Acallam na Senórach

The Colloquy of the Ancients, the great prose epic of the Fenian cycle, told across a winter's night to Saint Patrick.

Core Characteristics

• Compiled around 1200 from Fenian oral tradition, one of the longest medieval Irish texts.
• The last survivors of Fionn mac Cumhaill's fianna, Cailte and Oisín, recount their world to Patrick's Christian Ireland.
• Its frame gives the old gods and heroes a voice at the very moment of their passing.

Related Concepts & Sources

Irish, Oral Tradition, Táin Bó Cúailnge