ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Studia Celtica Upsaliensia Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica Edited by Mícheál Ó Flaithearta ABSTRACT Ó Flaithearta, M., ed., 2007. Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Celtica Upsaliensia 6. This volume contains some of the papers read at the seventh symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica which was held at Uppsala on 21–22 May 2004. The twelve papers published here not only reflect the breadth of Celtic Studies but also the con- nections between the Celtic and Scandinavian traditions in general. One paper dis- cusses the location of historical Lochlainn: was it Scotland or Scandinavia? The papers on language address topics in the areas of etymology and verbal morphology, topographical lexicon and onomastic formula, periphrastic verbal construction as well as a comparative corpus study of the use of the autonomous and passive pro- gressive in Modern Irish. Literary articles deal with such topics as the shifting faces of the supernatural in Irish tradition, tripartitie structure in medieval Welsh narrative, aspects of the poet’s role in sixteenth-century Ireland as well as an article on an example of a dream-vision (aisling) parody from eighteenth-century Ireland. A final article discusses some documents of Irish interest from the Carl Wilhelm Von Sy- dow archive in Lund University. Mícheál Ó Flaithearta, Celtic Section, University of Uppsala, Box 527, S-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden ISSN 0562-2719 ISBN 978-91-554-6875-0 © The authors 2007 Printed in Sweden by Elanders Gotab, Stockholm Distributor: Uppsala University Library, Box 510, SE-751 20 Uppsala University www.uu.se, [email protected] Contents Acknowledgments………………………………………………………….vii Introduction…………………………………………………………………ix Mícheál Ó Flaithearta The location of historical Laithlinn/Lochla(i)nn: Scotland or Scandinavia?....................................................................11 Colmán Etchingham (Maynooth) On the provenance of the Early Irish topographical lexicon………...33 Liam Mac Mathúna (Dublin) Onomastic Formula in Irish………………………………………….53 Ruairí Ó hUiginn (Maynooth) The ‘terror of the night’ and the Morrígain: Shifting faces of the Supernatural………………………………………………………...71 Jacqueline Borsje (Utrecht) Tripartite Structure in Manawydan Uab Llyr………………………..99 Ian Hughes (Aberystwyth) Maghnus Ó Domhnaill’s role as poet and its dialogical implications………………………………………………………...111 Jan Erik Rekdal (Oslo) Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin’s Aisling Parody: An Phis …………..119 William Mahon (Aberystwyth) Reduplicated presents in Celtic........................................................137 Natalia O’ Shea (Nikolaeva) (Moscow) Do-Periphrasis in Early Irish?..........................................................145 Patricia Ronan (Bonn) The Autonomous and the Passive Progressive in 20th Century Irish……………………………………………….163 Karin Hansson (Uppsala) Irish súgán, English suggan.............................................................177 Gearóid Mac Eoin (Galway) Documents from the Carl Wilhelm Von Sydow archive in Lund University..........................................................................185 Eugene McKendry (Belfast) Acknowledgements The publication of the present volume has been made possible as a result of financial assistance from the Department of English, University of Uppsala which is hereby gratefully acknowledged. The editor would also like to thank the editors of the series Mats Rydén, Karl Inge Sandred and Ailbhe Ó Corráin for their assistance and support. vii viii Introduction After a ten year intermission the seventh symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica was held in Uppsala from 21st–22nd May 2004. A Call for Papers that went out the previous autumn was duly answered and over the two days twenty one papers were read on various aspects of Celtic Studies, twelve of which are published in this volume. It is no exaggeration to state that the Uppsala symposium revitalised the Societas. Since then symposia have been held in Oslo (May 2005) and in Helsinki (September 2006). The twelve papers published here not only reflect the breadth of Celtic Studies but also the connections between Celtic and Scandinavian traditions. Colmán Etchingham’s paper deals with the question of ‘The location of his- torical Laithlinn/Lochlainn. Was it Scotland or Scandinavia?’ Two papers are devoted to onomastics and topography: Liam Mac Mathúna discusses the provenance of the Early Irish topographical lexicon while Ruairí Ó hUiginn looks at onomastic formula in Irish. Jacqueline Borsje devotes her paper to the ‘‘terror of the night’ and the Morrígain: shifting faces of the Supernatu- ral’ while Ian Hughes discusses the ‘Tripartite Structure in Manawydan Uab Llyr’, the only paper in these proceedings devoted entirely to medieval Welsh literature. The topic of Jan Erik Rekdal’s paper is ‘Maghnus Ó Domhnaill’s role as poet and its dialogical implications’ while William Mahon discusses ‘Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin’s Aisling Parody: An Phis’. Those who were present at this paper were not disappointed as they had the pleasure of hearing the speaker give a fine singing rendition of An Phis which promptly demanded an encore. Three papers deal specifically with linguistic topics: Natalia Nikolaeva (now O’Shea) deals with the question of ‘Reduplicated presents in Celtic’. Patricia Ronan examines ‘Do-Periphrasis in Early Irish’ while Karin Hansson considers ‘The Autonomous and the Passive Progressive in 20th Century Irish’. In the area of lexicography, Gearóid Mac Eoin discusses the origin of ‘Irish sugán, English suggan’. During his lecture Prof. Mac Eoin actually produced for the audience an example of a súgán, a hay rope. Finally, Eugene McKendry discusses and evaluates ‘Documents from the Carl Wilhelm Von Sydow archive in Lund University’. The symposium was funded by a generous Cultural Relations Committee grant from the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism of the Republic of Ireland. This grant is hereby gratefully acknowledged. We are also grateful to the Irish Embassy in Stockholm for its financial support of the symposium ix and for its continued cooperation with the Celtic Section of the University of Uppsala, to the former Irish Ambassador to Sweden, His Excellency Patrick McCabe who did us the honour and opened the symposium officially and for the continued interest he showed at all stages of the planning of the sympo- sium. Our thanks to Dr. Patrik Larsson, Department of Scandinavian Lan- guages (Uppsala University) for his informative tour of the rune stones in University Park at the end of the symposium. Finally I would like to thank the following members of the local organising committee in Uppsala without whose help the symposium could not have taken place: Gustaf Hansson, Ruth Hvidberg, Kicki Ingridsdotter, Johan Larsson, Ulla-Britt Lundqvist and Muireann Ní Chuív. The drawing on the cover of Uppsala domkyrka and surroundings was done by Professor emeritus Gunnar Sorelius. Uppsala, March 2007 Mícheál Ó Flaithearta x COLMÁN ETCHINGHAM The location of historical Laithlinn / Lochla(i)nn: Scotland or Scandinavia? Introduction: the problem stated The historical evidence for early Viking-age Norway is notoriously limited. Literary materials, such as Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, other sagas and skaldic poetry, including the ‘tradition’of the Ynglings of Vestfold, were used in the past as the basis for a more or less uncritical historical narrative. This is no longer acceptable to many scholars (see e.g. Krag 1991; Helle 1998; Wamers 1998: 59, Ó Corráin 1998a: 297–300). The tales of the chief- tains’ flight from increasing royal power, or of royal expeditions such as Haraldr Hárfagri’s to the west, are generally recognised as literary composi- tions of the post-Viking middle ages. Whether or not they incorporate earlier ‘traditions’, they are hardly reliable evidence for the reality of Norway’s his- tory in the ninth century.Yet some still deploy such materials selectively in an effort to reconstruct the history of Viking-age Norway, among other things attempting to fix and re-fix the chronology, domain and provenance of Haraldr hárfagri (e.g. Helle 1998: 253–257; Wamers 1998: 59–72). Other scholars adopt a more radically sceptical approach and give the medieval literature a wide berth, admitting for this period little but the evidence of ar- chaeology, place-names and inscriptions (e.g. Sawyer 1982). These latter are clearly contemporary evidence for the early Viking Age, but are equally clearly insufficient to form the basis of narrative history. The political his- tory of ninth-century Norway is, accordingly, quite obscure. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, discovery of the ship burials at Oseberg, Gokstad and Borre has shown that the Vestfold region, south of Oslo, was of major importance in the ninth century (see conveniently Sawyer 1982: 47–48). This is reinforced by excavations at Kaupang, in the same re- gion, initiated by Charlotte Blindheim in 1950 and more recently directed by Dagfinn Skre (Skre, Pilø, Pedersen 2000, 2001). These discoveries also serve to underline the dearth of historical evidence for the ninth century. The well- known reference, in the Frankish annals, to Danish intervention in Vestfold in the early ninth century (Scholz 1970, for AD 813), is exceptional. It is COLMÁN ETCHINGHAM particularly intriguing in view of the approximate coincidence in time with the early settlement-evidence uncovered by Skre at