Connections: the Cath Maige Tuired and the Vǫluspá Convergence of cultures, history and myth

Abstract

The topic of the thesis is the Irish myth Cath Maige Tuired - "The Second Battle of Mag Tuired", which is the story about the battle between the Túatha Dé Danann, the gods of pagan Ireland, and their enemies the Fomoire. What I wish to focus upon in the Cath Maige Tuired is not the battle in itself, which has been compared to the war between the Aesir and the Vanir in Scandinavian mythology1, but a passage at the end of this myth, where the goddess Mórrigan (here in the form of a mortal) comes with a prediction of the end of the world. This text has many qualities that I find similar to the Norse text Vǫluspá. I wish to explore the relationship between the prophecies of the Cath Maige Tuired and the Vǫluspá to see if there is some connection between them or if the similarities are purely coincidental. The paper will have two main axes of study: One axis on how time has affected the stories and their content, the oral tradition to the written, the pagan to the Christian, and another axis on space, how the Norse and Celtic traditions are both alike and different. The thesis will answer how the intermingling of the two cultures in the Viking Age affect the content of the myths as well as the culture.