Echtra Cormaic Maic Airt, “The Adventure of Cormac Mac Airt”

Abstract

The Irish tale recounting the fabulous adventures in “The Land of Promise” of King Cormac Mac Airt, who according to the Annals reigned in the third century A.D., survives in several recensions. The first recension forms part of the text called [Seél na Fír Flatha], Echtra Cormaic i Tir Tairngiri, ocus Ceart Claidib Cormaic, “The Tale of the Ordeals, Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise, and the Decision as to Cormac's Sword”, which has been published by Whitley Stokes on the basis of the extant copies in two late fourteenth century MSS, The Book of Ballymote and The Yellow Book of Lecan. As these two copies exhibit only minor, insignificant variations in their readings, they would seem to derive from a common exemplar or archetype. The age of this common exemplar or archetype remains, however, a matter for conjecture. The linguistic evidence at least suggests that the text as transmitted antedates the actual compilation of the MSS by some two hundred years, for linguistically it hardly can be much later in date than the version of Acallamh na Senórach, “The Colloquy of the Ancients”, which Whitley Stokes has edited. Now since Acallamh na Senórach was composed about the middle of the twelfth century, the text of the first recension in its present state of transmission probably was written sometime between A.D. 1150–1200, whereas the exemplar or archetype upon which it is based was, of course, made at an earlier period.

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