Cover art is ‘A Bard Reciting to Northmen’ by an unknown artist, public domain
Book of Leinster
Notes: This is a remarkable condensed curriculum of bardic knowledge — essentially a list of the fourteen essential streams or tributaries that feed into the great river of Irish poetic learning (éicse). Several of these are particularly noteworthy:
Imbas Forosnai (“knowledge that illuminates”) was one of the three great supernatural arts of the Irish poet — achieved by chewing a piece of flesh, placing the hands over the cheeks, and entering a prophetic trance. St. Patrick reportedly banned it as pagan.
Dichetal do Chennaib (“extempore incantation from the fingertips”) was a form of instant poetic divination, reportedly the only one of the three great arts that Patrick allowed to continue because it did not require pagan ritual.
Teinm Laégda (“illumination of song” or “cracking open a marrow-bone”) was another of the three great divinatory arts, involving chanting over a subject to reveal hidden knowledge.
The inclusion of genealogy and synchronism alongside supernatural arts is very telling — in the Irish tradition, the mastery of history and family lineage was considered just as fundamental to the poet’s art as prophetic inspiration. The combination of the mystical and the scholarly is absolutely characteristic of the Irish learned tradition.
The Fourteen Streams of Poetic Knowledge — as follows:
- Féle and Innruccus — Generosity and Propriety
- Comgne and Genelach — Synchronism [of history] and Genealogy
- Imbas and Dichetal — Imbas Forosnai [prophetic inspiration through touch] and Dichetal do Chennaib [extempore incantation/divination]
- Anamain and Brethugud — Vituperation [cursing/satirizing] and Judgment
- Teinm Laeda and Ler Forcetail — Teinm Laégda [illumination through chewing — a form of divination] and Sea of Teaching [vast learning]
- Idna Láme and Lánamnais — The Craft of the Hand and Partnership/Conjunction
- Idna Beoil and Fogloimm — The Craft of the Mouth and Learning
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