The Vision of MacConglinne
"A vision I beheld last night: I sallied forth with two or three, When I saw a fair and well-filled house, In which there was great store of food. A…
From: 1100 C.E. To: 1200 C.E.
Aislinge Meic Conglinne, or The Vision of MacConglinne
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Aislinge Meic Conglinne is a 12th-century poem parodying the "vision poems" popular at the time. The poem's titular hero, MacConglinne, is a bard who satirizes the wrong monks after receiving poor hospitality. Under threat of death, he experiences a vision of a house made of food and is charged with expelling the demon of gluttony from a nearby king. His vision, while amusing, also provides a look into the medieval Irish diet:
A vision I beheld last night: I sallied forth with two or three, When I saw a fair and well-filled house, In which there was great store of food.
A lake of new milk I beheld In the midst of a fair plain. I saw a well-appointed house Thatched with butter.
As I went all around it To view its arrangement: Puddings fresh-boiled, They were its thatch-rods.
It two soft door-posts of custard, Its dais of curds and butter, Beds of glorious lard, Many shields of thin-pressed cheese.
Under the straps of those shields Were men of soft sweet smooth cheese, Men who knew not to wound a Gael, Spears of old butter had each of them.
A huge cauldron full of . . . (Methought I'd try to tackle it) Boiled, leafy kale, browny-white, A brimming vessel full of milk.
A bacon house of two-score ribs, A wattling of tripe--support of clans--Of every food pleasant to man, Meseemed the whole was gathered there.
And he said further:
A vision I beheld last night, Twas a fair spell, Twas a power of strength when to me appeared The kingship of Erin.
I saw a court-yard topped with trees, A bacon palisade, A bristling rubble dyke of stone Of pregnant cheeses.
Of chitterlings of pigs were made Its beautiful rafters, Splendid the beams and the pillars, Of marvellous . . .
Marvellous the vision that appeared to me By my fireside: A butter draught-board with its men, Smooth, speckled, peaked.
God bless the words I utter, A feast without fatigue! When I got to Butter-mount, A gillie would take off my shoes!..
[Significantly later in the myth]
...The eight kinds of grain thou must not spare, O MacConglinne, wheresoever they are offered thee, viz. Rye, wild-oats, beare, buck-wheat, wheat, barley, fidbach, oats. Take eight cakes of each fair grain of these, and eight condiment with every cake, and eight sauces with each condiment; and let each morsel thou puttest in thy mouth be as big as a heron's egg. Away now to the smooth panikins of cheese curds, O MacConglinne,
To fresh pigs, To loins of fat, To boiled mutton, To the choice of easily-discussed thing for which the hosts content--the gullet of salted beef; To the dainty of the nobles, to mead; To the cure of chest-disease--old bacon; To the appetite of pottage--stale curds; To the fancy of an unmarried woman--new milk; To a queen's mash--carrots; To the danger awaiting a guest--ale; To the sustenance of Lent--the cock of a hen; To a broken head--butter roll; To hand-upon-all--dry bread; To the pregnant thing of a hearth--cheese; To the bubble-burster--new ale; To the priests' fancy--juicy kale; To the treasure that is smoothest and sweetest of all food--white porridge; To the anchor--broth; To the double-looped twins--sheep's tripe; To the dues of a wall--sides (of bacon); To the birds of a cross--salt; To the entry of a gathering--sweet apples; To the pearls of a household--hens' eggs; To the glance of nakedness--kernels.
Bibliography
Kuno Meyer, trans., Aislinge Meic Conglinne, the Vision of MacCongline, a Middle-Irish Wonder Tale (London: Nutt, 1892).
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