CELT document T303027

Comrac Liadaine ocus Cuirithir

Unknown author

English translation

Edited by Kuno Meyer

Whole text

 p.13

Liadain and Curithir

Liadain of the Corco Dubne, a poetess, went visiting into the country of Connaught. There Cuirithir, Otter's son, of Connaught, himself a poet, made an ale-feast for her.

“Why should not we two unite, Liadain?” saith Cuirithir. “A son of us two would be famous.”

“Do not let us do so”, saith she, “lest my round of visiting be ruined for me. If you will come for me again at my home, I shall go with you.”

That fell so. Southward he went, and a single gillie behind him with his poet's cloak in a bag upon his back, while Cuirithir himself was in a poor cloak. And there were spearheads in the bag also. He went till he was at the well beside Liadain's court. There he took his crimson cloak about him, and the heads were put upon their shafts, and he stood brandishing them.

Then he saw Mac Da Cherda, coming towards him, a fool, the son of Maelochtraig, son of Dinertach, of the Dessi of Munster. He would go dryshod across sea and land alike. Chief poet he was and the fool of all Ireland.

He went up to Cuirithir. “Well met!”, said Mac Da Cherda.

 p.15

“So be it!” said Curithir. “Are you the owner of the court?” “Not I”, said Curithir; “whence are you yourself?” “I am the poor fool of the Dessi, Mac Da Cherda is my name.”

“We have heard of you”, said Curithir. “Will you go into the court?.”

“I will”, said he. “Do me a favour”, said Curithir. “The tall woman who is there, tell her, using your own wits, to come to this well.” “What is your name?” “Liadain.” “What is yours?” “Curithir Otter's son.” “Right!” quoth he. He goes into the house. She was there in her bed-room with four other women. Down he sat, but no notice was taken of him. 'Twas then he said:

  1. The mansion
    Which the pillars support—
    If any there be who have made a tryst,
    The behest for them is till sunset.
  2. It were timely one should visit thee,
    O well which art before the house,
    Around it larks
    Fair, hesitating (?), take flight.
  3.  p.17
  4. Darkness is on my eyes,
    I make nothing of indications,
    So that I call Liadain (the Grey Lady)
    Every woman whom I do not know.
  5. O woman with the firm foot,
    Thy like for great fame I have not found:
    Under nun's veil will not be known
    A woman with more sense.
  6. The son of the beast
    That stays at night under pools,
    As he waits for you,
    Pale-grey feet with points support him.

It is after this she went with Curithir, and they put themselves under the spiritual direction of Cummine the Tall, the son of Fiachna.

“Good”, said Cummine. “It is many of my morsels that are offered up. The power of soul-friendship be upon you! Whether for you shall it be seeing, or talking together?”

“Talking for us!” said Curithir. “What will come of it will be better. We have ever been looking at each other.”

So whenever he went around the grave-stones of the saints, her cell was closed upon her. In the same way his would be closed upon him whenever she went. 'Tis then she said:

    [Líadan]
  1. Curithir, once the poet,
    I loved; the profit has not reached me:
    Dear lord of two grey feet,
    It will be alas to be without their company for ever!
  2.  p.19
  3. The flagstone to the south of the oratory
    Upon which is he who was poet once,
    It is there I often go each day,
    At eve after the triumph of prayer.
  4. He shall have neither cow
    Nor yearlings nor heifers,
    Never a mate shall be
    At the right hand of him who once was a poet.
  5. Curithir says:
  6. Beloved is the dear voice that I hear,
    I dare not welcome it!
    But this only do I say:
    Beloved is this dear voice!
  7. Says the woman:
  8. The voice which comes to me through the wattled wall,
    It is right for it to blame me:
    What the voice does to me, is
    It will not let me sleep.
[She expostulates with Cummine and exculpates herself.]
  1. Thou man, ill it is what thou dost,
    To name me with Curithir:
    He from the brink of Lough Seng,
    I from Kil-Conchinn.

 p.21

“Sleep by each other to-night!” said Cummine, “And let a little scholar go between you lest you do any folly.”

It was then Curithir said:

  1. If it is one night you say
    I am to sleep with Liadain,
    A layman who would sleep the night
    Would make much of it that he had not bought it.

It was then Liadain said:

  1. If it is one night you say
    I am to sleep with Curithir,
    Though a year we gave to it,
    There would be converse between us.

They sleep by each other that night. On the morrow the little boy is brought to Cummine to be examined on soul and conscience.

“You must not conceal anything”, said Cummine; “I shall kill you if you do,”

It is indifferent to him whether he dies:— “I shall kill you if you confess.”

After that Curithir was taken to another church. It was then he said:

  1. Of late
    Since I parted from Liadain,
    Long as a month every day,
    Long as a year every month.
  2.  p.23
    Liadain says:
  3. If Curithir to-day
    Is gone to the scholars,
    Alas for the sense he will make
    To any who do not know!
  4. Cummine says:
  5. What you say is not well,
    Liadain, wife of Curithir.
    Curithir was here, he was not mad,
    Any more than before he came.
[Liadain repudiates the term 'wife'.]
  1. That Friday
    It was no camping on pastures of honey,
    Upon the fleeces of my white couch
    Between the arms of Curithir.

He however went on a pilgrimage until he came to Kil-Letrech in the land of the Dessi. She went seeking him and said:

  1. Joyless
    The bargain I have made!
    The heart of him I loved I wrung.
  2. 'Twas madness
    Not to do his pleasure,
    Were there not the fear of the King of Heaven.
  3.  p.25
  4. To him the way he has wished
    Was great gain,
    To go past the pains of Hell into Paradise.
  5. 'Twas a trifle
    That wrung Curithir's heart against me:
    To him great was my gentleness.
  6. I am Liadain
    Who loved Curithir:
    It is true as they say.
  7. A short while I was
    In the company of Curithir:
    Sweet was my intimacy with him.
  8. The music of the forest
    Would sing to me when with Curithir,
    Together with the voice of the purple sea.
  9. Would that
    Nothing whatever of all I might do
    Should wring the heart of Curithir against me!
  10. Conceal it not!
    He was the love of my heart,
    If I loved every other.
  11. A roaring flame
    Dissolved this heart of mine,
    However, for certain it will cease to beat.

 p.27

But how she had wrung his heart was the haste with which she had taken the veil.

When he heard that she was coming from the west, he went in a coracle upon the sea, and took to strange lands and pilgrimage, so that she never saw him more. “He has gone now!” she said.

The flagstone upon which he was wont to pray, she was upon it till she died. Her soul went to Heaven. And that flagstone was put over her face.

Thus far the Meeting of Liadain and Curithir.

Document details

The TEI Header

File description

Title statement

Title (uniform): Comrac Liadaine ocus Cuirithir

Title (translation, English Translation): Liadain and Curithir: an Irish love-story of the ninth century

Title (supplementary): English translation

Editor: Kuno Meyer

Responsibility statement

translated by: Kuno Meyer and Emer Purcell

Electronic edition compiled by: and Emer Purcell

proof corrections by: Emer Purcell

Funded by: University College, Cork and The HEA via the LDT Project.

Edition statement

2. Second draft.

Extent: 2010 words

Publication statement

Publisher: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of the Department of History, University College, Cork

Address: College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

Date: 2006

Date: 2010

Distributor: CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.

CELT document ID: T303027

Availability: Available with prior consent of the CELT project for purposes of academic research and teaching only.

Source description

Manuscript sources for the Irish text

  1. London, British Library, Harl. 5280, fo. 26f.
  2. Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS 1337, 759f. (olim H. 3. 18).

Editions/translations

  1. Kuno Meyer (ed. & tr.), Comrac Liadaine ocus Cuirithir or Liadain and Curithir; an Irish love-story of the ninth century (London 1902). This edition is also available online at http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/download/texte/Comracc_Liadaine_ocus_Cuirithir.htm#m
  2. English translation: P. L. Henry, Dánta Ban, pp. 52–59.
  3. For a new edition by David Stifter, see: http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/download/texte/Comracc_Liadaine_ocus_Cuirithir.htm#s
  4. For an English translation of the new edition by Liz Gabay, see http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/download/texte/Comracc_Liadaine_ocus_Cuirithir.htm#g

Further reading

  1. Eugene O'Curry, Lectures on the manuscript materials of ancient Irish history (New York 1861).
  2. Kuno Meyer (ed. & tr.), 'Stories and songs from Irish MSS', Otia Merseiana 1 (1899) 113–128.
  3. Brian Ó Cuív, 'A quatrain from "Líadain and Cuirithir"', Éigse; 6 (1945–7) 229–230.
  4. Anders Ahlqvist, 'A line in Líadan and Cuirithir', Peritia 1 (1982) 334.
  5. For editions/translations the poem 'Cen áinius' see also http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G400035/index.html

The edition used in the digital edition

Meyer, Kuno, ed. (1902). Comrac Liadaine ocus Cuirithir‍. 1st ed. 30pp.; 5–9 Introduction; Text 12–27; 28–30 Glossary. London: D. Nutt.

You can add this reference to your bibliographic database by copying or downloading the following:

@book{T303027,
  title 	 = {Comrac Liadaine ocus Cuirithir},
  editor 	 = {Kuno Meyer},
  edition 	 = {1},
  note 	 = {30pp.; 5–9 Introduction; Text 12–27; 28–30 Glossary.},
  publisher 	 = {D. Nutt},
  address 	 = {London},
  date 	 = {1902}
}

 T303027.bib

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Project description: CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

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The present text represents uneven pages 13–27 of the volume. All editorial introduction, notes and indexes have been omitted.

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Hyphenation: Soft hyphens are silently removed. When a hyphenated word (hard or soft) crosses a page-break, this break is marked after the completion of the hyphenated word.

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Profile description

Creation: Translation by Kuno Meyer

Date: 1902

Language usage

  • The text is in English. (en)

Keywords: saga; prose; medieval; translation

Revision description

(Most recent first)

  1. 2010-04-13: Conversion script run; header updated; new wordcount made; file parsed. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
  2. 2008-09-22: Keywords added; file validated. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
  3. 2008-07-28: Value of div0 "type" attribute modified, title elements streamlined, creation date inserted, content of 'langUsage' revised; new wordcount; minor modifications made to header. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
  4. 2006-10-03: Header modified; more bibliographical details added, file parsed, HTML file created. (ed. Beatrix Färber)
  5. 2006-09-25: Header compiled with bibliographical details. (ed. Emer Purcell)
  6. 2006-09-24: File proof-read (2); structural and content markup added; page-breaks inserted. (ed. Emer Purcell)
  7. 2006-09-24: File proof-read (1) and basic markup applied in line with file G302027. (ed. Emer Purcell)
  8. 2006-09-24: File captured by scanning. (Text capture Emer Purcell)

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G303027: Comrac Liadaine ocus Cuirithir (in Irish)

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