Omens, ordeals and oracles: on demons and weapons in early Irish texts

Jacqueline Borsje

9 citations0/0 files storedPeritia

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Medieval Literature and History Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies

Abstract

The account of a sword ritual in Serglige Con Culainn involves references to two different kinds of divination, reflected in two consecutive sentences in the text: the first describes the ritual as an ordeal, the second as an oracle. The supernatural source of the oracle is identified as ‘demons’ by the text. It is here argued that the religious and literary background of these demons is formed by certain types of supernatural battle creature, especially the Irish war goddesses.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 9 citations exist upstream.

Cited by

2011Places of Special Meaning: Westerdahl’s Comet, “Agency,” and the Concept of the “Maritime Cultural Landscape”2012Love Magic in Medieval Irish Penitentials, Law and Literature: A Dynamic Perspective

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.