Northern Lights: Following Folklore in North-Western Europe. Aisti in adhno Bho Almqvist/Essays in honour of Bo Almqvist. - book review

Edited by Seamas O Cathain. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2001. 352 pp. 34.95 [pounds sterling] (hbk). ISBN 1-900621-63-0

This fine collection consists of twenty-eight essays by students and colleagues to honour Bo Almqvist, who recently retired as Professor of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin. Like Almqvist's own publications (those since 1991 are listed at the end of the collection; earlier ones in his volume Viking Ale published in 1991), the scope of the contributions embraces the whole of the European North Atlantic region, and materials from medieval times to the present. It is no surprise that a goodly number of the essays concern themselves with "unravelling the relationships between Gaelic and Nordic literature and folk tradition" (p. xiv)--but the topics also include material culture; regional studies in custom, belief and worldview; proverbs; fieldwork methodology in Ireland; song performance; regional legend and international tales. Taken together, they present a lively, progressive and varied picture of the contemporary state of folklore studies in North-Western Europe.

Parallels between the Old Norse story of the Battle of Clontarf, featuring the death of Brian Boru, and the medieval Irish text Cath Maige Tured, are examined by Michael Chesnutt, who draws attention to the presence of the legend of the Everlasting Fight in both traditions. Citing the association of the Fomorians with the Vikings in the academic literature, as well as earlier work by John Carey and Proinsias Mac Cana, Chesnutt argues that the Irish story, albeit in a "mythopoeic" form, also incorporates an account of the decisive battle, thereby partially compromising the mythological view so beloved by comparativists. Similar Irish-Norse comparisons, this time in the realm of dreams as described in literary sources, are explored by Hilda Ellis Davidson. Her primary emphasis is on Old Norse traditions, where "insight dreams" often foretell events; in contrast, foreknowledge in Old Irish sources most often arises through waking visions. She notes, however, the parallel that in both literatures a dream can foretell the illustrious future of an unborn child. Hermann Palsson's examination of the Icelandic "The Blood-Brothers Tale," preserved in the Landnamabok (possibly twelfth century), brings to light further contacts with Ireland. His suggestion that the account of the shining sword taken from Ireland by Hjorleifr (along with similar swords in Icelandic stories) is probably the claidheamh solais borrowed from Irish storytelling is supported in the article by reference to a parallel episode from Heidreks saga. Scottish-Icelandic contacts are central to Jon Hnefill Adalsteinsson's thesis concerning Christian immigrants and their involvement in magic ritual in saga literature. On the basis of an examination of various Icelandic sources, he proposes that the term vardlokkur, referring to a variety of poem/song performed during the seidr ceremony described in Eriks saga rauda, is "most likely a distorted version of the Scottish word 'warlock,' in the sense of a magical poem." Seamas O Cathain, citing earlier work by Almqvist, discusses the vikivaki, a "dance or play-gathering" acted out at major annual festivals in Iceland, and its relation to the Irish hobby-horse (Lair Bhan) associated with calendar festivals. The story behind the well-known epitaph "Between the stirrup and the ground/He mercy sought and mercy found" is examined in depth by Bengt af Klintberg, who unearths nine Scandinavian religious variants and concludes that the "legend must be of Catholic origin." Interestingly, the recent discovery of a variant among Catholic Gaelic-speakers of West Highland origin in Nova Scotia lends support to his thesis. The parallels drawn by Rory McTurk between the Acallamh na Senorach, from the medieval Irish Finn cycle, and Snorri Sturluson's Edda are not based on shared genetic origins or cultural contact, but on "analogies." In his exploration of these "resemblances in style, structure, mood or idea between works which have no other connection," the author compares the use of framed narrative in both works, noting that each also incorporates multiple levels of narrative. In thematic terms, moreover, both works attempt to reconcile Christian and pre-Christian themes. Anne O'Connor compares dead child revenant traditions in Scandinavia with Irish beliefs concerning leanai gun bhaisteadh ("unbaptised children"), although she makes it clear that the question of Norse-Celtic contacts in this case is still unresolved. She notes in her conclusion that the Irish materials, which have parallels on the Continent, continue as active traditions in emigrant communities in North America.

International tales, in variants found in Ireland and elsewhere, are the subject of studies by two Irish scholars. Padraig O Healai examines Irish variants of a subtype of AT 750 "The Wishes" for what they can reveal concerning the history and distribution of the story, which is widespread in Europe. AT 1186 "With His Whole Heart" is also recorded in numerous Irish variants, as well as being found in Chaucer s "Friar's Tale." Some twenty-five years after her initial study, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne-Almqvist returns to examine the tale in order to gain perspective on Chaucer's version, and to determine what comparisons can tell us about literary and narrative creativity. Further consideration of variants and the "function meaning, message" of a tale, as well as the narrators' orientations, is the focus of Barbara Hillers's study of Oidhche Rionnagach, Reulagach "A Starry, Starry Night," an "anecdote" unknown outside of Scotland. Turning to Icelandic narrative, Terry Gunnell compares migratory legends of the Black Death, which entered the country twice during the fifteenth century, with their foreign counterparts in order to identify specific national characteristics of this group and the light they shed on the Icelanders' folk belief and world view.