The Power of Words in Gaelic Culture

by Iain Mac an tSaoir

In this day and age people sometimes forget about the power of words. Words are things. Words have power. The power of words is such that the ancestors were adamant that no false thing should pass into words. A triad that says:

Three things form which never to be moved: One's God(s), ones oaths, and the Truth.

By this time we are all very aware that, since ancient days, the world was seen to be a cauldron standing on the three legs of the Sky, the Sea and the Air. It is very easy to see the three parts of every act, thought, word and deed correlate to those three. Thus, we can get an idea of the exact ramifications of our acts, that as thought, word and deed together create something much bigger than any one of them separately. Words have power even as does the sea. That power can build up, or that power can tear down. Words, words used to build or destroy, this is exemplified nowhere better than in the ancient art of the satire.

Purpose of the Satire:

Something much heard of, but little understood amongst those studying the ancient traditions, is the satire. Amongst the ancient Gaels, the satire was called áer. According to Fergus Kelly, the only lay professional to have been accorded full Nemed status was the poet. The poets ultimate purpose was to either heap praise, or to cause a person to lose face through satire (1). The satire was seen to wield an enormous amount of power as it was thought to be able to raise blemishes on the face. This is a metaphorical description of the removal of 'face' or standing of honor. It was also thought to be able to bring death (2). While the purpose of the satire was to bring wrong doers back into conformity with the law (3), it would seem from the lack of recorded examples in early Irish materials that satire was most often only used as a threat rather something actually done (4).

Types of Satire:

There was a wide range of satires. There were, of course, legal and illegal satires of a poetic form. While the fili (poet) was the one who actually performed satires, there were words for the illegal satirist. Those words would seem to be cáinte and rindile (5).One of the things that made a satire illegal was the áer containing any item that wasn't factually true, or if something had been embellished to be greater than the actual offense. There were other occasions when less formal incidental statements and acts were seen as satires of an illegal nature. Kelly states about them:

"Heptad 33 lists the types of satire which require the payment of the victim's honour-price. These include a wide range of verbal assaults: mocking a person's appearance, publicizinga physical blemish, coining a nickname that sticks, composing a satire and repeating a satire composed by a poet in a distant place. A person may be guilty of satire even by mocking through gesture another's physical defect or peculiarity. Bretha Nemed déidenach adds the offenses of taunting, wrongfully accusing another of theft, and publicizing an untrue story which causes shame - any of these offenses requires payment of the victims honour-price." (6)

Those who made unjust satires owed the victim their full honor-price. Those unjustly satirized, who did not respond, permanently lost half of their honor-price.(7) Wrongly commited satires were only removed once a praise poem was issued to replace the satire.

According to Vivian Mercier (8), there were generally three different categories of theáer. They were:

• Aisnés: declaration; a declaration in prose, a reproach without rhyme.

• Ail: insult; verbal injury or a derrogatory nickname which sticks, rhymed or not.

• Aircetal: incantation/verse of ten varieties, one of which has three sub-varieties. The types are listed below in order from most private to most public.

1. mac bronn; son of womb (embryo), son of sorrow. This satire is told only to one person.

2. dallbach; (blindness) innuendo. In this satire, the victim remains anonymous while the deeds done or not done are explained in some detail. There three subtypes of this satire:

1. "firmly-established"; this is thought to have been when there was adequate evidence for the poet to prove their contention.

2. "lightly established"; this would seem to have been used in a somewhat more questionable situation.

3. "unestablished"; rumor.

3. focal i frithshuidiu; word in opposition. Mercier explains this one as "a quatrain of praise and therein is found a word on the verge of satire." This type embodies those that look like praise but which are actually derrogatory.

4. tár n-aíre; outrage of satire. A reproach made through negative comparisions about the victim of satire.

5. tár molta; outrage of praise. Praise so overblown as to be ludicrous or ironic. This type works by praising qualities that the target of the satire lacks.

6. tamall aíre; touch of satire. Very similar to tár n-aíre, yet not as flamboyant.

7. tamall molta; touch of praise. Satire which has the poet assailing the victim with faint praise. For example a praise poem that would but compliment them on the shine of their shoes.

8. lánaír; full satire. In this satire, the name, family and abode of the victim are all detailed in a very public way.

9. ainmedh; sarcasm

10. glám dícind; a religio-magical ritual working, using poetic satire against the victim of the satire.

Addressing Misunderstandings About the Glám Dícind:

In this day, when fad very often causes substance to be cast to the wind while symbolism reigns supreme, we sometimes see the most inane practices referred by titles once used for the most somber of things. one of these things is the Glám Dícind. Peter Berresford Ellis in his book The Druids defined the Glám Dícind thusly:

"... was a satirical incantation directed against a particular person which imposed an obligation. In short, it was a curse which could be pronounced for infringement of divine or human laws, treason or murder. Its pronouncement was feared as its victims had put on them a sense of shame, sickness and death. The person subjected to the glám dícind was rejected by all levels of Celtic society." (9)

The details of this rite is described in detail the Uraicecht na Riar. Before the rite could be enacted there had to be a counsel convened to judge the circumstanmce and make sure that the rite was warranted. In Christian times the counsel would consist of 30 laymen, 30 bishops and 30 poets. Perhaps in pre-Christian times there would have been warriors, as that would fulfill the tripartite floorplan of the culture, and in those earlier times the poets fulfilled the religious specialties now vested in the priesthood. The correctness of the rite being adjudged as true, the offended person/s would engage in a troscad or hungerfast before the door of the offender. The troscad was part of the body of rules to ensure a publicly presented fair warning prior to the rite itself.

The rite itself was performed by an Ollamh and six other poets, one of each of the poetic grades. It began just prior to sunrise, on a morning when the wind blew from the north (a necessity) . They would ascend to the top of a hill at the boundary of seven lands, and upon which grew a hawthorn tree. After they got to the top of the hill each of the lessor poets would face in a different direction, their backs toward the tree. The Ollamh would face toward the lands of the person being satirized.

Each of the poets would be holding a slingstone and a thorn from the hawthorn tree. Each poet would have a stanza of satire in a particular metre. All these things being met, the Ollamh would sing the verse into the slingstone after which the other poets together sang their verses into their slingstones. That being done, each poet would then put their stones and the thorns on the ground at the base of the tree, at its roots. According to legend, once the stones are placed on the ground in that manner, the earth starts consuming the offender. In tradition that could be the target of the satire, or the poet making the satire.(10)

Footnotes/Sources:

Guide To Early Irish Law, Fergus Kelly, 43

Guide To Early Irish Law, Fergus Kelly, 44

Guide To Early Irish Law, Fergus Kelly, 49

The Irish Comic Tradition, Vivian Mercier
Guide To Early Irish Law, Fergus Kelly, 137

Guide To Early Irish Law, Fergus Kelly, 137
Corpus Iuris Hibernici, edited by Binchy, 29.17-31.5

Guide To Early Irish Law Fergus Kelly, 50

The Irish Comic Tradition, Vivian Mercier
Uraicecht na ri/ar: The Poetic Grades in Early Irish Law, edited by Liam Breatnach
The Druids, Peter Berresford Ellis, 141

Uraicecht na ri/ar: The Poetic Grades in Early Irish Law, edited by Liam Breatnach

prepared by Iain Mac an tSaoir

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