vikinginireland: a lucet and yellow cord I'm making with it (Default)
Yesterday, someone wanted to know how to say "rainbow", meaning "of many colours", in Old Irish. Someone else suggested "dathannach", meaning colourful.

My Irish is terrible, and I know no Old Irish, but given the name "the Many Coloured Land", I felt there had to be something more colourful than "colourful".

A couple of searches later (very important to exclude Julian May if you don't want the results filled with her book!), I had the word "ildathach" as another name for Tir na nÓg. Another quick search confirmed it meant multicoloured in Modern Irish, as well as variegated and iridescent. The Many Coloured *Land* is presumably *Tír* Ildathach.

But was "ildathach" used in Old Irish? Luckily, there's increasing numbers of old documents online. I quickly found a transciption of Togail Bruidne Da Derga, an Old Irish text, from around 600 to 900CE. It has the line "At- chíu a brat n-derg n-ildathach nóthech siric srethchise." I don't know what that means*, except for ildathach, but it shows the word was used, and I judge it very unlikely to have a different meaning.

During my searches, I coincidentally came across a children's book translated into Modern Irish. In English, it's called The Rainbow Fish. In Irish, An T-Iasc Ildathach. Evidence that ildathach is the appropriate choice for the asker's use of "rainbow".

Hmm... while going back to the transcription to write this post, I noticed "illdathaig" a few lines below "ildathach". "scáthderc sceo deilb illdathaig." I suppose that's an alternative spelling. *does NOT add "understanding Old Irish texts" to to-do list*



*I can guess that "brat" is the clothing. And derg might be red, but red multicoloured? A brat of many shades of red, perhaps? *thinks madder thoughts*



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vikinginireland: a lucet and yellow cord I'm making with it (Default)
Þóra Greylock

July 2020

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