elements of old-time and examines the use of those elements in two recordings: Alfi’s, “Jubilee” and Lankum’s, “The Old Man from Over the Sea.” Much of my data comes from interviews with Irish and American musicians and my own professional knowledge, gaining a deeper understanding of the musical decisions made by members of Alfi and Lankum. This study adds to the formal literature relating to old-time and Irish traditional music. More importantly, it helps fill a gap in the literature by adding to the discussion of the dissemination of traditional music.