A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation continues, and so does More’s examination of “the night’s fear”. There’s a brief discussion of habitual timidity. Then there’s a long chapter explaining scrupulosity and what to do about it — but the reason it’s so long is that More tells us a funny animal fable about how Fr. Reynard Fox, Mr. Wolf, and Mr. Donkey all kept Lent! (Very timely, eh?)
The Feast of Bricriu continues. Queen Maeve’s husband Ailill renders his judgment about who should get the Champion’s Portion. But since those three heroes are scary guys and bad losers, he decides to be reallllllly tactful.
Btw, you should cast your eye on the epic space opera poem “The SkyPath Crusade” by Daniel Schilling! This is good stuff, and funny, too.
“But now I’m here, through wind and fear,
Such slaughter I’ve survivedThe last of twenty Island men,The only one alive.”
“Of course,” she said, “I knew you’d be.When others’ luck ran outYou always were the kind of curTo turn the odds about.”
Just in time for Thanksgiving and other festive holiday banquets, I’m going to start the old Irish story of “Bricriu’s Feast”. Bricriu Poisontongue really knows how to throw a party!
In this medieval French romance, translated from the French by Eugene Mason, a knight’s devotion to Jesus and His mother is rewarded by Our Lady — in an unusual disguise.
For your pre-St. Patrick’s Day pleasure, a little Celtic linguistics Biblical apocrypha excerpt from Auraicept na nEces, the “primer of the learned”. (Yes, I’m afraid this choice of reading also means me mangling Irish names. But it’s not too bad a mangling, I think.)
Naturally, this excerpt explains why Gaelic is the “most comprehensive” language, even if the Irish don’t quite have the gall to claim it as the noblest. (If they could have figured a way to get Irish written on the Cross, I’m sure they would have.)
This counts as a special guest entry for the Fathers, because this particular piece of Biblical fanfic may date as far back as the seventh century. Also, as I found out through Mike Aquilina, there’s a whole 1989 book out of Irish Biblical Apocrypha: Selected Texts in Translation; there’s also this 1975 book on The Apocrypha in the Irish Church. So, having my excuse in hand, gleefully do I hop onto the scholarly bandwagon. (Btw, you may also like this interesting article: “Rationalism and the Bible in Seventh Century Ireland”. People don’t appreciate how much Alexandrian Greek science was running around in Ireland back then.)
Okay, maybe just “everyone who likes what Maureen likes”. But if you do, you’ll love it! (Umberto Eco even loved it enough to write about it — yup, right up his alley.)
“On the Ruin of Britain” concludes with a description of how good the island of Britain is and how badly its people behave. Much of this is allusive (passing references to Pelagius the heretic, Mount Badon, Aurelius Ambrosianus, etc.). We hear much of the stupidity of King Vortigern (or Gurthtigern) and the guile of the Saxon mercenaries as well. But mostly we hear about how people who live in prosperity and safety tend to forget how their ancestors won it for them.
Yep, it’s a hearty healthy heaping helping of Arthurian primary source goodness and Fatherly admonition, that’s also relevant to today! Enjoy! (Or squirm….)
The 1849 Welsh “All Hallows Eve” party continues, but now it’s time for its highlight — Pally Lewis’ terrifying stories, all of which happened to her or a friend of a friend.
“All Hallows Eve” is a stand-alone chapter about a Welsh Halloween from Traits and Stories of the Welsh Peasantry (1849) — a wonderfully detailed and lovingly written novel with an extremely misleading title. (The frame story is that these are people the English author knows personally, and that this is a folklore book; but it seems pretty clear that she did make the story up, although both story and characters are very plausible.) We don’t hear much about the Welsh side of Celtic customs in this country, so I think you’ll enjoy it. Another great forgotten book from Stanford’s library and books.google.com!
This chapter is all about old Pally Lewis’ annual All Hallows’ Eve festivities, and goes into details of the Welsh customs of the day. It also sounds like a really fun way to spend Halloween!
One of Spain’s two Shakespeares from their Golden Age of drama, Pedro Calderon de la Barca was both a poet and a prolific dramatist. He wrote literally hundreds of plays, many of which are still performed today; Life Is a Dream is probably his best-known work.
The Purgatory of St. Patrick is one of his plays on religious themes. This one deals simultaneously with the life of St. Patrick and the legend of the pilgrim shrine/mortification gym known as St. Patrick’s Purgatory. It’s fun stuff, IMHO, especially since it was translated into English with a lot of verve.
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