Autochthons and Otherworlds in Celtic and Slavic

Abstract

The quite ‘historical’ question of when the lower Otherworld in Ireland was first separated from the upper world is dealt with in a number of early Irish tales. The problem of áes síde and their antagonism with humans is posed in order to determine the conflict in the tales. The paper focuses on an opening fragment from an Ulster cycle tale ‘The drunkenness of the Ulaid’ (Mesca Ulad). The special allocation of the Otherworld is associated in the text (as well as in other narratives to be discussed) with the coming of the sons of Míl and the beginning of Goidelic Ireland. The very notion of separation between the world of humans and the Otherworld is closely related to the beginning of history as such. When the history begins the sacred (belonging to gods) has to be separated from profane (belonging to mortals). Since this separation is performed the binary opposition between the lower Otherworld and the upper world of humans becomes a distinctive feature of the early Irish mythological narrative. Typologically similar phenomenon is observed in the northern Russian “synthetic history” and folklore dealing with the hidden supernatural autochthons (чудь белоглазая). Both Celtic and Slavic examples seem to reflect a transition stage when cosmological elements are superimposed on the emerging historical consciousness.