Ulidia 4: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales

The Ulster Cycle is a jewel in the Irish literary tradition. Comprising approximately eighty distinct tales, it describes a heroic world set in Ireland's distant past and centred on the court of Conchobar, king of Ulster, and on the pre-eminent warrior, Cu Chulainn. This collection of essays presents the most recent thinking on the Cycle including its textual tradition and the interpretation of individual tales, the coherence of the Cycle itself and its earliest attestations, its relationship to the law tracts, its political and intellectual context, and its geographical background. Contents: Gregory Toner (QUB), Sense and senselessness in Serglige Con Culainn ; Fangzhe Qiu (MU), The Ulster Cycle in the law tracts; Joanne Findon (U Trent), A good (mortal) man is hard to find; Sharon Arbuthnot (QUB), Gesture and verbal pronouncement in some Ulster Cycle tales; Patricia Ronan (U Lausanne) & Gerold Schneider (U Zuerich), The interpolator(s) H in Lebor na hUidre; Martina Maher (U Glasgow), De Gabail int S ida ; Tatyana A. Mikhailova (U Moscow), Description devices in Ulster saga narrative; David Stifter (MU), Ulster connections of Cin Dromma Snechtai ; Kay Muhr (QUB), The influence of Ui Neill on names in the Ulster Cycle; Britta Irslinger (Freiburg), Medb, 'the intoxicating one'?; Micheal B. O Mainnin (QUB), Oenach Macha revisited.