G'Day, just thought I'd drop in on this discussion....
From my reading, the Celtic (pre-Middle Ages) Irish tales had been kept
ORALLY up until the time of the Venerable Bede (700s AD), who was one of the
first known to write them down in England. that oral tradition is why it
took a couple of decades to make a filidh.
Irish monks started committing the old tales to writing in the sixth century
AD (time of Bede onwards) according to Dr Patricia King (Celtic Scholar).
Those Irish monks were for some centuries some of Europe's leading scholars
& record keepers.
--- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Weller" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, June 13, 2005 1:21 AM
Subject: Re: Pre-Medieval Irish Literature
> Hi CELTIC-L,
> Sunday, June 12, 2005, 3:41:07 PM, you wrote:
> F> At 15:29 12/06/2005, Doug Weller wrote:
>>> Can someone help me with this assertion that a person on another list
>>> has made? "the documentation isn't ONLY Medieval. That every Scholar
>>> of History who studied the subject Irish Tales knows more than
>>> anything else. Some is Medieval but many of them are written from
>>> older written sources. It's as if the Irish didn't know how to write
>>> before the Medieval Age started. Some documentation is from Migration
>>> Pre-medieval (by which I mean early Medieval) written sources? What
>>> are these?
> F> Can you put a date on "pre-medieval" / "early medieval"?
> F> Youe correspondent may be thinking of early Ogham inscriptions,
> Gaullish or
> F> other continental sources, or maybe just fantasising about super-secret
> F> druidic lore secretly preserved by poets.
> I'd say she means pre-6th century.
> Doug Weller Moderator, sci.archaeology.moderated
> Submissions to:[log in to unmask]
> Doug and Helen's Dogs: http://www.dougandhelen.com
> Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk