Nemain
In
Representation in literature
In the grand Irish epic of the
“Then the Neman attacked them, and that was not the most comfortable night with them, from the uproar of the giant Dubtach through his sleep. The bands were immediately startled, and the army confounded, until Medb went to check the confusion.”
Lebor na hUidhre, fol. 46, b1.
And in another passage, in the episode called "Breslech Maighe Muirthemhne,” where a terrible description is given of
"He saw from him the ardent sparkling of the bright golden weapons over the heads of the four great provinces of
Eriudashed themselves against the points of their own spears and weapons, so that one hundred warriors died of fear and trembling in the middle of the fort and encampment that night."
Kinship
In
“Neit son of Indu, and his two wives, Badb and Neamin, truly, Were slain in Ailech, without blemish, By Neptur of the Fomorians”.
At folio 5, a2, of the same MS., Fea and Nemain are said to have been Neit’s two wives but in the poem on Ailech printed from the
In the Dindsenchas, Nemain "of the wounds of war" is described as the "law-giver wife" of Neit.[6]
Etymology
The variant forms in which her name appears in Irish texts are Nemon ~ Nemain ~ Neman. These alternations imply that the
The meaning of the name has been glossed in various ways. Squire (2000:45) glossed the name as 'venomous' presumably relating it to the
Equally, the
) is too different in form from *Nemānjā, *Nemani-s or *Nemoni-s to be equated with any of them.The name may plausibly be an extended form of the
References
- ^ Dinneen, Patrick S., ed. (1927). "Maċa". Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla: an Irish–English dictionary, being a thesaurus of the words, phrases and idioms of the modern Irish language (New edition, revised and greatly enlarged ed.). Dublin: Irish Texts Society. p. 692.
- ISBN 0-486-41441-8.
- ISBN 0-13-275959-4.
- ISBN 0-8156-2441-7.
- ^ ISBN 0-19-280120-1.
- ^ The Metrical Dindsenchas, poem 23 "Ailech II"
Further reading
- Hennessey, WM. (1870). The Ancient Irish Goddess of War. Revue Celtique, Vol 1, pp. 27–57. Available 26 September 2007 online at Sacred-texts.com.