i. We've Lived in Two Worlds : The Otherworld Literature of Ireland

At the start of the last chapter, I briefly considered the importance of sight to the professional duties of the Irish poet. The concept of the poet as seer, particularly as possessor of second sight, is related to and reinforced by the early Irish belief in the otherworld, as Thomas O'Rahilly indicates: "In Celtic belief the Otherworld was the source of all wisdom and especially of that occult wisdom to which humanity could not (except in a very limited degree) attain" (318). The wisdom of the otherworld was attainable through contact with various otherworld entities and locations, including the Salmon of Knowledge and the otherworld well associated with the drink that the Sovereignty offers to the sacral king. O'Rahilly continues: "While the boundless knowledge which was a prerogative of the Otherworld was in general hidden from mortals, it was yet not wholly inaccessible to them. A class of men known as 'seers,' filid  . . . claimed to be able, by practising certain rites, to acquire as much of this supernatural knowledge as was required for a particular purpose" (323).^[3] Doc-

[3] The otherworld as source of the poet's knowledge is epitomized in the story of Finn, who acquires his second sight by tasting the Salmon of Knowledge, to which Joyce alludes in Finnegans Wake:

Finn [also called Demne as a boy] bade farewell to Crimall, and went to learn poetry from Finneces, who was on the Boyne. . . . Seven years Finneces had been on the Boyne, watching the salmon of Fec's Pool; for it had been prophesied of him that he would eat the salmon of Fec, after which nothing would remain unknown to him. The salmon was found, and Demne was then ordered to cook it; and the poet told him not to eat anything

        of the salmon. The youth brought him the salmon after cooking it. "Hast thou eaten any of the salmon,
        my lad?" said the poet.

"No," said the youth, "but I burned my thumb, and put it into my mouth afterwards."

"What is thy name, my lad?" said he.

"Demne," said the youth. "Finn is thy name, my lad," said he; "and to thee was the salmon given to be eaten, and indeed thou art the Finn." Thereupon the youth ate the salmon. It is that which gave the knowledge to Finn, so that, whenever he put his thumb into his mouth and sang through teinm laida [an incantation], then whatever he had been ignorant of would be revealed to him. (AIT 365)

umented for two millennia, the belief in the otherworld is one of the most important and most persistent aspects of Celtic thought, and it is therefore, not surprisingly, a dominant theme of the literature of every Celtic country. Otherworld elements are found in Irish literature from the earliest time to the modern period, in both written and oral texts, in folk and aristocratic strata, in both halves of the divided Irish literary tradition. Although the full range of ideas about the otherworld is complex, the otherworld can be characterized as another space-time continuum, separate from and parallel to that of mortals, with its own rules and properties.^[4]

The Irish otherworld is known by a variety of names, including Tír na nÓg and Tír inna mBan, 'the land of youth' and 'the land of women'. Though these names are most common, there are other names such as Tír inna mBéo, 'the land of the living', Mag Mell, 'the plain of delight', and Magh da Chéo, 'the plain of the two mists', all relevant to aspects of the Irish otherworld discussed below. The otherworld in Irish tradition is located in a variety of places: in islands to the west of Ireland; under deep lakes; in "fairy mounds" (such as the Neolithic burial mounds that are plentiful in Ireland, including the great mounds of Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth); in the hollow hills of Ireland and in caves; and in various other locations. Needless to say, the mode of getting to the otherworld varies in Irish tradition depending on the location in question: in some tales a boat is necessary, but for locations in Ireland itself, such as caves and mounds, one can penetrate by foot. At times the otherworld is conceptualized as coterminous with the world of experience, as existing parallel to the Ireland known to mortals, but in another plane; the two

[4] For a fuller discussion of the Irish otherworld, see Patch ch. 2; Nutt, "Happy Otherworld"; Mac Cana, "Sinless Otherworld"; Mac Cana, Celtic Mythology 123–29; and sources cited by these authors.

worlds are permeable at special locations and special times. Although the concept of the otherworld is found in many cultures, the mappable quality of the Irish otherworld, the specificity of its locations, and its accessibility are notable.

The otherworld and the mortal world are, as noted, permeable at special times, particularly at the great Celtic feasts of Samain (November 1) and Beltaine (May 1), which divide the yearly cycle into two halves, winter and summer respectively; Samain marks the beginning of the new year. The temporal relations between the two worlds are, however, highly unpredictable: a mortal may enter the otherworld and pass a considerable time there, only to return to the human world at exactly the same time he or she entered (see AIT 251); conversely, mortals may seek to return to their world after an apparently short lapse of time only to discover that hundreds of years have passed in human time (cf. AIT 454, 595).

The happy otherworld of the Celts is best known in critical literature, but the otherworld is also conceptualized at times as an ominous, hostile, entrapping, or dangerous place. In some tales inhabitants of the otherworld make war on human beings,^[5] and people who find their way into the otherworld may find it difficult to leave (AIT 248–53).^[6] The women of the otherworld are attractive and usually welcoming, but such women may also entrap men despite their will (cf. AIT 595). The otherworld inhabitants at times also take revenge on mortals (AIT 92, 215). In both its beauty and its danger the otherworld is perilous. Thus, the early Irish (and Celtic) conception of the otherworld is clearly multifaceted, and Proinsias Mac Cana has commented on the seeming inconsistencies:

Being, as it is ultimately, an imaginative reflex of human attitudes and aspirations, this other kingdom assumes different forms according to the occasion and circumstance, but these forms are not sharply or consistently distin-

[5] Note also the hostility of the otherworld to Conaire Mor in The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel (AIT 93–126), as well as the colophon to one version of Tochmarc Etaíne (The Wooing of Etain), to the effect that Conaire was destroyed as revenge of the otherworld people (AIT 92).

[6] In The Adventures of Nera, Nera is given the job of hauling wood, very low-status work requiring daily reporting and hence daily surveillance, in part so that he will have difficulty leaving. In the voyage tales some of the companions of the main character are almost invariably lost, and Etain is reclaimed by her husband from the otherworld only with great difficulty. See AIT 248–53, 588–95, and 82–92.

guished. When a mortal visits the otherworld by invitation, it is usually pictured as a land of contentment and joy. But when it is invaded by human heroes—a favourite theme in storytelling and one which is related to Cú Chulainn, Fionn and Arthur among others—then it wears a very different image. It may still be a country of riches and of wonders—and frequently the declared object of such heroic expeditions is to seize its treasures and its magic talismans—but inevitably its status relative to mankind has been transformed: its rulers and its welcoming hosts are now formidable and even monstrous enemies, fit to test the mettle of the greatest hero. (Celtic Mythology 126)^[7]

Modern Irish folk traditions about the fairy world and folk tales about Finn's encounters with the otherworld portray it in much the same way. A principal theme of fairy lore is the fairy taking and the changeling motif: the fairies abduct a child or young adult, substituting a log or other entity that appears to be the body of the abducted person; occasionally such a person can be rescued but only with difficulty, and should the person have eaten in the otherworld it is virtually impossible to return him or her to the human world. Even a person who has been brought to the fairy world to render a service, such as a midwife, may find that the fairies become dangerous or hostile. In otherworld tales about Finn, both in the earlier texts and in modern oral tradition, entrapment takes still other forms: the Fianna are frequently bound or rendered incapable of movement in a variety of ways and must be rescued by a comrade.^[8]

Illusion and transformation are themes found in the otherworld literature of Ireland from the earliest period to the twentieth century. Otherworld figures have the power to transform themselves: for example, the war goddesses can assume the form of crows (e.g., AIT 213), and other figures also assume animal forms at will (AIT 54). Otherworld figures may also have the power to cause others to transform, as the early story of The Wooing of Etain illustrates (Bergin and Best 152–57). In the early tales and particularly in modern fairy lore, the otherworld is at times not all that it seems to be: its splendor, for example, may turn out to be il-

[7] Cf. Sjoestedt 64–65.

[8] For collections of Irish folktales about the otherworld illustrating these aspects and these motifs, see Ó Súilleabháin, Folktales of Ireland 21–37, 169–220; Ó Súilleabháin, Folklore of Ireland 35–53, 94–125; Ó hEochaidh, Mac Neill, and Ó Catháin, Súscéalta ó Thír Chonaill; Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales. See also the stories about Finn and the perils of the otherworld included in P. W. Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, a source Joyce probably knew.

lusory, with the fine hall revealed to be a dank cave, the food shown to be unappetizing, or the fine steed proved to be an illusion. Themes of transformation are one aspect of the general fluidity and ambivalence of this metamorphic realm.

Perhaps by virtue of its association with the timeless order of the gods, the otherworld was the repository of various types of specific knowledge—knowledge of the future or the past, including historical or literary knowledge, as well as knowledge of practical aspects of life or the appropriate social order. In some tales the otherworld is linked to the existential assertion of an absolute hierarchy of values, the delineation of which is revealed by otherworld agency and the observance of which in turn is guaranteed by otherworld powers (see, for example, AIT 98ff.). Contact with the otherworld can result in the possession or retrieval of important truths or knowledge. The motif of gaining information, even abstract allegorical information, is found in modern folklore pertaining to the otherworld as well.^[9] The early tales also contain episodes in which the otherworld reveals future succession in a kingship (AIT 97, 184) or validates a royal line; the otherworld was thus, in some conceptualizations, both kingmaker and kingbreaker. As a result, the otherworld has a special relation to kings as well as to poets, and it is therefore perhaps not surprising that the truthfulness of the king was an essential aspect of his sacred role.^[10]

Early Irish literature about the relations of this world and the otherworld forms a substantial portion of the extant narratives. Several of the early genres are specifically about encounters with the otherworld, of which three shed light on episodes in Ulysses: the imram, the echtra, and the bruiden tale. These genres are not perfectly demarcated, but in general the imram (literally 'a rowing about, a voyage', in particular 'a voyage to the otherworld') is a tale about a voyage over the sea to otherworld

[9] For examples in the early literature of knowledge originating in the otherworld, see AIT 503–7, 548–50; Kinsella, Táin 1–2. Ó Súilleabháin, Folklore of Ireland 43–46, is an analogue in folk tradition involving allegorical knowledge.

[10] The idea of the otherworld as kingmaker and kingbreaker is central to the plot of The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel, which Joyce used in "The Dead." Otherworld connections appear as an alternative to the Sovereignty theme as a mode of designating a sacral king in the early tales, including the tales of Mongan and tales about a number of the Ui Neill kings; examples are found in AIT 491–517. On fír flathemon, or the truthfulness of the king, see Kelly, introduction.

islands; several faces of the otherworld are discovered, each conceptualized as a single island. The genre was Christianized at an early period and was used as a vehicle for the exposition of Christian concepts of heaven and hell. The echtra, 'an adventure, an expedition,' is a more generalized form of encounter with the otherworld; the otherworld may be found underwater or in a mound, or it may be entered in a less precise way, as through a magic mist. Such adventures to the otherworld generally involve an encounter that has some perilous aspect, but if successfully completed, the expedition garners for the adventurer or his people an important boon: knowledge, an otherworld gift, or some other element won from the otherworld (see AIT 503–7, for example). By contrast, the bruiden ('hostel, large banqueting hall, house') tale is specifically an adventure to a fairy mound where the inhabitants are generally hostile to the human invaders; the humans, however, may wrest from these encounters important powers, knowledge, or other good.^[11]

Because of its connection with knowledge, the otherworld is a factor in the literature of inspiration in the early texts; thus, we find a series of medieval Irish genres in which characters have visions, go into trances, prophesy, and so on.^[12] This is the branch of otherworld literature that survives in the early modern aisling tradition discussed in chapter 4, in which the poet has a vision of an otherworldly woman to be identified as the emblem of Ireland, a Sovereignty figure. Clearly, literary genres such as these are closely related to the tradition of the poet as visionary; they reinforce the view that the poet's second sight, including his ability to see into

[11] On the tale types of the echtra and the imram, see Mac Cana, Learned Tales 75–77, who suggests that the imram is later than the echtra as a genre. The bruiden tale is later still, not appearing as a category in the medieval Irish tale lists.

Examples of the motif of the magic mist are found in Kinsella, Táin 1–2, and AIT 504.

The otherworld impinges on early Irish literature in many other ways than in these specific genres about incursions to the otherworld. Early Irish literature is noted, in fact, for the role of the gods in the stories; in Irish hero tales, as in the Homeric epics, the gods play an active role, and this is one of the ways in which early Irish literature is much closer to classical tradition than to its medieval counterparts in other European vernaculars. Otherworld figures meddle in human wars, beget offspring, seek human lovers, ask for human assistance, and so forth. See, for example, AIT 134–36, 176–98, 229, 439–56, 488–90, 546–50. The deities of the early Irish otherworld literature in some cases have lingered on as fairy kings or queens in the living oral tradition. For examples, see Mac Cana, Celtic Mythology 85–86.

[12] Mac Cana, Learned Tales 75–76, discusses the genres baile/buile and fís.

the future and his clear vision of the norms by which humans live, is related to the poet's role as mediator between the human world and the otherworld.^[13]

Joyce's familiarity with the features of the Irish otherworld can be amply demonstrated; indeed, this is perhaps the aspect of Irish mythos that is most overdetermined in the sources Joyce had to hand. The literature of the Anglo-Irish literary revival is full of material about the Irish otherworld, as the epigraphs from Yeats illustrate, and must be counted among Joyce's sources for the mythic patterns related to the otherworld in Joyce's work. Yeats's early narrative poem "The Wanderings of Oisin" (1889) serves as a passable introduction to the concept of the Irish otherworld, including as it does many of the features of the otherworld discussed in this chapter, and Yeats returns to the various faces of the otherworld in work after work; in addition, his folklore collections, on which he collaborated with Augusta Gregory, are filled with fairy lore.^[14] Yeats also uses the concept of the otherworld in his plays, and Joyce owned The Land of Heart's Desire in 1920 (Ellmann, Consciousness of Joyce 134; Gillespie #559). The Irish otherworld is present not only in Yeats's work but in Augusta Gregory's adaptations and translations of early Irish literature; and it is also used thematically by authors such as A.E. and Synge.^[15]

A specific connection between Ulysses and early Irish literature about the otherworld is provided by a series of essays in the United Irishman , "The Old Irish Bardic Tales." In the course of this series, between 18 October and 8 November 1902, R. I. Best discusses Imram Curaig Máele Dáin (The Voyage of Mael Duin), Imram Snedgusa ocus Maic Ríagla (The Voyage of Snedgus and Mac Riagla), The Voyage of Bran, and Imram Curaig hua Corra (The Voyage of the Ui Corra), summarizing the stories in such detail that the features of the early Irish otherworld are readily apparent to readers; he also offers extensive bibliographical information for further reading. Following these summaries, which provide

[13] Some of the various types of early Irish texts related to the otherworld are summarized and discussed briefly in Dillon, Early Irish Literature 101–48.

[14] See Yeats, Celtic Twilight and Fairy and Folk Tales.

[15] For examples of Synge's otherworld imagery, see Roche, "Two Worlds"; A. E.'s Deirdre, which uses otherworld themes extensively, illustrates A. E.'s interest in and promulgation of this facet of the Irish literary tradition. Roche, "'Strange Light,'" indicates that Joyce's otherworld imagery in A Portrait of the Artist echoes that of both Yeats and Synge.

an excellent introduction to the genre of the imram, Best turns to two tales that also have important treatments of the Irish otherworld, The Adventures of Nera (an echtra) and Aided Fergusa maic Léiti (The Death of Fergus mac Leiti ), each of which illustrates some of the more sinister and entrapping features of the Irish otherworld. As a regular reader of this periodical, Joyce would have known these articles, and Joyce had earlier found substantial material on the Celtic otherworld in Best's translation of Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville's Irish Mythological Cycle , which had been serialized in the United Irishman.

Another probable source of Joyce's knowledge of Irish otherworld literature is P. W. Joyce's Old Celtic Romances , a book widely discussed in the popular literature and specifically recommended by Yeats (Sultan 43). James Joyce was familiar with other works of this author and respected his work, and there is reason to believe that he knew this volume in particular (Sultan 43–48). In Old Celtic Romances P. W. Joyce presents a collection of translations of early Irish stories, most of which have otherworld themes; the book includes a number of Fenian bruiden tales; the late "sorrowful" tales Aided Chlainne Lir (The Fate of the Children of Lir) and Aided Chlainne Tuirenn (The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn), which involve transformations and metamorphoses; the story of Oisin in the Land of Youth; the echtra entitled Echtra Conlai (The Adventure of Connla); as well as an imram, The Voyage of Mael Duin.^[16]

Internal evidence in Ulysses suggests that Joyce had also read Kuno Meyer's edition of The Voyage of Bran, along with the accompanying important essays by Alfred Nutt on the Irish otherworld and Irish ideas of rebirth. This volume, which was celebrated at the time, would have been the most substantial contemporary source for knowledge of and ideas about certain features of early Irish myth, including the early Irish otherworld and Irish conceptions of metempsychosis. Nutt provides a thorough discussion of the Irish otherworld, synopsizes all the relevant primary texts, and marshals comparative material showing the relationship of the Irish otherworld to similar materials in other Indo-European traditions. Nutt concludes that the Irish representations of the happy otherworld are closest to those of the Greeks, thus representing another

[16] The second enlarged edition includes The Voyage of the Ui Corra as well. P. W. Joyce's translation of Mael Duin is the source of Tennyson's "Voyage of Maeldune."

point de départ for Joyce's coordination of Irish and Greek mythic elements in Ulysses. Nutt's essays on Celtic mythological literature not only show detailed correspondences to various mythological elements in Ulysses, including the presentation of the otherworld, but are also antecedents to Joyce's later program of mythic syncretism in Finnegans Wake.

Joyce's familiarity with the concept of the poet's second sight and the Irish otherworld is patent, and these elements play a significant role in his writings. The theme of sight is a leitmotif of Finnegans Wake, not surprisingly since in Irish literature Finn is a poet and visionary.^[17] In Finnegans Wake there is a reference to the episode in which Finn eats the Salmon of Knowledge caught by Finneces ('Finn the poet'), thereby gaining his second sight: "The finnecies of poetry wed music" (377.16–17). But there are numerous more general references to second sight as well, including vision of the otherworld: "he skuld never ask to see sight or light of this world or the other world or any either world, of Tyre-nan-Og" (91.24–26).^[18] Although Joyce's familiarity with the concept of the poet's second sight can be traced explicitly only in his later work, the Irish conception of the poet as seer, hence as mediator between this world and the otherworld, is related to the notion of poet as priest found in A Portrait of the Artist. There the Irish and Christian meanings fuse in the pervasive imagery of poet as priest, a coalescence that probably has implications for how Joyce saw himself in life as well.^[19]

Joyce had used otherworld themes before Ulysses. "The Dead" is a sort of ghost story (cf. Stanislaus Joyce, Recollections of James Joyce 20); based in part on The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel (Kelleher "Irish History"), it contains some of the same somber and sinister otherworldly atmosphere of Joyce's mythic source.^[20] The otherworld imagery is even more explicit in A Portrait of the Artist, where the theme of "islanding"

[17] For a discussion of Finn as seer, see T. O'Rahilly 318–40; R. Scott, esp. chs. 1, 2, 7; Tymoczko, "'Cétamon'"; Nagy, esp. ch. 1, 129–30, ch. 6; as well as references cited in these sources.

[18] On second sight, see, for example, FW 75.13, 143.26, 157.21, 269.2, 303.10, 364.18.

[19] It is telling that Joyce believed his books were "acts of prophecy" (JJ 2 550).

These Irish traditions coalesce in Joyce with the romantic and symbolist traditions of the poet as seer; on the latter, see Herring, Joyce's Uncertainty Principle 140–60.

[20] Cf. also Nilsen, who traces references to the Irish god of the dead throughout Dubliners.

(173) and the mystical music and voice calling Stephen from "beyond the world" (167) suggest that he undertakes a symbolic imram to the otherworld (Roche, "'Strange Light'"). Here Joyce uses otherworld imagery to symbolize the poet's acquisition of vision in "the strange light of some new world" (172); like Finn's otherworldly Salmon of Knowledge, the bird-girl in Stephen's otherworld vision makes it possible for him to assume the vocation of poet and acts in this regard as his muse.

In A Portrait of the Artist the girl of the otherworld vision is set implicitly against the girls of Stephen's dissolute sexual experiences, and it is no accident that Joyce signals Stephen's entry into the brothel area of Dublin by using language suggesting a transition to the otherworld:

Women and girls dressed in long vivid gowns traversed the street from house to house. They were leisurely and perfumed. A trembling seized him and his eyes grew dim. The yellow gasflames arose before his troubled vision against the vapoury sky, burning as if before an altar. Before the doors and in the lighted halls groups were gathered arrayed as for some rite. He was in another world: he had awakened from a slumber of centuries. (PA 100)

The language evokes a number of motifs associated with the Irish otherworld: the "yellow gasflames" and "vapoury sky" suggest the mist that in some early stories permits the transition between worlds; at the same time the women dressed in bright colors, wandering at their leisure, suggests the otherworld as the land of women. There is a suggestion of ritual, and the motif of temporal disjunction is suggested by the last phrase of the quotation—a temporal disjunction not unlike that at the end of The Voyage of Bran. Joyce's phrase "he was in another world" gathers and makes explicit all the otherworld imagery and contrasts with the "strange light of some new world" associated with the later vision of the bird-girl. In A Portrait of the Artist there is in fact a quaternary representation of the otherworld, for these two versions of the early Irish otherworld are in turn contrasted with the two otherworlds of Christian belief: the vision of hell at the centerpiece of the retreat sermon (107ff.) and the vision of heaven held out to the Stephen as a possible reward. The complex interplay of these otherworlds provides the field against which Stephen chooses his vocation as poet.

In Ulysses Joyce returns to otherworld themes, manipulating the material in multiple ways. The imram is reflected in Ulysses as a whole, since

the motif of the voyage from wonder to wonder can be seen as doubling the voyage of Ulysses as well as the voyage of the Milesians in The Book of Invasions.^[21] In Molly's Gibraltar, Joyce recycles the same material, recreating the typical configuration of the happy otherworld of Irish literature and at the same time suggesting with the otherworld themes a vision of Ireland's future after independence. On behalf of the community, Joyce acts as poetic visionary, and he presents his vision in Molly's flowing, continuous, lyrical prose, the closest Joyce gets in Ulysses to the alliterative, cadenced visionary poetry, the roscada, of the early Irish seerpoets. Yet prior to the vision of the happy otherworld in Ulysses, Joyce gives a permutation of the more sinister incursions of Irish heroes into the otherworld found in such genres as the echtra and the bruiden tale. Naturalized as the brothel district of Dublin, in "Circe" the threatening and ominous side of the Irish otherworld becomes a vehicle for representing the workings of the psyche. Though used for rather different purposes, the elements of Irish otherworld imagery that contrast embryonically in A Portrait of the Artist are explored and developed at length in Ulysses.^[22]