Week 12 Reading: Celtic Tales Part A

 For week 12 part A, I am taking notes on the story of Munachar and Manachar. Because of the nature of the story, these notes are a bit different than my usual notes.


Illustration from Celtic Fairy Tales by John D. Batten (1892)


"Plot"

A manachar and a munachar go out to pick raspberries. As soon as Munachar would pick a berry Manachar would eat it. This pissed Munachar off and he wanted to kill Munachar. So, he decided to find a rod to make a gad to hang manachar. This began a sequence of requests.

  • Rod needs axe to cut him
  • Axe need flag to edge him
  • Flag needs water to wet him
  • Water needs deer to swim in him
  • Deer needs a hound to hunt him
  • Hound needs butter
  • Butter needs a cat to scrape it
  • Cat needs milk from cow
  • Cow needs a whisp of straw from threshers
  • Threshers need cake from miller
  • Miller needs water from river
Munachar tries to get the water with a sieve but it doesn't work. A crow comes by and "duabs". Munachar thanks the crow and daubs the sieve with clay so that it will hold water. He then
  • Brings the water to the miller
  • the cake to the threshers
  • the wheat to the cow
  • the milk to the cat
  • the cat scraped the butter
  • the butter to the hound
  • the hound hunts the deer
  • the deer swims in the water
  • the water wet the flag
  • the flag sharpened the axe
  • the axe cut the rod
  • the rod made the gad
Finally, when Munachar was ready to hang Manachar, he found that Manachar had burst from eating too much.

Thoughts

This was just a really, really long setup for a short, easy punchline. I loved it! I don't know what exactly I can do story wise. There isn't much to say about the characters. Manachar is gluttonous and Munachar is determined (or just that angry). Maybe there is something in that. Regardless, it was funny and I enjoyed it.

Bibliography. Munachar and Manachar from Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892)

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