Three short poems in Acallam na senórach. Poetry as an indicator of the relationship between the manuscript witnesses

Abstract

The poetry in the early thirteenth-century Irish text Acallam na senórach serves many functions within the narrative as a whole, summarizing, emphasizing, and even conveying key points within the piece. Beyond the important role verse plays within the context of the tale, however, the poems can also serve as useful signifiers of the relationship between the four manuscript witnesses of the text. This is particularly true of the shorter poems, which are brief enough that they were able to be altered or omitted without creating too great a chasm in the text, and so exhibit greater differences between the manuscript copies than other portions of the text do. Comparison of a poem across the four manuscript witnesses provides consistent evidence that the copies of Acallam na senórach in Laud Misc. 610 and the Book of Lismore agree more with one another, that Franciscan A 4 will often agree with Laud Misc. 610 against the Book of Lismore, and that Rawlinson B 487, while quite different to the other copies, will often agree with Franciscan A 4.