Manuscripts of the Irish Saga "Tain Bo Cuailnge"

FAIN: FT-12698-75

Daniel F. Melia
Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (Berkeley, CA 94720)

To study in Dublin, London and Oxford (where the major manuscripts are located) investigating the relationship among the manuscripts in preparation for a broader study of the Tain Bo Cuailnge from a literary perspective. The "Cattle Raid of Cooley" (Tain Bo Cuailnge), is the longest and most important saga in Old Irish. A major work such as the "Cattle Raid of Cooley", which has affinities with other Indo-European epics such as the Iliad and the Mahabharata, deserves separate critical treatment as a work of literature, but it has yet to receive it; the lack of a literary study has hitherto made the work rather inaccessible to scholars unfamiliar with Celtic literature and culture.