Hey guys, I'm a newbie...with an interesting question

[Aífe]

This is for a scholar I guess...

In the poetry of Giolla Brighde MacConMidhe (mid 13thC NthWst Ireland) he aludes to the time of Adzehead. Poem beginning line: Caithead ceithre teallaigh Teamhra... (Irish Texts Society Vol. LI Pp12.)

I presume here that he speaks of Patrick - would this be correct??

Thanks so much to anyone who can help me with this!

Aoife

[Beith]

HI Aoife,

"Adze head" is an old poetical reference to St Patrick.

It is the word used to describe him in the Betha Phátraic (life of Patrick), found in mediaeval Irish manuscripts
1. Leabhar Breac "The speckled book"
2. Rawlinson B512
3. Egerton 93

It is used in context of a prophecy which sets the scene of druids or sages predicting the coming of "taillcend" (Adzehead).


http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T201009/index.html

This is a link to the University College Cork (UCC) CELT project website with the text translation of the Life of Patrick by Whitley Stokes (scroll down to p.19 for the prophecy but I copied text here in case you have problems with the link.
_________________________________________________________

Patrick afterwards passed over sea to Ulster to seek Míliuc, King of Dalaraide, to preach the name of God, as it was with him he was in servitude at first, that it might be to him he should first preach, and the service to Míliuc's body and to his soul might thus be complete. Howbeit Míliuc came against him with great hosts of heathens, and would not let him land, since Loegaire had ordered the men of Ireland that they should not let Patrick on land: for his soothsayers had foretold to Loegaire, five years before, that Patrick would arrive in Ireland, to wit, Lochra and Lothrach and Luchatmael and Renell were their names, and this is what they used to say—

An Adzehead shall come across stormy (?) sea:
His mantle hole-headed, his staff crook-headed:
His dish in the east of his house:
All his people shall answer himAmen, Amen;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etc ... /vitat.htm

(verse in Old Irish from the link above, my translation in brackets and comments * below)

     Ticfa tailcend  (The Aze head will come)
    tar muir meircenn, (over the wild/raging sea *)
    a bratt tollcend,      (his mantle holeheaded **)
    a chrand cromchend, (his staff bent-headed ie.crook'd - a crozier)    
a mías i n-airthiur a tigi, (his altar*** in the east of his house)      
fris[c]érat a muinter huili: Amen, Amen(all his people will respond "Amen")            

* meircenn/ meircend can be used to mean "crazy" or "demented" and can be used to describe the hero-rage that comes over a warrior, but it is also an allusion to the sea (a compound of mer and cenn). Its' often translated as "crazed in the head" in this verse but I think I'd attribute that "rage" to the sea he is crossing.

** Toll means pierced/ hole/ perforated etc. but I'm not sure that is the literal sense here. There's an article in the journal Ériu if you have access to an academic library[Ériu xiii.141.20]. I need to look that up to see what else they give.

***mías is a food slab, a wooden board, a tray or table but in the sense of a churchman, I think it's better translated as "his altar" ie. the altar in the eastern position in the church)



Best wishes
Beith

[wyeuro]

hallo aoife,

there is no evidence in support of translating tailcend as adze-head. it *can* be mistaken for it, in the same way as count or constable can be mispronounced and mistranslated for comic effect, but probably ought not to be.

it's much more likely that the tail is related to tailte, (telltown) and the modern d/ail, and many other words related to talk, parliament or political meetings, in other celtic languages and elsewhere.  cend is then chief or leader rather than head in the anatomical sense. so it means head of parliament, whatever else it means.  it's a matter of whether you want to believe that these rather improtant irish texts preserve schoolboyish jibes or serious, respectful accounts of respected dignatories, worthy of being taken seriously, like any other civilised nation.  

the 'adzehead' translation reflects a fairly modern hatred of st patrick based on an acceptance of 'official' accounts of his life, according to which he forcibly converted irish kings with threat and accompanied by 30 ecclesiasts from europe and their entourages.  but that misses the item that an original, revered patrick disappeared for a term before a much younger much nastier romanised replacement claiming to be the same one, returned and made the forcible conversions.  the giveaway (if the personality change isn't enough to go by) is that in order to be the same one, he had to be 122 years old when he died.  this is because the real one was old when he disappeared and the replacement still had some 65 or so years to live when he first arrived.  (this information comes from keating's history of ireland, where the seam between the two patricks, the real one and the false one, is shown quite plainly.)

blessed be
wyverne /|\

[wyeuro]

an bhfuil gaeilge agat, a aoife?
wyverne /|\

[Beith]

Adze head is correct and there is no doubt surrounding its translation. It is very well attested in mediaeval Irish manuscript and early poetry from the old Irish period. It is used as a nick-name for St Patrick and indeed for other clerics and the reference is to the tonsured hairstyle of the clerics of the early Christian church.

Tálcend is a masculine o-stem and a compound word of tál (adze) and cenn (head) - the latter a neuter o-stem noun but many of these shift to masculine in Middle Irish as the neuter case is eroded.

Variant spellings are Tallcenn, Tailcenn, Talcenn, tallcend for the reason that endings -nn and -nd are interchangeable in some words (-nd is earlier than -nn eg. Find before Finn) but many words of middle Irish are hyper-corrected to -nd- as an "archaizing" element.

Reference Manuscripts:
LU 9867
LB (incl Tripartite life of Patrick) L. 338
Raw.512
Egerton 88, 39d

Reference publications
Ériu xiii.141
PRIA 1895, 534 : 10


There has already been a full discussion of this previously. It has nothing to do with dáil which is an entirely different word, nor does it correspond to the Tell of "telltown", from the Old Irish Tailltiu (a feminine n-stem noun) -name given to the plain of Tailtenn/Tailtinn and the female fosterparent of Lugh Lámhfhada, a princess daughter of the king of "Spain"

"Taltiu ingine Magmóir maill" (Metrical Dindsenchas)
"Taillte inghean Mhadhmóir rí Easpáine" (Keating )
in the genetive the name is Tailltenn eg. cnoc Tailltenn (the hill of Taltiu)

"Cenn" is indeed the physical head of something and only metaphorically attributed to a leader in some instances. Here it is in compound with Adze(tál) and refers to the head of a monk or cleric shaven from ear to ear in the Celtic tonsure.

Best regards,
Beith

[wyeuro]

there you have two opinions to consider now.  beith is of course attuned to academic opinion, which was formulated during the romantic revival of the nineteenth century and consolidated by the fact that in order to qualify as an academic you have to adhere to it without question; whereas independent scholars are not constrained to the prevailing dogmas as they don't have to accept established dogmas in order to pass exams.

while beith's opinion is orthodox, there is a growing number of independent scholars who feel that celtic scholarship in general, and the translations of old texts in particular, are in dire need of revision.  my opinion is that the whole discipline is on the brink of a 'knowledge revolution' in which all the bases of thought and theory will undergo careful revision in the growing light of new linguistic and historical data and new ways of interpreting it which have been being developed during the past century or so since most of them were established during and immediately after the 'romantic period'.  

so it's probably wise to keep an open mind.  

in the peace of the grove

wyverne /|\

[Beith]

Hi,  I'd like to clarify a few things:

"beith's opinion" is not "beith's opinion" but verifiable fact.  It is not based on "romantic ideas" of some "revival period" but on academic training and scholarship in early Irish linguistics (I'm not quite sure what is meant by "revival" as Irish in all its periodic forms has been continually in existence since insular celtic language existed and the weight of knowledge we have on those various forms is because they did not die out but simply evolved over time; the lineage of each one and evolution into the next being eminently traceable).  Everthing I have posted above is immediately verifiable - hence the reference citations given for anyone who wishes to look up the information in text books, manuscripts or journal publications, all of which are readily available in any academic library and some can be found in full on-line (eg. Bethu Phatraic) per the links given.

To clarify a mis-respresentation in the post above,

Academic studies do not require that someone blindly accepts a "dogma" or orthodoxy - quite the opposite in fact. They require that one puts time and effort into learning the subject matter at hand and undergoes formal schooling of some sort (be it in university or mentored by someone who has been trained in this way) in order to be able to discern what is correct and challenge what is not and thus, over time, speak with some authority on the subject -rather than rely on unfounded speculation and conjecture.

Contrary to what is implied in the post above, academic studies are not in a "stand-still" scenario or stuck in a "romantic period", nor do they mandate one "has to adhere" to anything, other than the principles of good scholarship. Academic Celtic studies are no different to science, medicine, engineering, etc. - all being in a continuum of evolution of knowledge derived from evidence-based fact rather than speculation without foundation.  

One can and should only accept information as true when facts support it, rather than reply on alot of mis-information commonly posted on non-academic websites.  Therefore I'd suggest that anyone seeking clarification on a term or linguistic element follows up on the references given and can access the information directly for themselves.


kind regards and happy hunting!
Beith