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Editions

• W. M. Hennessy (tr.), ‘title?’, Fraser’s Magazine 88, September 1873, 298-323.

• K. Jackson (ed.), Aislinge Meic Con Glinne (Dublin 1990)

• K. Meyer (ed. & tr.), The Vision of MacConglinne: A Middle Irish Wonder Tale (London 1892; reprinted New York 1974)

• Word is that Professor Máire Herbert is preparing a new edition of the shorter recension.

Manuscripts

• R.I.A., Leabhar Breac (the longer recension)

• T.C.D., H. 3. 18 (the shorter recension)
  

Date

• Various scholars have suggested dates ranging from the late eleventh to the late twelfth century.
  

Characters

• Mac Con Glinne: (in the long version) a Munsterman from the Éoganacht Glendamnach.  He is referred to both as a scholar and as a clerical student.  However, in the short version, he is said to be an Ulsterman and a student attached to the familia of Fathan Mura in Co. Derry.

• Cathal mac Finguine (d. 742): king of Munster from the Éoganacht Glendamnach.

• Lígach: the sister of Fergal mac Máele Dúin (d. 722), king of Ailech from Cenél nÉogain (a branch of the Northern Uí Néill)

• Mainchín: abbot of Cork

• Pichán mac Máelfinne: king of Uí Echach Muman

Notes

• Meyer’s monograph contains an edition and translation of both recensions, while Jackson’s provides an edition of the longer recension together with extensive linguistic notes and a complete glossary.

• The relative date of the two versions has not been established (Jackson xxx).

• The Irish of the longer recension contains a number of rare words.

• I have not seen Hennessy’s 1873 translation of the longer recension, but both Meyer and Jackson consider it to be rather inaccurate.

• As a prose satire, AMCG is an early example of a genre that reaches its height in the seventeenth century.

Summary

[The Longer Version] Cathal mac Finguine ruled over Munster.  He had a demon of gluttony in his throat that caused him to consume enormous quantities of food and drink.  The demon came into his throat because of his love for Lígach, the sister of Fergal mac Máele Dúin, the king of Ailech, with whom he was contending for the kingship of Ireland.  Fergal had a scholar (scolaige) curse the apples that Lígach sent Cathal as a token of her affection, and as soon as the Munsterman ate them, the demon took shape in his throat.

There was a wonderful scholar (scolaige amru) in Armagh by the name of Aniér Mac Con Glinne.  Having grown tired of his reading, Mac Con Glinne decided to abandon learning and pursue the poetic life.  He decided to make his first visit as a professional poet to Cathal, who was on a royal visit among the Uí Echach Muman at that time.  So, Mac Con Glinne sold what little he had, bought some food, and headed south the next morning.  Miraculously, he completed the journey from Roscommon to Cork in a single day.

He took lodgings at the guesthouse in Cork, which he found to be in the most deplorable state—scant furnishings, bedclothes full of lice, and a bathtub full of dirty water.  Miserable in his new surroundings, Mac Con Glinne took out his psalter and began to sing the Office.  About that same time, Mainchín, the abbot of Cork, learned that a visitor had arrived and sent a student to give him his meal, but it was such a meager meal that Mac Con Glinne composed a satirical poem about it.  When the poem was repeated to Mainchín, he determined that his guest had to be punished, because his satire was clever and he feared that it might catch on.  He commanded that Mac Con Glinne be stripped, whipped, dunked in the River Lee, locked naked in the guesthouse over night, and crucified in the morning.

In the morning, Mainchín and the monks of Cork gathered outside the guesthouse to crucify a cold and naked Mac Con Glinne.  After a mock trial, in which Mac Con Glinne acquitted himself well, he was taken to Ráithín Mac nÁedo for execution, but before this could happened, Mac Con Glinne asked the abbot for a boon—to eat the viaticum that was in his book satchel.  The request was granted, and Mac Con Glinne took the loaf and bacon from his bag, cut a tenth of each off, and was about to offer it to them as tithes, but then complained once again about the way he had been treated and declared that as a result they deserved no tithes at all.  Then Mac Con Glinne ate the tithes along with the rest of his food.

After that, Mac Con Glinne was taken to a well named Bithlán.  He then started to drink from the well by dipping the pin of his brooch in the water and taking one drop at a time.  He taunted his captors a little more, and they decided to execute him immediately, but by that then, it was time for vespers and the clerics asked Mainchín to delay the crucifixion until the morning so that they could attend to their religious obligations, but the abbot refused.

So, Mac Con Glinne was taken to Caill na Sindach, where he was forced to cut down his own ‘passion tree’ (césadchrand) and carry it back to the green at Cork.  After fixing it upright in the ground, Mac Con Glinne asked for another boon—his fill of luxurious food and drink—but Mainchín staunchly refused.  However, by the time all this was completed, night had fallen, and the new day, Sunday, had begun, so Mainchín had Mac Con Glinne bound to a pillar stone to await execution upon the morrow.

Long about midnight, Mac Con Glinne was visited by an angel who showed him a vision before departing with the dawn.  When the clerics gathered about him in the morning, Mac Con Glinne asked if he could related to them the vision he had received.  Although the abbot was reluctant, the clerics granted him permission.  As a prelude to this tale, Mac Con Glinne chanted a versified genealogy of Mainchín in which all his ancestors were named after various kinds of food and drink.  Then he related his vision in verse, which essentially consisted of a journey to an otherworldly paradise in which all the structures were made out of food.

When he finished, Mainchín commanded him to go to Cathal, for it had been revealed to the abbot that the vision would cure the king of his demonic affliction.  Mac Con Glinne, though, asked what reward he might receive for that mission, but Mainchín thought that being spared his execution was reward enough.  Mac Con Glinne responded by saying that he was ready to die and go to his heavenly reward, and so in order to heal Cathal and save Munster from his prodigious appetite, Mainchín was forced to give Mac Con Glinne his prized cloak.

At that, Mac Con Glinne went to Dún Coba and the house of Pichán mac Máelfinne where Cathal was to stay that night.  After playing the fool for a while in front of the fort, he asked Pichán what reward he might receive for saving him from the king’s ravenous appetite.  Pichán promised him a gold ring, a Welsh horse, and a large number of sheep.  Mac Con Glinne found the reward acceptable and named his sureties.

As soon as Cathal arrived, he began devouring the apples that were offered him until Mac Con Glinne sat down in front of him and made a show of gnawing on a pillar stone.  When asked why he acted thus, Mac Con Glinne said that he grieved to see the great king eat alone.  Cathal agreed that it was unseemly and began handing him one apple after another.  Eventually, the king became enraged with the poet’s constant demands for his food and threatened to throw him out.  Mac Con Glinne, however, asked for a boon before his departure, and Cathal agreed.  Once the sureties had been named, Mac Con Glinne asked Cathal to fast with him that night to stave off the malediction that the familia of Cork had placed on him.  Distressed, Cathal offered him much wealth in place of the fast, but the poet said that if the king did not grant his original request, the curse would consign him to hell.  At that, Cathal relented and agreed to fast with him, even though he knew it would cause him much grief.

In the morning, Mac Con Glinne arose, prayed for the king, and preached a stirring sermon to the hosts of Munster.  Cathal was very much distressed, but Mac Con Glinne convinced him to fast another night, saying that God might help him.

Mac Con Glinne got up the next morning and roasted some food on spits.  When the food was ready, he and the strongest of the Munster warriors bound Cathal to the side of the palace.  Then, Mac Con Glinne sat down in front of the king and began to eat.  Though Cathal became furious and demanded the poet’s death, Mac Con Glinne refused to give him a single bite and proceeded to tell him of his vision.  As he heard about this otherworldly paradise of food, Cathal became more and more distressed, but the poet continued his tale.  He told Cathal how a great phantom (scál mór) warned him one night to beware of the gravy that might drown him.  Then, the phantom chanted a poem full of gnomic wisdom, gave him tidings of the otherworld of food, and then bid him to go to Dísert ind Fháthlegai, where he would find a cure for his ravenous appetite.  Mac Con Glinne promised he would go, and the phantom gave him his blessing, saying that the poet had to put himself under the protection of the ‘peoples of food’ (túatha bíd) lest the gravy make an end of him.  With that, Mac Con Glinne began his journey to Dísert ind Fháthlegai.

In no time, Mac Con Glinne reached the lake of new milk before the fort and took a ferry of corned beef across to Dísert in Fháthlegai, the fortress of which was made of various kinds of food.  Inside, he saw the Fáthliaig (‘prognostic doctor’) himself, surrounded by his people, all dressed in edible clothing.  The Fáthliaig told Mac Con Glinne that he looked terrible, and the poet explained that it was because he received no satiety, no substance from what he ate and drank.  All he wanted to do, he said, was eat all the food of the world.  The Fáthliaig told him that his condition was serious indeed but that he would send the poet home with a cure: he was to go home, wash himself in the well, clean his teeth, and warm himself by a fire fueled by specific types of wood, as he sat on a calfskin.  Furthermore, he had to get a good woman to wait on him and feed him twenty-seven bits of food (trí noí mírend), each the size of a hen’s egg.  He was also to eat loaves of different kinds of grain with various condiments.

Tempted by the recitation of this vision, the demon that was in Cathal’s throat came out and latched on to a piece of food that was in Mac Con Glinne’s hand.  The poet trapped the demon in an overturned cauldron.  Then, everything of value was removed from Pichán’s house and it was set alight.  However, the fire did not have the power to destroy the demon, so it escaped out of the room and landed on the top of a nearby house.  Taunted by Mac Con Glinne, the demon admitted defeat and flew off into the air.

The poet then told the people to boil new milk with honey and give it to Cathal to drink.  This done, the king went to bed, and Mac Con Glinne was shown great honor.  The next morning, Cathal awoke and gave a blessing to anyone who would read and preserve Mac Con Glinne’s vision.  He also gave the poet a handsome reward.  The text ends with a description of the thirty chief virtues (deich prímratha fichet) that this tale imparts to the listener.