Place-Name Stories

Welcome

Join the Group!

Bardic College
For study, practice and preservation of the traditional bardic arts of poetry, storytelling, legend and literature.

Dindsenchas: A Journey of Celtic Places (1 threads, 44 posts)
Composing poetry for a specific topography or location. ...

Place-Name Stories

Historical Thread

What is dinsenchas?

The Dinsenchas (spelling varies) are among the earliest tales of Ireland. The worldview of the ancient Celts had a very distinctive sense of place or "Center." Through the Dinsenchas (topographical poetry) some important places were honored and immortalized by the poets and storytellers of yore.

The best known example of Dinsenchas is this description of Temair, or Tara, the royal palace of Ireland, attributed only to "a scribe".

It opens with a praise poem of the venerable King Cormac.

Temair, noblest of hills,
Under which is Erin of the forays,
The lofty city of Cormac son of Art,
Son of mighty Conn of the Hundred Battles.

Cormac, constant was his prosperity,
He was sage, he was poet, he was prince;
He was a true judge of the men of Fene.
He wa a friend, he was a comrade.

Cormac, who gained fifty fights,
Disseminated the Psalter of Temair;
In this Psalter there is
All the best we have of history.

(Then the scribe describes Tara itself the seat of the High Kings of Ireland.)

This world, transient in its splendor!
Perishable gathering of an hundred hosts;
Deceitful to describe is the multitude of delights,
Save only the adoration of the King of all things.

Perished is every law concerning high fortune,
Crumbled to the clay is every ordinance;
Tara, though she be desolate today,
Once on a time was the habitation of heroes.

There was no exhaustion of her many-sided towers,
Where was the assembly of storied troops;
Many were the bands whose home was
The green-soiled grassy keep.

It was a stronghold of famous men and sages,
A castle like a trunk with warrior-scions,
A ridge conspicuous to view,
In the time of Cormac grandson of Conn.

Fair is the title that adorns it.

When Cormac was among the famous
Bright shone the fame of his career;
No keep like Temair could be found;
She was the secret place of the road of life.

This dinsenchas goes on for several more sections. The dinsenchas is an important form for study, both for historians and for writers, because through reading the ancient dinsenchas we can get a good idea of the "sense of place" as seen through the eyes of the chroniclers of the times - the poets and bards.

The poets and bards were more than just composers of pretty verse meant to flatter the monarchs of the land. They were the keepers of history, the stewards of genealogy, the virtual embodiment of traditions and heritage. Keep in mind that in the earliest days of the Celts, nothing was written. Everything was trusted to the memorization of the bards and druids, preserved by them and delivered by oral recitation. It was only after the advent of Christianity and the transcriptions of the monks and priests that these precious pieces of history were put into manuscripts.