Hiberno-Rossica: 'Knowledge in the Clouds' in Old Irish and Old Russian
Grigory Bondarenko
Ulster University
Abstract
The present discussion aims to deal with one rare example of formulaic similarities in Old Irish and Old Russian poetic speech. In the past years several studies appeared devoted to Celto-Slavic isoglosses or correspondences in theonymics and mythopoetic language. The paper is focused on two particular fragments in two Old Irish and Old Russian texts (the former is much less known than the latter) with a special emphasis on the semantics and poetic rules, which are common for both examples. The first text is an Old Irish poem Immaccallam in druad Brain ocus inna banfhátho hóas Loch Febuil (‘The dialogue of Bran’s druid and Febul’s prophetess above Loch Febuil’, further IDB).
An Old Russian text to be compared is a fragment from the late 12th century epic ‘The Song of Igor’s Campaign’ (Слово о плъку Игоревѣ, Slovo o plъku Igoreve). An attempt is made to tackle the problem of common Indo-European ancestry for the discussed formula (‘knowledge in the clouds’) with its variants (lluid mo fhius co ardníulu; летая умомъ подъ облакъı) present in the both texts and cultural realities, which the formula might reflect.
Both Old Irish and Old Russian examples attracted scholars’ attention and were labelled as ‘shamanic experience’ (Carney). It is significant that both protagonists in these poems are not only poets: in Old Irish it is druí ‘druid’ and in Old Russian it is вѣщии ‘wizard’. It is rather difficult to ascribe definite social, cultural and religious functions to both these terms in early Christian Ireland and in medieval Rus’. One can evidently accept that druids held a function of priests in early Celtic societies. The same position is likely to be held by druids in pre-Christian Ireland (cf. episode of the bull sacrifice in Serglige Con Culainn).
In Old Russian no priestly functions of вѣщiй, вѣщунъ are attested. Nevertheless Old Russian влъсви (wizards, magi; stands for μάγοι in the Gospels where OI has druid) definitely performed functions of pagan priests sometimes associated with shamanic activity. To a certain extent both OI and OR narratives reflect the particular link between the poet’s and the priest’s activity: both fragments refer to poet’s perception of the world, a specific cosmological scheme.