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Introduction / The Sacred Sword / The Sacred Spear / The Cauldron / The Lia Fail
 e owe a great deal to those scholars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who collected and translated the numerous Gaelic texts that now grace our major libraries in English form. The names of O'Flaherty, MacAlister, Thurneyson, Meyer, Dineen, Quinn, Gwynn are just a few that echo through the academic halls for their singular works and their imposing results.
Relatively few in number, they were in essence a closed society. The major markets for their books were like-minded academics who, for either philosophical or ethnic reasons, revered the ancient Irish and their mythology. It is to our advantage that they banded together in such groups as "The Irish Texts Society" and the "Royal Irish Academy." Thereby supporting and encouraging each other and gradually developing a remarkable number of documents which provide the non-Irish student an English translation of the here-to-for inscrutable Irish lore. For some, it was the culminating event of life. For example after many years of labor, R. A. S. Macalister brought the first volume of Lebor Gabála Érenn to printing in 1938. Subsequent years passed as he brought volumes II through IV to completion. Then in 1950, while still determinedly laboring on volume V, he passed and six more years lapsed before a successor could finish that final manuscript. Not to be overlooked is the magnificent work of the Reverend Dr. Patrick S. Dineen who began editorship of Foclóir Gaedilge agus Béarla (Irish-English Dictionary in 1906. Years of study, labor and heartbreak ensued. A fire at the Dublin publisher in 1916 destroyed the completed manuscript and already prepared printing plates. With only his notes, Dr. Dineen went doggedly back to work in preparing a newer, better and larger version. The first edition had 820 pages. In the second edition, the pages were enlarged so that the new pages equaled about 1 3/5 pages of the old. A major problem was lack of funding. This was partially alleviated in 1924 by a gift of the Irish Government of one thousand pounds. Finally in 1927, 21 years after its beginning, the dictionary was finally published. Yet as vigorous and diligent as the scholars of the past were, as much as we owe them, we must never forget that they are all too human. We must remember that they were the products of conservative European universities, long dominated by Christian dogma. As a consequence, non-Christian philosophy was often ignored or misunderstood. Additionally, earlier scholars seemed to overlook the subtleties of ancient analogy. Couple that with the tendency to build a study on the pioneering work of predecessors and errors become compounded. Regardless of religious mindset, the study of Irish etymology is like a minefield. It has numerous hazards and traps. First there were wide variations in spelling between provinces and sometimes even within a province. It took a legislative act of the Dail Erenn, in 1949, to bring some order to the chaos of spelling. Further, the available early texts often-times copied much older fading and hard to read documents written in much earlier, often obscure language styles. Therefor we find considerable questionable translation into English of old Irish texts in modern works. In this, our story of the Four Sacred Symbols is typical. While I am no Etymologist, I do have some understanding of the ancient philosophy. Further, I can generally recognize analogy. Additionally, I am sensitive to the spirituality of my forebears. Finally, I have a considerable collection of the works done by students of the language. Consequently, I feel better qualified to interpret the thought behind the words. In this study we will take the reference to each of the Sacred Symbols individually. We will examine the source and look at the "scholarly" translation. Then we will investigate the Irish text, word by word. Finally, we will reconstruct a translation into contemporary English that will bring us much closer to the truth. |
