Proper names in Irish fairy tales

Yes, that's absolutely correct. Bóín Dé would be "bozha korivka" in Ukrainian and "bozhya korovka" in Russian.

And there's another thing, connected neither with plants or incects=) "BabAy" (or "Babai") with the stress on the last vowel, in Ukrainian tradition is a mythical creature, an old man, with which parents scare their kids. Like if you won't be good, Babay will come and take you. Although they say it comes from a Turkish word, it reminded me of the Irish "babai".  

"Free carpenter" - that's how Joseph Jacobs explained the name. He also added in the notes that it's "the Irish equivalent of Wayland Smith, and occurs in several place names in Ireland". I found in wiki (it's not that dependable, but I don't have anything better at hand at the moment) that Wayland Smith is known in Germanic and Old Norse mythology and Gobannus is a Gallo-Roman god of smithery. These may be confused, but when and how does carpetner appeared I've no idea=(

By the way, Jacobs changed the name into "Gobborn Seer" in the tale.  

If anyone has any ideas on the meaning of Gobán Saor I'd be happy to hear them, though sadly I won't be able to include any more into my thesis. As I'm done with it. It's finally printed and handed in=) I decided merely to mention the assumed meaning of the name.

Thank you so much for your help, Seano, go raibh maith agat or дякую. My topic certainly wouldn't be that absorbing without the Irish names. In fact, I guess the Irish part is the only one deserving attention! Hope there'll be more=)

Hi, Bess, I know this thread's been silent for quite a while, but I couldn't help but respond a little bit to your inquiry with a bit of trivia I've picked up regarding Irish folklore and legend.

Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhail) had a son who was also a member of the Fianna and became the subject of a couple of different stories in the Fenian cycle of mythology, most particularly the story of "Tír na nOg" (should be a fada over the capital O - sorry), or "The Land of Eternal Youth".  His name was "Oisín" (pronounced Oh-sheen) and means "fawn" or "little deer".

Fionn mac Cumhail was hunting one day when he spied a doe and was ready to shoot her with an arrow.  His hounds, who had once been human, recognized that the doe was also human, so Fionn spared her and brought her to his land.  She told him she had been cursed by a druid and turned into a deer because she would not marry him.  Once she set foot on Fionn's land, she returned to her original form, and they married.  But the druid returned and changed her back into a deer, so she fled.  Later, Fionn met their son, Oisín, who, being the son of a woman turned into a deer, was named "fawn", even though it doesn't give it the ring of a great warrior, but makes sense in the context of the story.

Don't know if this helps you any, but I thought it was a fun tale of how his name came to be.

Dale D.

Hi Dale, Yes that's a very interesting story. I can add a few small details to it which people might find interesting.

One, according to tradition, the grave of Oisín is just outside the village of Cushendall in the Glens of Antrim.

Two, later in his life, Oisín was persuaded to spend three years with the fairy woman Niamh in the land under the sea. One day, he saw a broken spear floating in the water and remembered Fionn and the Fianna. So he asked Niamh to return to Ireland. She gave him a fairy horse and told him not to set foot on the ground. When he got to Ireland, he found that he had been away for three hundred years and that everything was changed. The people were small and weak. He saw a group of them struggling to move a stone and he leant down from his horse and pushed the stone away with one hand, but at that moment the saddle-strap broke and he fell to the ground. Immediately he became an old man. Later he met Saint Patrick and became a Christian. Hence the phrase for a lonely old person who has outlived his contemporaries Oisín i ndiaidh na Féinne (an Oisín after the Fianna).

Three, and this is perhaps the most interesting thing of all, this story is almost identical to a story told in Japan, where the central character is called Urashima Taro.

Irish mythology is a fascinating subject. Any other good stories out there?