Available data

As it has been noted, there is almost no contemporary data on the subject of ‘Celtic sources’ in Shakespeare, apart from Gollancz’s work on the Celtic ancestry of Hamlet in 1926 and Mary Gleeson who, more recently, wrote an article entitled “Celtic undertones in Macbeth” (1992);55 a Welshman, Frederick James Harries had written that “there are many Celtic elements in Shakespeare’s plays” in Shakespeare and the Welsh (1919, p. 6);56 but no serious comprehensive study has since been undertaken.

Because we are dealing with a virtually pre-literate culture which therefore did not commit its traditions to writing, indirect sources (i.e. written sources) have to count as the most important available data. Miranda Green notes that extant evidence falls into three categories which sometimes contradict each other: the chronicles of contemporary commentators from the Classical world; the later vernacular documents of Ireland and Wales; and the results of archaeological study. For want of time and space, and with the aim of limiting the corpus, we will use the Classical sources in this research or proceed via the works of specialists such as Guyonvarc’h and Le Roux. Furthermore, English Medieval Chronicles and Annals, and the matter of Britain in general, are worth considering insofar as they also contain Celtic motifs, as will be developed in chapter one of this dissertation.57

As a direct source of information, archaeology provides material evidence in relation to common habits, it also addresses the sacred, rituals, burials, epigraphy (the study of ancient inscriptions generally carved on hard material such as wood or metal)58 and iconography (the study of images under the form of sculptures, figurines, or coins). These types of source have inherent limitations due to the fact that the discoveries of archaeologists are subject to interpretation. They can only deal with what has survived after thousands of years and they have to infer from this the modes of thinking, beliefs and spirituality. Furthermore, Green notes that much of the material found relating to Celtic religion dates from Roman times and

55 _{In Proceedings of the II Conference of the Spanish Society for English Renaissance Studies; Actas del II} Congreso de la Sociedad Espanola de Estudios Renacentistas Ingleses (SEDERI), 1992.

56 _{Arthur Hughes wrote an unfinished account, Shakespeare and his Welsh Characters in 1918.} 57

We systematically used translations of texts, and occasionally referred to Latin, Gaelic or Welsh originals.

58 _{The Celtic culture was non literate but transcriptions of its languages were found in Etruscan, Greek, Iberian}

or Latin. In Italy, occurrences attest to the presence of a Celtic language as early as the 7th century BC. In Chamalières, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the lead tablet dated 1st century AD, found in a sacred spring, offered about sixty words in a cursive Latin writing of a Celtic language. The text had a magic character. Furthermore, there was the Ogham system of writing, only attested in insular regions that remained relatively untouched by Romans influence (Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, and the Isle of Man). It consisted of a system of linear vertical, horizontal or diagonal strokes carved on stone (or probably wood). It is only suitable to short inscriptions, essentially on burial stones and is relatively late, dated 5th – 9th century AD.

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it is sometimes “difficult to disentangle Celtic symbolism and belief from the Roman tradition with which it became so closely intertwined” (1993, p. 12). However, Green points out that there is also substantive “free” or pre-Roman data, related to Celtic religion such as druidic evidence, evidence of votive offerings, rituals and sacrifice). Few carved stones or metal images of the gods have been discovered but once the interaction with the Roman world began to develop, the representation of gods which did not belong to the Greco-Roman pantheon increased. Cultural interaction revealed aspects of Celtic culture which had previously been hidden since Celtic sanctuaries were often situated in natural locations such as holy lakes, woods, springs or open air enclosures (p. 14).

Green notes that links between archaeology and literature are rare but they do exist nonetheless: “There are some features common to both, which are too idiosyncratic to be due to chance: the sanctity of the ‘three’; the symbolism of cauldrons; the supernatural power of the human head; beliefs in the Otherworld similar to earthly life are a few of the traditions which bridge the gulf between the two main strands of testimony for Celtic Myth [i.e. archaeology and literature]” (1993, p. 14). These particular points are relevant to the study of Celtic motifs in Shakespeare, as we will see. They were mainly present in vernacular sources which are grouped mostly around Ireland and Wales, although there are also some manuscripts in Scotland, that derived mainly from the Irish tradition. They are all prose tales in Irish and Welsh, committed to writing in the Middle Ages by monastic scholars. Consequently, care is required if we want to use these stories as a link to approach the Celtic world that is assembled using archaeological data. Furthermore, Green notes that these writings relate specifically to Ireland and Wales (p. 9). However, we accept the hypothesis that they contain stories belonging to a period in which England was also Celtic and as such drew on virtually the same mythological matter.

Guyonvarc’h states that although there is no proper Celtic literature in the modern sense of the term, because the tradition was mainly oral, the transcribed Irish Medieval literature is quantitatively as well as qualitatively important (1980, p. 13). There are more than a thousand documents in the Irish corpus, of which about three hundred are mythological and epic narratives, and that are transcriptions of oral narratives (scél, plur. scela) from the 8th century onwards. They are grouped in several manuscripts and, as Guyonvarc’h observes, “un manuscript ne contient jamais un seul récit et, corrélativement, un même récit figure souvent dans plusieurs manuscrits de dates différentes” [a manuscript never contains one single narrative and, correlatively, a narrative often appears in several manuscripts of distinct dates]

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(1980, p. 15). In what follows, we have used translations and have occasionally referred to originals in the vernacular language. The three major collections of Irish tales all relate to the world of the supernatural. The first corpus is the ‘Mythological Cycle’ which comprises two manuscripts, both compiled during the 12th century:59 the Leabhar Gabhála Érenn (The Book of Conquests of Ireland) and the Dinnschenchas (History of Places). The first and most prominent of the two describes the Creation myth and successive invasions of the island before the Flood culminating in the coming of the Gaels or Celts. This narrative first originated in the 6th or 7th century, compiled by Christian monks whose purpose seems to have been to constitute a Creation myth and a ‘history’ of Ireland in order to account for the presence of the Celts (Green 1993, p. 9). The result is a syncretism between Christian motifs and elements of the Celtic pantheon, such as the numerous gods and goddesses of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the divine ‘race’ of Ireland.

The second Irish corpus is referred to as the Ulster Cycle, an extensive body of narratives infused with supernatural elements, in which the most famous collection of stories is the Táin Bó Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley).60 The oldest manuscript was compiled in the 11th century at the monastery of Clonmacnois, but the story is much older. Scholars believe that the language of the oldest version belongs to the 8th century with some passages possibly being several centuries earlier than that (Green 1993, p. 10).

The third group in the Irish corpus is designated as the ‘Fionn Cycle’, a collection mostly compiled in the 12th century61 which relates the deeds of the hero Finn and the Fianna, his heroic war band, all of who have supernatural status. Green notes that the interest of these

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“The various manuscript witnesses of the Lebor Gabala are typically subdivided into a number of classes according to the recension or redaction to which these copies are thought to belong (A, B, M and C). This does not mean that the manuscripts texts of each recension present a uniform, homogeneous picture. In fact, these often exhibit innovations (interpolations, cross-examination, rearrangement, etc.) that come with the scribe or that have been adopted from the exemplar. […]The earliest references to the invasions tradition are in the Cambro-Latin compilation Historia Brittonum, and the poem Can a mbunadas na nGaedel by Máel Muru Othna, both dated to the 9th century” https://www.vanhamel.nl/codecs/Lebor_gab%C3%A1la_%C3%89renn (accessed 21/06/19) .

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Manuscripts that contain the story are, in three different recensions: Recension I: a section of the Yellow Book of Lecan (14th-15th c.) Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1318 cols 573-958, beginning missing, p. 17a-53a (facsimile) cols 573-644; the Lebor na hUidre or Book of the Dun Cow (11th-12th c.), Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 E 25 (1229), ff55a-82b, interpolated by H end missing; MS Egerton 1782 (1516-1518), London, British Library, ff. 88r-105v, interpolated, end missing; MS C 1, Maynooth, Russell Library (1587), p. 1-76, interpolated, beginning and end missing. Recension II: the Book of Leinster (12th c.) Dublin, Trinity College, MS 1339 (H 2. 18), ff. 53b-104b; MS C vi (740) (17th c.), Dublin, Royal Academy, ff. 28ra-65vb. Recension III (Early Modern Irish version): MS Egerton 93 (15th c. ?), ff. 26r-35v, fragment; MS 1319 (H 2. 17) (various), p. 336-347, 334-335, 111-114, 348-349, 115-118, 350-351, fragment.

https://www.vanhamel.nl/codecs/T%C3%A1in_b%C3%B3_C%C3%BAailnge (accessed 21/06/19).

61 _{The list of poems related to the Finn Cycle, compiled by Kuno Meyer in 1910 comprises texts dating from the}

7th to the 14th century, although some of the early dating appears controversial:

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narratives is not so much the mythical aspect but the close connection with the natural world and the supernatural creatures that inhabit it. She adds that this animistic relationship to nature is corroborated by archaeological evidence derived from the study of the Celtic religion (p. 10).

Beside the three main cycles of Irish literature, there is a parallel cycle generically called the Cycle of Kings, composed of miscellaneous semi-historical, semi-legendary stories related for the most part to Conn Cetchathach king of Connaught who according to the Annals of the Fours Masters (Revue Celtique 43, 1926, p. 2), reigned around 170AD and to his grandson Cormac mac Airt, high king of Ireland from 227 to 266 AD. The Annals of the Four Masters is an extensive compilation Chronicle of Irish history from prehistory to 1616. Its collection began in the 17th century and a publication in eight volumes was issued between 1848 and 1851 by John O’Donovan.

The main transcriptions and English translations were published from 1880 onwards in collections such as Irische Texts (five volumes between 1880-1905 by Whitley Stokes and Ernst Windisch, critical edition of the texts with and English or German translation), Irish Texts Society (forty-seven volumes, 1964, text and translation with notes), and Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series (five volumes, 1980, Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, transcription only, no translation). A certain number of journals completed these collections, among them Ériu (since 1904), Celtica (since 1946), Studia Hibernica (since1961), notwithstanding the major Proceedings of the royal Irish Academy. France produced a few translations in Revue Celtique (54 publications, 1870-1934), replaced in 1936 by Études Celtiques (published by CNRS éditions since 1980), as Guyonvarc’h notes (1980, p. 21).

Green states that although less extensive, the Welsh corpus also contains rich mythological material:

All the tales chronicle the activities of euhemerized supernatural beings whose divinity is not overt but is betrayed by their physical and mortal stature. The myths of Wales abound in enchanted or magical animals; metamorphosis from human to animal form; heads with divine properties; and cauldrons capable of resurrecting the dead. There is a pagan Underworld, Annwn, presided over by Arawn, perceived as similar to life on earth and indeed very akin to the Otherworld described in the Irish tradition. (Green 1993, p. 12)

The Welsh corpus generally shows greater evidence of later modification compared to the Irish corpus because it often refers to the Christian religion. Furthermore, the Welsh and

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Continental Arthurian cycles show parallels and continuities. As a consequence of the late transcriptions of Welsh mythic tradition, it is difficult to find connections with the Ancient Celtic past and the line of transmission is blurred. Yet motifs subsist in what Green notes as “the most relevant and the earliest material”: the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, sometimes known as the Mabinogion (11th century), together with The Tale of Culhwch and Olwen (10th century), and The Dream of Rhonabwy and Peredur. Two collections preserve the early Welsh tradition: the White Book of Rhydderch (written about 1300), and the Red Book of Hergest (later 14th century). Much of the traditions present in these collections appear to be much older than the time of their transcription and links exist between Irish and Welsh myths like “shape-changing, animal-affinities, magical cauldrons” (Green 1993, p. 11-12).

Therefore, archaeological data, links between archaeology and literature, Classical accounts, and especially Irish, Welsh and Scottish Medieval literature constitute our most important corpus, not to forget the Medieval and early Modern Chronicles, themselves often repositories of Celtic motifs: Bede, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Holinshed, Buchanan, but also emblem books, antiquaries, handbooks, broadside ballads and prophecies, pageants and progresses, masques and the theatre, all comprise an extensive corpus of available data. Shakespeare’s texts also retain some of the intrinsic instability characteristic of the oral, and a reasonable amount of philological work on them has been necessary, even though we mainly base our research on the Arden third editions of the plays. Furthermore, Renaissance paintings are also likely to provide evidence of certain aspects of cultural transmission, such as the portrait of Sir Henry Lee, one of Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers, who wears the ‘True Lovers’ Knot’, a Celtic interlacing, on his sleeve as a decoration (NPG, London). The polysemiotic approach we have mentioned is necessary in an investigation based on an oral tradition that has been committed to writing at a later time. A clearer perception of the methodological tools employed will now be provided.