Did Christian Scribes Invent Irish Mythology?

I’ve always taken it as a given that Irish mythology predated the arrival of Christianity in Ireland.

Because surely those early Christian scribes, who were the first to record these strange, sacrilegious tales, did so for posterity’s sake. 

They were preserving a cultural curiosity. 

Then an Irish documentarian with a bag on his head got me thinking:

What if early Christian scribes just made everything up?

Pssst. You can watch a video adaptation of this essay right here. Text continues below.

Blindboy: The Land of Slaves and Scholars

I recently watched Blindboy Boatclub’s documentary, The Land of Slaves & Scholars.

And first off, I highly, highly recommend it and all of Blindboy Boatclub’s work for that matter.

He is at the forefront of re-examining and dissecting Ireland’s cultural history.

And unlike me, he is actually Irish and has a real connection to the land.

Meanwhile I am an Irish mythology fanboy who grew up outside of Boston, and who played folk music and studied the humanities in Montreal, and who recorded the above video in a shed in San Jose.

Did the Early Church Employ Autistic or Otherwise Neurodivergent Scribes as Human Photocopy Machines?

But hey, Blindboy and I are about the same age. We both use pseudonyms. And we’re both on the spectrum. 

I bring that up because as Blindboy pointed out in The Land of Slaves & Scholars, many of the early Irish Christian scribes, who were effectively employed as human photocopy machines and who lived in remote, socially isolated conditions, were likely neurodivergent.

Blindboy acknowledges that he would probably thrive in such a role and I feel the same way. 

My first pay-the-bills job after getting my Bachelor’s degree was freelance writing.

I worked alone from my third-floor apartment and over the course of a couple years wrote thousands of articles on all sorts of random shit.

So, yeah, tower scribe would have been my dream job.

But let’s back up a bit.

From Memorization to Christianization: The History of Irish Mythology (and Its Chief Storytellers)

Prior to the 5th century, Irish mythology was a purely oral tradition.

The bard. The Ollam. The Filí. The seanchaí.

All of these categories of Irish storyteller relied on memorization. 

Then came Palladius and Patrick and Brigid and the monasteries and the monks and the towers and the writing. 

So much writing. 

And most of it, copying.

Those gospels weren’t gonna spread themselves.

But at some point, the Irish myths were transcribed.

And while those original transcriptions have been lost to time, thankfully they were also copied and copied and copied…

…which is how, for example, sections of the great Irish epic, the Táin Bó Cúailnge, or Cattle-Raid of Cooley, ended up in the 12th-century manuscripts the Book of the Dun Cow and the Book of Leinster. 

How Accurate Are Those Medieval Irish Manuscripts? The Classical and Christian Influences on Irish Mythology

Now, it’s tempting to think the medieval Irish manuscripts perfectly preserve the Irish myths; that these are the very same stories that had been circulating orally in 5th-century Ireland.

Buuut it’s clear the Christian scribes took some liberties. 

Like adding chariots to the Táin Bó Cúailnge.

Yeah, I said it.

There were no war-chariots in ancient Ireland. 

And yes, I know they had them in ancient Celtic Britain, but we have no archaeological evidence for their use in Ireland.

Chariots and other Classical influences aside, there are also overtly Christian references in the Táin, including having the Ulster king Conchobhar mac Nessa die after learning about Christ’s crucifixion.

I mean, technically the brain-ball—a projectile made from a calcified human brain—that had been lodged in mac Nessa’s skull for seven years also had something to do with it. 

But the point is:

These scribes added stuff. 

And they synchronized timelines.

Irish Mythology’s Two-Sided Creation Story: Cessair (Judeo-Christian) and Tuan mac Cairill (Gaelic-Celtic)

In the Lebor Gabála Érenn (or Book of Invasions) for example, the very first human being to set foot on Irish soil is said to be Cessair, the granddaughter of Noah. 

Yes, as in, “Hey, brother Noah, build me a floating zoo.”

Cessair and her crew are said to arrive before the biblical flood but then they’re all wiped out by it save for one dude in a cave on a mountain who gets reincarnated as various animals over the centuries.

See, that second part sounds, at least superficially, like part of an indigenous creation myth. 

Whereas the first part about Cessair clearly stems from a different creation myth that the scribes shoved in there.

So yeah, it’s been known and accepted by scholars for a while now that the Irish myths we have on vellum are corrupted versions of the stories the ancient Gaels would have been sharing.

But in Blindboy’s documentary, the Irish historian Dr. Niamh Wycherle, whom I happened to quote in my video essay on the Irish saint/goddess Brigid, raised an interesting point:

What if these Irish myths aren’t just corruptions of older pagan tales:

What if they’re whole-cloth creations?

History’s First Fantasy Authors: Did Christian Scribes Invent the Irish Myths?

What if after years and years and years of writing what they were instructed to write, some of these neurodivergent scribes got burnt out and had midlife crises and turned to fiction as a creative outlet? As a sort of therapy?

Okay this is really starting to hit close to home.

It’s not inconceivable that some or all of the Irish myths handed down to us, including the Lebor Gabála Érenn and the Táin, were invented by the scribes.

That these scribes were pulling not from some communal storytelling tradition passed down for centuries or millennia but from their own imaginations. 

To which I would say:

Impressive. 

Because these stories are great. 

But, and this a pretty big but:

Even writers of fiction can be influenced by legend and folklore.

Just look at Tolkien or Lewis, both of whom borrowed liberally from Irish mythology for their fantasy novels.

So even if these neurodivergent Christian scribes were “inventing” these stories, which scholars would later categorize into four cycles, Mythological, Ulster, Fenian, and Kings’, it’s clear that a lot of local flavor seeped in.

In fact, the obsession with geography in many of these stories, the obsession with the land, makes me think that there is an indigenous, pre-Christian element there, however obscure.

One need only read the Dindsenchas, or Lore of Places, to uncover the deep connections between Irish stories and Irish geography.

It’s sort of in the title.

And as Blindboy pointed out in The Land of Slaves & Scholars, a case can be made that the Irish myths were first truly written down in the geography.

Or rather, there are certain geographic features that hold the stories for the storytellers. 

Why Didn’t the Pre-Christian Irish Use Ogham to Record Their Myths?

And no, I’m not talking about Ogham, also known as the Celtic Tree Alphabet, which was used in Ireland back in the 4th century and likely even before that. 

The Gaels would inscribe Ogham hashmarks on wood and stone columns.

Buuut to be sure, that alphabet isn’t ideal for conveying lots of information. You’d need a lot of columns to tell an entire story.

Reading the Land: How Irish Mythology Is Inexorably Connected to Irish Geography

So what Blindboy proposes is that ancient storytellers would memorize the myths, but the landscape was also there to jog their memories. 

And the first example that popped into my mind when I considered this was that big hunk of rock on County Cork’s’ Beara Peninsula, the Hag of Beara.

And how the sight of that rock might have once inspired ancient Irish bards to recite the ancient Irish poem, the Lament of the Hag of Beara.

And don’t even get me started on all of the other rocks and megaliths that dot the Irish landscape, because as I’ve explored, each and every one of them has a story to tell.

The Brú na Bóinne, home of the Newgrange monument, tells the story of the Irish all-father The Dagda and his son, the Irish love-god Aengus.

Ráth Cruachan tells the story of The Morrígan, Irish goddess of fate, battle, and sovereignty.

Tech Duinn, now known as Bull Rock, tells the story of the Irish death god, Donn. 

Emain Macha tells us of the reign of Conchobhar mac Nessa and his champion, Cú Chullain. 

And the list goes on.

So in conclusion, no, the Christian scribes didn’t invent Irish mythology.

Because to invent Irish mythology would have been to invent the island of Ireland itself and to build each and every one of its Neolithic monuments.

The dolmens. The cairns. The tumuli. 

But at the same time, there’s no denying that the Christian scribes have a complicated relationship to this presumably pagan body of work. 

Without their efforts, we wouldn’t have these stories at all—even if they are copies of copies of Christianized corruptions.

And if we didn’t have Irish myths…

What would my special interest be?

Folklore in film?

(wink.)

Want to learn about the darker side of Irish mythology? Check out…

Samhain in Your Pocket

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Irish Monsters in Your Pocket

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Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy

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