I stumbled across this blog on accident, but I am intrigued and I have to ask: is there a specific best place to read the Ulster Cycle in English?
yo! welcome to the niche corner
okay so first up the “ulster cycle” is a modern term given to a huge and disparate body of texts, some of which connect obviously to each other and some of which don’t but happen to have some of the same characters. some retellings attempt to rewrite the whole thing into a single coherent narrative but those are, by necessity, retellings rather than translations since that isn’t actually... what it is.
not all the texts have been translated but most of the big ones have and some of them even have multiple translations which is great
the big, central text and the one i reference most often is táin bó cúailnge, which used to get translated as “the cattle-raid of cooley” until thomas kinsella came along and was like “hey, maybe people would take us more seriously if we called it the táin”, so that’s what it generally gets called now. kinsella’s translation is good, as is ciarán carson’s. carson’s is a bit cheaper and personally i prefer it for general reading because of the style, but kinsella’s has the big advantage that he includes a bunch of the other stories which relate to the táin
another useful book is gantz’s early irish myths and sagas, which includes a bunch of texts from the so-called “ulster” and “mythological” cycles (again, modern terms). i would... ignore 99% of what gantz says in his little textual introductions because a lot of it is now quite outdated scholarship, but the translations themselves are solid enough
there are some more texts translated in the celtic heroic age by john carey and john koch but these are more academic translations and don’t really try and smooth over the syntax or any gaps in the manuscript for a modern audience, so that’s only if you’re really keen
you can also find a lot of the texts in translation at CELT, the Corpus of Electronic Texts (whoever came up with that acronym must have been so proud of themselves) -- these are generally older translations but hey, they’re free and they’re online and a lot of them are very accurate, even if that can make them a bit less readable
@finnlongman makes videos about medieval irish lit and has retold several ulster cycle texts on youtube here
hope this helps! you will also find various retellings out there, many of them victorian or early 20th century (lady gregory, eleanor hull etc) but like i said, if you want the texts in their most “accurate” form, these are the best places to start
[please note that links are amazon uk affiliate links, if you buy via those i get a teeny tiny commission, but actually would advocate supporting your local bookshops if possible, they’re mostly there for illustrative purposes]
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some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.
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I hope this is helpful for you!
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Thank you for the instructions!
Aside of using a search engine, I also have a pinned post with links to my masterposts.
I currently have eight masterposts, sorted by theme:
Sewing, mending, and crafts
Projects and patterns
My personal projects
Replies to asks (part 1)
Replies to asks (part 2)
Replies to asks (part 3)
Fast fashion and climate change
Wardrobe management etc.
That feeling when you post a fic on a completely new account after a couple years of no writing:...
And yet this feeling of trepidation hits the same...
Welp, some things really do not change.
Anyway, the link to the first chapter:
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refseek.com
www.worldcat.org/
link.springer.com
http://bioline.org.br/
repec.org
science.gov
pdfdrive.com
I just discovered foodtimeline.org, which is exactly what it sounds like: centuries worth of information about FOOD. If you are writing something historical and you want a starting point for figuring out what people should be eating, this might be a good place?
refseek.com
www.worldcat.org/
link.springer.com
http://bioline.org.br/
repec.org
science.gov
pdfdrive.com