Medieval Irish Lyrics

The 35 lyrics in this book were composed between 800 and 1200 A.D., all of them anonymously, although some are attributed to legendary or historical figures who had died centuries before. Irish monks wrote them in the margins of the manuscripts they were copying, or they interpolated poems they either knew or composed into the pagan tales they were recording. Many of these poems are about what the Irish called , the Land of the Young. This was not a place you went after death if you behaved yourself in life. It was where imaginative Irish longed to go—a paradise of lovely women, bountiful food and drink, and endless treasures of silver, gold, and jewels. Lyric poems, rooted so firmly in the expression of human emotion, travel well from an ancient culture to a modern one in the hands of a fine translator. Rendered into language and form intended for a general readership, these lyrics help to preserve an ancient and rich culture.