La mort de Muirchertach, fils d'Erc. Texte irlandais du très haut Moyen Âge : la femme, le saint et le roi

The Death of Muirchertach mac Erca The archaic account of the death of Muirchertach mac Erca is one of the most eloquent testimonies in Irish mythology and pseudo-history to the ambiguous and obscure relationship between declining paganism and triumphant Christianity. Composed in keeping with the oldest techniques of Celtic oral narrative — explanatory sections in prose alternating with long passages in verse that constitute the heart of the story — this text, following a very long process of transmission by manuscript, presents three symbolic characters : the saint, who embodies all the intransigence of Celtic Christianity ; the king of Tara, senile and worn out by the exercise of power, who suffers a triple sacrifical death : he is killed by his enemies, burned alive in afire in his palace and drowned in a vat of wine or beer; the woman of the afterworld, transformed into a creature of temptation and sin. The plot is evangelical in its simplicity: the woman uses magic to tempt the king, who succumbs and meets a tragic death; the saint, not without difficulty, is ultimately victorious and, as a sign of his total triumph, sends everyone to Paradise.Guyonvarc'h Christian-J. La mort de Muirchertach, fils d'Erc. Texte irlandais du très haut Moyen Âge : la femme, le saint et le roi. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 38ᵉ année, N. 5, 1983. pp. 985-1015