Volume 55, Issue 1

To my mind, neither the etymology nor the morphological make-up of this Celtic word for ‘enemy’ attested by OIr. nām(α)e , has so far been convincingly determined. It would seem that most contemporary scholars think that * nāmant- is somehow to be connected etymologically with the Lat. verb αmāre ‘to love’. One such scholar is Szemerényi who takes Celtic * nāmαnt- to be ‘a negatived * αmant -’: * nāmant- , according to Szemerényi, is the regular outcome in Celtic of an IE form of the shape * nāmαnt- , in the * -ā- of which he proposes to see the result of an old IE contraction of the final vowel of the negative particle * ne with the initial vowel of * αmαnt- ‘loving’, allegedly the pres. part. of an IE verb theme * αmā- , attested by Lat. αmā-re .

In the Brythonic languages a specific designation for ‘daughter-in-law’ is used: Welsh gwaudd , pl. gweuddau, gweuddon , Middle Welsh pl. (14th cent.) gwehydon , (15th cent.) gwehyddon ( GPC 1602–03), Old Cornish guhit gl. ‘nurus’, Old Breton g … = ?* guhid gl. ‘nuro’ (Orléans glosses; see Fleuriot 1964, 172 after Stokes), Middle Breton ( Catholicon ) gouhezy gl ‘nurus’, Breton. gouhé , pl. gouhéïon , Vanetais gouéhé ‘bru, belle-fille, femme de fils’ ( GIB 1007), [ gwii ], pl. gwii-jõ ] (Hamp 1972–74, 293).

Quelques dizaines de dédicaces gauloises sur pierre nous sont parvenues, exprimées généralement par le verbe ieuru ou la formule βϱατουδɛϰαντɛυ (et variantes), et ont été étudiées en détail. Les dédicaces sur céramique ont moins attiré l'attention des celtisants; on considérera ici d'abord les dédicaces aux divinités, puis les dédicaces privées.

Tituli Asiae Minoris 2, no. 168, twice records the unusual name Αϱμεδυμνoς on a dedicatory stele from Hippoukome near the Lycian coast of Asia Minor. In addition, the same inscription also bears the name Εϱμεδυμνος four times. The inscription dates to the last two centuries BC and lists several dozen names of leading townspeople.

It is well known that several pages of manuscript boxed with the Book of Leinster (Trinity College, Dublin, MS 1339 [H. 2. 18]; hereafter LL) do not belong to the Book proper, but were left unbound by Edward Lhuyd and later placed with LL in Trinity College Library merely on the grounds of their large size. Despite the fact that these pages have only an accidental association with the rest of MS 1339, they were reproduced in the lithographic facsimile of LL, edited by Robert Atkinson, where they make up sections Q, R and S (pp. 377–96, 397–408 and 409–10 respectively). In contrast to Atkinson, Anne O'Sullivan, editor of the final volume of the diplomatic edition of LL undertaken by the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, took a strict view of what constituted the ‘Book of Leinster’, and did not include the items which have no original connection to the main manuscript.

Not surprisingly, the members of the Celtic Revival had difficulties reconciling the directness of the older Irish literature in bodily matters with the literary and moral code of their own time. In this they were no exception, although in their case the problem was aggravated by Ireland's colonial status. Everywhere in that world that we have somewhat incorrectly labelled as Victorian – a world shaped by nationalism, puritanism and triumphalist churches of various denominations –, the newly discovered medieval literatures confronted scholar and educated reader alike with this problem. As an example from outside Ireland may serve the great medievalist Joseph Bédier. In his monumental study of the French fabliaux , he distinguished the fabliaux obscènes as one of the categories. Yet, although he admitted that the laws of just proportion demanded that they be treated as thoroughly as the other categories, not only because of their number, but also because of the interest they had received throughout the Middle Ages, he relegated them to a simple list of titles in one of the numerous footnotes in the work. As he explained, he emphatically refused to descend that shameful spiral where deep down one could see the obscene tales stirring like unclean beasts. All he was prepared to say on the subject was that these histoires grasses had addressed themselves no less to the aristocracy, including the ladies, than to the bourgeois .

It lingered “some time longer” than J. G. Cumming possibly imagined, writing as he did in 1861, but even by that date, a fall off in usage was evident.

1. Medieval Welsh Translations and Translators; 2. The Story of Boeve de Haumtone; 3. The Plot of Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn ; 4. The Date and Provenance of the Middle Welsh Adaptation; 5. The Manuscripts; 6. The Title Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn ; 7. The problem of the immediate source of Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn ; 8. The two beginnings in W; 9. The relation between Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn and Boeve de Haumtone ; 9.1 Content; 9.2 Narrative Structure.

In early Celtic literature, a clear pattern may be identified in which the Celtic archetypal poet-prophet becomes inspired through interment in a tomb or some other dark, enclosed space. In this scenario, the novice poet-prophet undergoes an initiation into the secrets of his craft by means of a ritual death and rebirth that he experiences within a chthonic setting. The picture that emerges of the archetypal poet-prophet of Celtic, as well as other Indo-European literatures, is one of a mantically inspired figure who gains his phenomenal abilities directly from potent otherworldly forces, which are often, but not always, associated with spirits of the dead. Recent scholarship has established the validity of this pattern in the cases of the archetypal Welsh poets Taliesin and Aneirin, but it may also be demonstrated in the medieval Welsh and somewhat later Arthurian material concerned with Merlin (called Myrddin in Welsh), and, additionally, in certain early Irish and Norse sources.

Infolge eines Herzinfarktes verstarb am 14. 12. 2003 Doz. Dr. Martin Rockel. Nachdem es Pokorny abgelehnt hatte, an die ehemalige Kaiser-Wilhelms-Universität zurückzukehren, und anderer Ersatz nicht gefunden wurde, wagte M. Rockel, zwischen 1961 und 1965 von seinem Lehrer Prof. William B. Lockwood betreut, den Neuanfang keltologischer Lehre und Studien an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Zunächst befaßte sich M. Rockel mit dem Walisischen und seiner Literatur und Geschichte sowie mit dem Irischen, Gallischen und Kornischen. Nach Erlangung der Hochschuldozentur 1979 konzentrierte er sich auf die sogenannten p-keltischen Sprachen, einschließlich des Bretonischen. Höhepunkt seines wissenschaftlichen Schaffens waren die Abfassung der Grundzüge der Geschichte der irischen Sprache sowie die Übersetzung der Dichtung von Taliesin und Aneirin ins Deutsche. Sein Werk wurde 1994 durch die Berufung zum Honorarprofessor gekrönt. Schwer traf ihn jedoch nach neu gewonnenen Perspektiven des nach der Wende von ihm mit eingerichteten vollen Studienganges Keltologie der Beschluß vom April 1998, diesen endgültig zu schließen.

The sudden death of Professor Proinsias Mac Cana at his home in Dublin on 21 May 2004 came as a shock to his friends and acquaintances. He appeared to have been in good health and excellent spirits. My last close contact with him had been at the Twelfth International Congress for Celtic Studies at Aberystwyth in the summer of 2003 when I had the pleasure of spending some time in the company of himself and his wife Réiltín. He felt relaxed and at home in Aberystwyth and the conference gave him the opportunity to visit many of his favourite places and meet old friends. He was in splendid form and he recounted many interesting and enjoyable anecdotes of his time in Aberystwyth when he was lecturer there in the 1950s.

Bernhard Maier published extensively on various aspects of the religion, literature and history of the Celtic peoples from antiquity to the present day (see p. 233 of his book for a list of studies). The religion of the Celts: Gods – myths – world view , the book which I shall review in the following paper, is Maier's postdoctoral professorship thesis of 1998, enlarged with the results of a two years' project on the phenomenon of Interpretatio Romana in the Roman North West provinces. The author's far-reaching competence wakes high expectations due to his “well-founded presentation and investigation of the religion of the Celts”, as the text on the dust jacket promises. In accordance with this review, the book, for the most part, exceeds one's expectations. Nevertheless, some aspects deserve further discussion, some of which is also critical; however, I do not wish to reduce the merits of Maier's contribution with this review.