#Brehon Laws

[stairnaheireann]

How Young Cormac Mac Airt was Recognised as King

In ancient times, the people of Ireland were internationally renowned for their love of law and their intricate justice system. Law was the articulation of fairness and the embodiment of justice, the application of the law to real scenarios was seen as a manifestation of justice in action, an affirmation of the natural harmonising order of the cosmos. It was Sir John Davies, an Englishman who was…

[maevefinnartist]

"Needless to say, they [na Féineachas, the Brehon Laws] were not written in a foreign tongue. No foreign mind conceived them. No foreign hand enforced them. They were made by those who, one would think, ought to make them: the Irish. They were made for the benefit of those for whose benefit they ought to have been made: the Irish. Hence they were good; if not perfect in the abstract, yet good in the sense that they were obeyed and regarded as priceless treasures, not submitted to as an irksome yoke."

Laurence Ginnell, "The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook", 1894

[irelandseyeonmythology]

So I’ve been getting more into broader brehon law, not just marriage law, and is it true they had laws about how many different colors you could wear? I can’t find any sources about it but maybe I’m just not looking hard enough

That comes from one kind of famous (ish?) passage from the Annals, that reads as follows (from the O'Donovan translation):

Do I think it was something people followed? ...probably not, honestly. We don't see much reference to it elsewhere. Not to say there were NO restrictions, but it's to say that I think it's often taken 100% uncritically and you'd think we'd see more reference to it elsewhere, in the actual lawbooks, if that was the case. (Though, naturally, some of it's practical, in the sense that...would a slave be able to have more than one color? Being a slave? Very likely not.) It's the issue with all sumptuary laws, which is "to what extent were these things widely being used?"

To quote from Sparky Booker's "Moustaches, Mantles, and Saffron Shirts: What Motivated Sumptuary Law in Medieval English Ireland?": "In terms of implementation, the success of enforcement of sumptuary laws varied.11 Indeed, historians disagree about whether these laws were intended to be enforced fully, or whether they were 'primarily symbolic,' a method of 'affirm[ing] values' and even actively shaping the social world by enshrining socio-economic divisions in law."

We know that medieval Ireland had a number of colors associated with the aristocracy: purple (like with the rest of Europe) seems to be common, white, red, like in this description from the Táin (Recension 1, O'Rahilly's translation): "He held a light sharp spear which shimmered. He was wrapped in a purple, fringed mantle, with a silver brooch in the mantle over his breast. He wore a white hooded tunic with red insertion and carried outside his garments a golden-hilted sword."

Likewise, the famous description of Etáin in Togail Bruidne Da Derga (Stokes' translation):

"A mantle she had, curly and purple, a beautiful cloak, and in the mantle silvery fringes arranged, and a brooch of fairest gold. A kirtle she wore, long, hooded, hard-smooth, of green silk, with red embroidery of gold. Marvellous clasps of gold and silver in the kirtle on her breasts and her shoulders and spaulds on every side. The sun kept shining upon her, so that the glistening of the gold against the sun from the green silk was manifest to men."

For more on this, see Niamh Whitfield, "Aristocratic Display in Early Medieval Ireland in Fiction and in Fact: The Dazzling White Tunic and Purple Cloak", which she's generously put on Academia.

After the English colonization of Ireland, you have new sumptuary laws being put into place -- Booker discusses the earliest case we have, from 1297, when a hairstyle known as the "cúlán" was banned for Englishmen, with the enactment complaining that the Englishmen were taking it up to such an extent that they were getting killed after being mistaken for Irishmen. (I feel like there is a solution to this that does not involve banning the hairstyle, let me think...)

You had similar fines being imposed on saffron sleeves or kerchiefs for women, or wearing a mantle in general for men, as of 1466 in Dublin -- these aren't as a matter of maintaining social class so much as preserving a distinction between the English and the Irish (what's interesting, of course, is that the English had to have been adopting these fashions to some extent for the law to be needed.) And we see them routinely going back to this aversion towards saffron colors, since it was associated extensively with Ireland and Irishness, and a particularly high value one at that.

So: Eochaidh Eadghaghach -- that section in the annals provides the quote that says that this is a thing that happened -- I leave it to you to decide whether it was ever practiced or even in place in the first place. I think it might have, if only as a societal ideal, but I'm incredibly doubtful. We know that colors often ARE used as a way of marking social standing in the literature, but I don't think it was as regimented as that quote suggests. Sumptuary laws ARE better recorded in a post-Norman invasion context, usually (though not ALWAYS) as a means of marking out the Irish from the English populations (even though we know, both from this and other evidence, that these lines weren't always as firm as the authorities might have liked.)

I know that Kelly also goes into a lot of details re: colors and dyes in his "Early Irish Farming" -- if you're looking to get into the world of day to day life in Ireland, there isn't a better source.

[gohard-or-gohomo]

Why has my planning for a fun lesbian detective story turned into researching brehon law. WHAT IS HAPPENING!!!!

[dougielombax]

What?

No.

No you CANNOT use Brehon Law as the basis for a new Irish legal system or constitution!

Away with that shite!

Medieval drivel!

For fuck’s sake.

[ranticore]

every so often i do get people asking for books recommendations for getting into irish mythology (just answered an ask privately about it.. at length) and this one deserves to be in a public post but seriously read The Táin (translated by Thomas Kinsella). This is THE best book and best translation. it's a fascinating look into life under Brehon Law, especially where female characters are concerned - i'm not saying it's not sexist but it's not the sexism you expect from a prechristian story put to writing by monks in the middle ages. this is why you need the Kinsella translation, earlier Victorian translations heavily censored 'unseemly' topics, like expressions of womens' sexual desire (which is almost constant in this book i'm ngl the girls are getting it. cúchulainn's wife emer refuses to marry him until he kills 900 men for her and of course our hero kills 900 men for her what is he, a bad husband??)

but also it's just a good story and extremely funny. it's something a lot of recommendations never really express - it is a story with a sense of humour and you will laugh. it's designed to entertain people around a fire during black winter nights.

it's a written version of the Ulster Cycle, a series of intertwined stories about our best boy Cúchulainn becoming the sole defender of Ulster after all the other men are cursed to experience debilitating period cramps by Macha. He has to defend Ulster because the queen of Connacht is coming to steal a bull belonging to them, and she's doing that because she got in a fight with her consort* over who's the richest and found that their wealth was exactly equal aside from him having a nicer bull. so she goes to war to get her own awesome bull.

best book ever. read it

[dduane]

I've been enjoying the recent Middle Kingdoms works, and was especially taken by the ritual hospitality in "The Landlady". It seemed reminiscent of traditional Irish phrases I've encountered translated into English. If there any influence? To what degree has Ireland leaked into your understanding of the Middle Kingdoms and their cultures?

Re: the Irish influence: there's occasionally some effect on casual idiomatic usages in characters' general conversation, yes. In fact, while doing some editing work on TOTF3: The Librarian just a day or three ago, I caught Freelorn's edgy friend-who-killed-him-that-one-time, Sem, using phrases that unquestionably were not just Irish-originated, but Ulster-originated. :) (And plainly this is @petermorwood's fault. But since the character seems comfortable with the usage, and from where I'm sitting it sounds right for him, I'm not going to mess with it.)

As regards Irish influence on the Kingdoms' formal hospitality-language and culture, though, I'm not seeing much evidence of that. Not that I haven't done a fair amount of reading about Brehon law and other adjacent matters over time as a matter of casual research. But none of that seems to be reflected in any of the notes I made on the Kingdoms' cultures while developing them.

The connection I am pretty sure of is to translations of stock epithets and phrases (and the presence of various general concepts and actions) associated with the practice of formal xenia in ancient Greece, particularly as described in the Odyssey.

In particular, the Kingdoms' worldview seems to share a core concept with the ancient Greek one as regards xenia. This is the idea that personified Deity is walking around in the world, making itself responsible for the protection of people who call on others' hospitality. Both cultures have the idea that people's behavior may be tested by the gods—or God(dess)—to see how well they're obeying the rules set out regarding the welcome properly due to strangers and those in need.*

In the Kingdoms, the concept has had what seemed to me like a more or less logical expansion into the relationship between the heads of organized Houses—what we could equate with local familial lordships, though the actuality in the Realms is a lot less patriarchially hierarchical and more complex—and the people who come to hold land of/from the Houses' heads.

So it made sense to me that there would be basic gestures and phrases that express agreement to various aspects of the contract between a House's head and their holders. Since both writing and literacy died off during that alternate Earth's domination by the Dark, and had to be revived and relearned after its destruction, this contract was for a long time always verbal. Over the centuries, ritualized concrete practices—the exchange of bread and water between Holders and head of House, for example—grew up alongside the spoken content to make it plain that everybody understood the nature and intention of the contract. These, too, I derived from material in the Odyssey and other works of that period: situations, for example, where simply eating something that someone else has given you is itself confirmation that the contract between host and guest is in place and working.

Anyway: thanks for the question. Hope this helps!

*But then readers of the MK books will of course recognize this as the kind of thing the Goddess already does in Her world—not being one of those lurking-and-skulking sorts of deity who leaves you wondering all your life about whether they're real or not. Her basic contract with Her creation already contains the concept that everybody gets to meet Her personally at least once; and—either in Her proper person, or in the form of other people—sometimes more than once. Because yeah, She's busy... but what's the point of being a deity if you don't have the time to sit down with your creation for drinks every now and then...?

[moiraimyths]

Where would the line of succession go if Aífe/Flannán didn't have an heir? What are the succession laws for the other world?

This is a little situational! At the moment, if Flannán were to die suddenly, it is quite possible the "Unseelie" as a distinct nation state would quickly cease to be, as they would be vulnerable to the Seelie swooping in to reclaim the lost territory while they have the opportunity to do so. That said! In terms of the technical process of selecting a new monarch, it may surprise you to learn it would come down to a vote! Not from the "common" people, mind you, but among the regional lords of the Seelie/Unseelie sides. Eligible persons for the throne would make their cases for why they ought to rule instead, and the candidate with the most support would be the next monarch. Typically candidates consisted of other lords who could claim shared ancestry with the previous monarch, but in the Unseelie's case, since both Lugaid and Flannán were common born and their ancestries were not tracked, the election would be dubiously open to all lords, or close confidants like Maeve who command the people's respect. This is how Aífe became queen, actually! Of course, the fact she was chosen by Lia Fáil (the ancient coronation stone) also helped her case.

If you're wondering, this system does have a basis in Brehon law (ancient Irish law), specifically under a system called tanistry. The Tuatha Dé's current system is not quite the same as the historic system, though: After the Tuatha Dé were defeated by the Milesians, many of the ancient laws were revisited/revised to encourage stability (submission to a central state power) and thereby clamp down on territory grabs, cattle raids, etc. between lords (or, then, petty kings). In any case, one change to the law was establishing a line of succession based on age and the familial relation, with direct descendants preferred over brothers or sisters, etc. Voting in a new monarch is now more or less a "final resort".

[athingofvikings]

A Thing Of Vikings Chapter 67: Kill With A Borrowed Knife

Chapter 67: Kill With A Borrowed Knife

Prior to the Imperial Assembly Of Law, the North Sea Empire's legal system was a patchwork of numerous local codes, ordinances, and jurisdictions, in multiple languages, and with numerous cultural and religious outlooks.  The purpose of the Assembly was to create a pan-imperial legal code that was acceptable to all peoples of the Empire, and, as with all compromises, it generally succeeded at making everyone equally unhappy, even as they recognized the validity of the compromises.  Religious law was left in the hands of the specific faiths, making the code officially secular, which pleased no one and yet satisfied everyone.  Other elements were picked from the component legal codes, including Eirish Brehon, Jewish Talmudic, Eastern Norse, Berkian Norse, Islamic Fiqh, Anglo-Saxon Common, and others, into a reasonably cohesive whole…

… the complex methods of Hooligan title inheritance, after some refinement, became the method by which titular inheritance was managed in the early and middle eras of the Empire, as the Hooligans already had influences from the Brehon, Alban, and Norse legal codes.  Pre-Assembly Hooligan title inheritance was a complex mix of elements from all of these sources, an intricate system that can be described as Absolute Primogeniture mixed with Gaelic Tanistry and Norse Elective Monarchy. 

Before the later refinements were introduced, the system worked as follows: Upon the death or incapacitation of the previous title-holder, the designated heir simply assumed the title (absent legal objections from their new subjects or suspicious circumstances), allowing for a smooth transition of power in most circumstances.  The main conflict came with selecting the next designated heir.  Heirdom was an elected position in Hooligan law, in line with Gaelic Tanistry, based on suitability and worthiness.  Heirs, at the time of selection, had to be adults without physical or mental blemish, descended either from the current or a prior title-holder, and currently a member of the clan that they would be inheriting (Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III's selection at the age of seven years was an anomaly, initiated by his father Stoick to reinforce his statement that he would not remarry as a result of his wife's legal death). 

Beyond those qualifications, the prospective clan-heir needed to be voted into the position by a majority of the individuals over whom they would rule (typically the members of the clan), with the precise degree of the majority needed depending on the heir's relationship with the current title-holder; a child of the title-holder's spouse needed a simple majority, while the child of a concubine needed six-tenths, and more distant relations needed greater pluralities.  Furthermore, the elections were handled in rounds; first the spouse's children would be voted on, one at a time in order of birth, and only if none of them were selected as the clan-heir in two rounds of voting would the elections move to include the concubine's children, and even then, only with the explicit acceptance of the title-holder.  From there, if the voting still did not find a suitable candidate, the pool would be expanded to more distant relations, with each voted on in turn until an acceptable candidate was found. 

While this system functioned well enough for the Hooligan tribe when it was a thousand people or less, it quickly ran into scaling problems as the clans grew, causing fractures to grow, necessitating the various refinements …

—Origins Of The Grand Thing, Edinburgh Press, 1631

AO3 Chapter Link

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[jinxedwood]

Also, weird things I discovered while researching for my nanowrimo book.

Medieval Ireland was obsessed with bees and honey. So much so, there was an entire section added to the Brehon Laws, called Bechbretha (trans: bee judgements) So far, so good - interesting but not exactly astounding info. The Brehon Laws were extremely comprehensive, and covered everything from how and when to cut down a tree to the proper way to enter a mill. (Go and have a read - there are quite a few extracts to be found online - three different kinds of marriages, peoples, and ten different kinds of 'unions')

But the bit that took me by surprise was that Ireland didn't have bees before the 3rd century! They were an import! WTF? Apparently, sometime between the 3rd and 6th century someone (probably monks) imported them into the country but before then we were beeless.

No honey in ireland.

No mead.

How could I have not known this?

[stairnaheireann]

Ruins of the O’Davoren Law School | Cahermacnaghten, Co Clare

The Ó Duibhdábhoireann (O’Davoren) family were scholarly clan of Corcomroe, Thomond (modern-day Co Clare), active since medieval times. Famed for their sponsorship of schools and knowledge of history and Early Irish law, the Uí Dhuibh dá Bhoireann were known throughout Ireland as a literary family and held estates in the Burren down to the mid seventeenth century at the time of the Cromwellian…

[maevefinnartist]

another interesting bit from "The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook" by Laurence Ginnell, 1894

"Bees and honey are so frequently mentioned in the laws that the editors remark that from the Brehon Laws alone a code on the subject of bees might easily be gathered. A curious code it would be too. An owner of bees was obliged to distribute every third year a portion of his honey off among his neighbors, because the bees had gathered the honey off the neighbors' lands."

[cupfulofspiders]

medieval laws around marriage and divorce are sort of wild because obviously back then marriage was primarily about producing an heir, so in many parts of feudal europe it was possible for a woman to divorce her husband if she could prove he was infertile or bad at sex, or failed to perform his husbandly duties of providing for her. but brehon law goes way further and has a long list of reasons. some of these are infertile, bad at sex, can't provide, abusive, publicly mocks his wife, etc, but some are like:

too boring

too fat

gay

tricked into marriage by sorcery

[irish-dress-history]

Figures from John Speed's map 'The Kingdome of Irland' [sic], created circa 1610. The various color versions published of these images were probably colorized by someone who had never been to Ireland and are not necessarily accurate.

Note: ‘Civil’ and ‘Wilde’ ARE NOT descriptions of socioeconomic status or social class. This is a modern misunderstanding I have seen repeated a lot. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they were indicators of acculturation level. The ‘Civil’ Irish were Anglicized. They spoke English; they wore English clothing styles; they followed British laws. The ‘Wilde’ Irish still kept Gaelic Irish customs. They spoke Irish; they wore Gaelic Irish clothing; they followed Brehon law. Of course, as these prints show, the ‘Civil’ Irish and even the Anglo-Irish gentry wore some Gaelic Irish clothing in the early 17th century.

The gentleman, the gentlewoman, and the ‘civill’ man are all wearing elements of early 17th c English fashion including their doublets, their standing collars (the men) or ruff (the woman), and their felt hats (the men). The men have English-style beards and haircuts. The gentlewoman has her hair done up and decorated in English style. The men are probably wearing English-style breeches, but these are hidden by their mantles.

The gentleman, the ‘civill’ man, and the ‘civill’ woman are all probably wearing a kind of bróg or Irish shoe now know as a Lucas type 5. These bróga differed from similar English styles in that they had flat soles and were held together with a leather thong rather than thread or nails. This kind of bróg was worn in Ireland into the 19th century.

The ‘civill’ woman wears a linen wimple on her head. During the 16th century, coifs and hoods replaced wimples in English fashion, but Irish women continued to wear them.

The ‘wilde’ man and woman are both bareheaded with free-flowing hair. A 17th century English woman would never leave her house this way, but it was common in parts of Ireland. The man has long bangs known as gilbs. This hairstyle was popular in 16th century Ireland and banned under British colonial rule. The ‘wilde’ man’s lack of beard is also Irish fashion.

The ‘wilde’ man is wearing tight-fitting trúis on his legs. The groin piece being made of a different fabric is something seen on extant trúis of the Killery bog outfit. He is possibly wearing knee-high leather boots. Similar boots are shown in some 16th century costume book illustrations. The shagginess at the top might indicate that they are made of rawhide with the hair still on.

Finally, all 6 of them wear an Irish brat. These illustrations show that the brat came in a variety of lengths and materials. The thick shaggy border on the bratanna of the gentry, the ‘wilde’ woman and the ‘civill’ man is probably pile-woven wool. The ‘civill’ woman and the ‘wilde’ man have fringed edges on their bratanna.

Bibliography:

Arnold, Janet, Tiramani, J., & Levey, S. (2008). Patterns of Fashion 4. Macmillan, London.  

Arnold, Janet (1985). Patterns of Fashion 3. Macmillan, London.

Dunlevy, Mairead (1989). Dress in Ireland. B. T. Batsford LTD, London.

Lucas, A. T. (1956). Footwear in Ireland. Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, 13(4), 309-394. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27728900

McClintock, H. F. (1943). Old Irish and Highland Dress. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk.

[margridarnauds]

top five characters/moments/things from irish mythology you wish had more pop culture traction?

Thank you! 

One thing I’m going to say, off the bat, is that I know that my idea of what has pop culture traction is going to be very different than what the general public sees -- When you spend a solid chunk of your life looking....and looking...and looking at pop culture retellings, that’s pretty much all you see, but I’m aware that what might be relatively common in depictions of this stuff might still be relatively obscure to the general public. (Especially if it’s not, say, banshees, selkies, or, God help us all, leprechauns. Even though those are all folklore, I know I’m never going to win that fight.)

1. The Tuatha Dé being dicks in general. Like, with all respect to the Professor, he did possibly the worst possible thing to Irish material (and that’s including when he dissed “Celtic materials” as being like shattered stained glass) that he could have done by sheer accident when he created Lord of the Rings. Because, since that series was published, every single low quality fantasy writer has been trying to shove the Tuatha Dé into Tolkien’s elves (and a specifically bowdlerized version of them.) And the TD are...they’re fascinating to me. I love them very dearly, I’ve been going back to them for years because they’re this group of superhumans who are also petty and spiteful and sometimes rigid in upholding distinctions. They haven’t always forgiven the Milesians for taking Ireland from them, they will do everything they possibly can to screw people over, they are sometimes only loosely tolerant of the mortals (and, on Samhain, for example, they sometimes lose even that loose tolerance.) 

Like, I want the Tuatha Dé to be complicated and hypocritical and petty and spiteful while also being capable of being the best of humanity as well while ALSO being distinctly Off. I want Lovecraftian Tuatha Dé who are always just beneath the surface, I want comic relief Tuatha Dé who are still in denial over having lost Ireland and refuse to adapt to the modern world at any cost to truly ridiculous standards, I want the Tuatha Dé to be a big, high stakes family drama/reality show/soap opera with the entirety of Ireland having to deal with the fallout, I want tragic Tuatha Dé who are these kind of living artifacts in a world that’s more or less outgrown them. (I am obviously aware that they have modern worshippers -- I am saying that the TDD are drama queens and will still be mopey after having lost the entire island. Unless you have Brehon law actively being around still, they are still going to be mopey.)

2. Related to that, bruighean tales. This is not a term you hear very often outside of Celticist circles, and part of the reason for that is that these tales often haven’t been translated yet into English (though some of them have been translated from modern Irish), even though they had a wide currency in the folk tradition. What these are is, essentially...a story in which the Fianna are tricked by the Tuatha Dé to go into a magical fort, where the Tuatha Dé proceed to attack them throughout the night with a series of spells, illusions, and the odd monster or two. (The most famous of these is probably Laoi na Con Duibhe -- The Lay of the Black Dog.) Like, I feel like there’s a lot that a modern audience could appreciate about this, from the perspective of horror and the gothic. I think you could do a lot with the claustrophobia and the tension of it, with this group of legendary heroes possibly, for the very first time, being in over their head. 

3. The Fir Bolg! It is so ridiculously easy for these guys to get adapted out of depictions of the battle between the Fomoire and the Tuatha Dé, but they’re so important! (Also, more Fir Bolg who are accurate to how they’re presented in Lebor Gabála Érenn -- so many pop culture references, when we do get them, have so much....uncomfortable baggage. Like, I don’t want to say too much because there are some papers coming out on this, and it’s like...I don’t know how much I can say, but it’s just...please can we toss away the idea of them somehow being these primal “primitive” people who are associated with the earth? Can’t we let them be competent and clever and strong settlers of Ireland who established the kingship?) Especially my boy Sreng who is quietly one of the single most fascinating and complex characters in the entirety of the medieval and early modern Irish literary tradition. 

4. I firmly believe that we have never gotten enough Bres as a character, which is a little shocking when you consider how important he is to the Tuatha Dé -- so many central figures are related to him (the Morrígan is his aunt), he has a fairly interesting arc in Cath Maige Tuired (which is just a text that...I can never have enough adaptations of), and he gets a relatively large number of appearances across medieval and early modern Ireland. And, like with the TD, I’d really like to see him be done....well. Like, don’t settle for “he’s evil because he’s evil”; I want to see him get a large amount of interiority, I want to see him be complex, I want the audience to sympathize with him even as they realize that if he succeeds...it all goes down. Authors almost seem...intimidated by him, and I think part of it’s that heroes like Lugh are easy, especially when you remove the inconvenient little bits about them that might make them unpalatable. Villains like Bres, though...it’s like they’re having to hold up a mirror. We want to be like Lugh, we want to be that kind of superhuman, hypercompetent master of all crafts who is beloved and is able to conquer all the enemy. In reality, though, I feel like Bres is more...realistic. More human. And that’s why people struggle with him in adaptations, whether they excise him entirely or make him a caricature of himself. People don’t want the reminder of their own flaws.  (Also I believe that he should kiss men.) 

(On the mouth.)

(With both parties consenting to it.) 

5. Relating to #2, I feel like there’s a thick pseudo-Gothic (pre-Gothic?) vein in a lot of the Irish material that could be a lot of fun to work with. @effervescentdragon once compared Crimson Peak to Togail Briudne Dá Derga, I personally love the incident with the dead men and the Morrígan from the Boyhood Deeds of Cú Chulainn, I was recently rereading the plot summary of the short story “Don’t Wake the Dead” and was reminded of the story of Sín in Aided Muirchertaig meic Erca, the Dead Man in Echtra Nerai, this one description of a bruighean tale...I think it was Eochaid Bhig Dearg, where every single one of the Tuatha Dé is described as having a smile on their faces as they surround the fort....waiting....while the Fianna can only look on in horror and dread whatever nightmares they summon next...Medieval Irish material is often likened to fantasy and, for what it’s worth, I do understand it, especially since all the great fantasy writers were very well in-tune with world mythology and Irish is an Indo European literary tradition (albeit one that, as of the time of it being written down, had intertwined itself tightly with Christianity.) Still, I would really like to see more of that Gothic element being teased out, because a lot of my roots are in the gothic tradition and I would love to combine my two favorite things.  

In general, I suppose my tl;dr is that I would like, in general, for more nuance, more complexity, I’d like more writers to have fun with the material and to think outside the box that this stuff gets put into, I’d like to see less bowdlerization, less need to apply a Nationalistic brush to these things that hasn’t really been necessary since the 1930s. (Also, give me more Cath Maige Tuired adaptations.)

 It’s funny a lot of the time, when I see, say, arguments about Arthuriana or Greek Mythological adaptations where people will be saying “I HATE when adaptations--” and I’m just kind of in this perpetual state of “What do you mean ‘adaptations?’ Y’all get your favorite works adapted more than one time?” Don’t get me wrong, I can sympathize with seeing your favorite material butchered, but I’ve had to read a LOT of really bad self published novels, Wattpad fiction, and MySpace RPGs from back in the day in order to get *anything* for my favorite characters. And if I was ever really, deeply personally offended by seeing my favorite characters done badly....I think I’d have gone insane at this point. I think people often expect me to be very strict but the truth is that I’ve never had the luxury of being very strict. Our most accurate representation of the material thus far’s been an animated film where the day is partially saved by a spirit cat attacking a Viking warlord. Our second most accurate representation’s been Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, where there’s an evil cult of human-sacrificing druids in 9th century Ireland that ends up spurring an Irish Inquisition and the 50 foot tall Lia Fáil, which is an alien artifact, exploding into smithereens. And I think that it’s fascinating to see what the public is really interested in and what authors and creatives are putting into their stuff VS the material as we understand it. So, a part of me’s a little sad all the time, but a part of me’s also always interested in seeing how these trends play out. 

But, anyway, I hope this answers the question! Thank you again for the ask! 

[speed-metal-punk]

Finished reading Armed Joy a bit ago and it was an amazing read. Infused a lot of much needed hope back into me. Not sure what to read next, probably gonna have another go at The Brehon Laws