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A Woman's Words: Emer and Female Speech in the Ulster Cycle by Joanne Findon

1988; Scriptoriun Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/art.1988.0002

1934-1539

Maureen Fries,

Irish and British Studies

REVIEWS163 continuations were sponsored and possibly written by members of the Carolingian family: Pippin's nephew Childebrand down to 751, and Nibelung—a name to conjure with!—from 751 to 768. Why does this obscure Frankish history matter?The initial portions, drawn entirely from older historical compilations, are rarely read today and are of little interest. What has come to be known as Book IV, with its continuations, provides an absolutely critical source for the yeats 584 to 642 and then 642 to 768. Although the name Fredegar cannot be traced back before the sixteenth centurywith complete confidence, 'he' wrote virtually the only contemporary and detailed account of Frankish history in the generations after the death of Gregory ofTours in 594. And until Einhard wrote his Vita Karoli around 830, we cannot attach a name to another Ftankish historical text. The chronicle ofFredegar took shape only gradually in its own author's recension and in later manuscript traditions. Collins provides a careful account ofall the historiographical wrangling concerning Fredegar and a concise tratement of the manuscript tradition of the text. If readers of Straw may wish that she had focused more directly on Gregory's writings, readers ofCollins may wish that he had supplied them with a little more ofthe Merovingian history that would have put his Fredegar into context. THOMAS F.X. NOBLE University ofVirginia joanne findon, A Woman's Words: Emer andFemale Speech in the Ubter Cycle. Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1997. Pp. xiii, 211. isbn: 0—8020-0865—8. $35. Ifgender, as the postmodernists tell us, resides in performance, then this book—which usefully investigates a topic not previously, to my knowledge, covered comprehensively in studies ofthe Old Irish Sagas—opens a comparatively unexplored window into a body of work which has been seen as among the most male-dominant not just ofIndo-European but of all world literatures. Frank O'Connor even posited, many years ago, an epic misogynistic poem as asource for thecentral saga ofthe UlsterCycle—the Tain bo Culaigne, or Cattle RaidofCooley—which provides the subject and context for Findon's study (and demonstrates, incidentally, that the twentieth-century conflict between Ulster and the rest ofIreland has roots so ancient they are recorded here, in this earliest ofall European vernaculars). Findon early on notes another problem presented by these ancient stories, that all the 'surviving [Old Irish] literatute was written down by scribes educated in monasteries after the comingofChristianity' (13). Whatever the original, native and Celtic woman-hatred postulated by O'Connor and others, 'the censure ofwomen's speech in particular situates these works firmlywithin the larger misogynistic discourse ofmedieval Europe' (14). How remarkable, then, that Findon should find in her central exemplar, Emer, the eventual wife of the greatest of Ulstet heroes, Cu Chulainn, an eloquent if not always persuasive female voice in favor ofthe heroic code but not at the expense oflaw or (in a different sense than our contemporary use ofthe term) family values. No first-time teadet 164arthuriana ofdie Tain and its rhemscala, orsurrounding tales, remains unmoved by the most famous ofher speeches, in which she attempts (unfortunately without success) to dissuade her husband from slaying his only son, Connla, in order to amend the shame ofhis foster brother Conall Cernach's defeat by the marvelous boy and the subsequent refusal ofthe other Ulstetwarriors to fight him. But this 'fierce and desperate speech' (85) is, as Findon demonstrates, onlythe centerpiece ofascries ofutteranceswhich markEmer's movement from a supporter to a sometime opposer not only ofher society's customs and attitudes but even ofher own husband's actions when her conscience finds them wrong. Findon moves more or less chronologically from the tale ofcourtship by Cu Chulainn in Tochmarc Emire (The Wooing ofEmer) where, in contrast to the several other similar Irish tales, 'her speech actually shapes the narrative itself (36); to FledBricrend (Bricriu's Feast) where she 'pushes at the boundaries of acceptable speech...to enhance her own honour and that ofher husband' (83); to the Aided OenfirAlfe (The Death ofAlfes Only Son) where her courageous words and actions allow her to speak fot the two warrior women Affe, Connla's mother, and Scáthach, her husband's martial arts...