Gaelic Folkore
The Visage of Fairies
An Analysis of Gaelic Mythology and Folklore
Part I: Lú Lámhfhada
Introduction
Victorian pixies are bullshit, but so are the neopagan/dark-fantasy concept of fairies. In this essay, I'm gon' tell you about why fairies are blond.
Cattle Raid of Cooley?
A Description of Lú Lámhfhada
Orignal Old Irish
"Fer mór cáin dana, berrad lethan lais, folt casbuide fair. Bratt uanide i forcipul imme. Cassan gelargit isin brutt uas a bruinne. Léne de sról ríg fo derggindliud do derggór i custul fri gelchness co glúnib dó. Dubscíath co calathbuali finndruini fair. Sleg cóicrind ina láim. Foga fogablaigi ina farrad..."
Joseph Dunn's Translation (1914)
"'A great, well-favoured man, then. Broad, close-shorn hair upon him, and yellow and curly his back hair. A green mantle wrapped around him. A brooch of white silver in the mantle over his breast. A kirtle of silk fit for a king, with red interweaving of ruddy gold he wears trussed up on his fair skin and reaching down to his knees...A black shield with a hard rim of silvered bronze thereon. A five-barbed spear in his hand. A pronged bye-spear beside it...'"(182)
My Translation
"'A great, well-favoured man, then, with broad, close-shorn locks of curly gold upon his head. A green brat wrapt around him. A white-silvern brooch in the brat over his breast. Against his white skin, a kirtle of regal silk, interwoven with red-gold, reaching down to his knees. A black shield with a boss of white-bronze thereon . A five-tined spear in his hand, a forked dart beside it...'"
The words rendered by Dunn as "yellow and curly...back hair", and by myself as "locks of curly gold" are folt casbuide. The first word, folt, is simple enough. In Gaelic both old and modern, it refers to hair, specifically that of the head, often translated as "locks" or "tresses". The second word, casbuide, is a compound of two Old Irish words; cas "twisted, curly", and buide "yellow". Both parts of the compound should be familiar to modern Gaelic-speakers, though the more etymological buidhe has been respellt buí save in Ulster and Scotland. The word casbuide is hardly an ambigous descriptor, though buide is not usually used to describe the colour of hair, with finn "fair, blond(e)" (modern fionn) the fair commoner term.
Orignal Old Irish
"Co n-acatar an scál fodesin isin tigh for a cinn ina rígsuide. Ní fríth a Temraich ríam fer a méde nach a caoime ar áille a chrotha, ar inganta a deuluha."
Myles Dillon's Translation (1946)
"They saw the scál [phantom] himself in the house, before them on his throne. There was never in Tara a man of his size or his beauty, on account of the fairness of his form and the wondrousness of his appearance."
My Translation
"Never in Teamhair had a man his size or ??? been found, ??? beauty of his ?? and ???"