Textual Correspondences in $\textit{Tochmarc Ferbe}$

This paper will examine evidence for intertextuality and compositional methods in the medieval Irish tale Tochmarc Ferbe "The Wooing of Ferb," using as a case study a particular passage consisting of set-piece description. Tochmarc Ferbe (TF) offers certain advantages for this kind of study, as a result of its textual tradition. The tale is found in two manuscripts, the Book of Leinster (Dublin, Trinity College 1339 (H.2.18), pp. 253-9), from the second half of the twelfth century, and London, British Library, Egerton 1782 (fol. 69b), from the early sixteenth century. The Egerton version of the tale is a straightforward, short prose account. Meanwhile, the Book of Leinster (LL) version is more complex in form. It consists mainly of a long, detailed prose narrative, with several poems interspersed within it, which act as Situationsgedichte 'situation-poems.'1 However, at the end of this prose narrative, there is a poem of a different sort, namely a long poem purportedly containing the account of the tale's events as composed by Conchobar's fili 'poet.' The contents of this poem correspond approximately, but not completely, with those of the preceding prose. But what is particularly striking is that the Egerton-version corresponds almost exactly with this long LL-poem as regards content and sometimes even wording. We are therefore dealing, not with two, but with three interrelated versions of the tale Tochmarc Ferbe,Arts and Humanities Research Counci