Book of Fermoy

[Kris Hughes]

I have been dipping into James Stephens "Irish Fairy Tales" for the zillionth time. It's a great book. I am currently enjoying the story of Becuma and Conn, and wanted to read a version of this story which is more of a translation of the original, rather than a re-telling, which is what Stephens does (brilliantly, of course). So I've got as far as finding out that this story is in the "Book of Fermoy" an old Irish manuscript, but I can't seem to find an English translation of it, from any period.

Any scholars around who are able to help me? Either with a translation of the Book of Fermoy, or a source for this story, called by Stephens "Becuma of the White Skin" it concerns the relationship of Becuma to Conn of the Hundred Battles and his son, Art (as Stephens calls him).

[Kris Hughes]

Ah! What is it about saying you can't find something that always leads you to find it ( or a little bit of it, anyway) five minutes later?

I found this http://books.google.com/books?id=QBPXAA ... in&f=false

in an e-book of "An Irish Precursor of Dante" and on p. 136, to which this link should take you, there are some footnotes with some of the author's sources, so at least a trail of bread crumbs...

Any other ideas still appreciated!

Edit: http://books.google.com/books?id=WHUlAA ... nn&f=false

[Dathi]

Greetings Kris,

I don't know if this will help, but here is a detailed description of the contents of the book. No direct link, you have to do it in stages.
1. Go to Irish Script on Screen: http://www.isos.dias.ie/
2. English
3. Collections
4. Royal Irish Academy
5. On left, scroll down to: MS 23 E 29

It seems that this was a bit of a scrap book. Written by different scribes at different stages, with a mixed bag of medical, genealogical, history and pseudo-history, medical advice, poetry, myths and legends and a good bit of Gospel material thrown in for good measure. Conn features in several places.

Several other web mentions including here: http://legends-storiesofeire.blogspot.c ... kin-6.html

But beware the rickwalton page. It sent my antivirus into a tizzie after attempting to reroute the url.

CFN,

Dathi

[Kris Hughes]

Thanks, Dathi, I did see those links, but I don't know whether you noticed, just at the end of my last post, I did actually find the translation. I didn't have any problem with the rick walton one...