Colorado Guy in this thread referred to what I'm calling poet savants; that is, people who are suddenly given the gift/curse of poetry who may not be considered, previously, to be quite sane or particularly intelligent.
One of the paradoxes of medieval Irish literature is that future poets and prophets often begin life as hideously ugly individuals, who are mute until an external catalyst spurs them into speech. Ecet Salach or Echen was an Ulster smith and the father of an hideously ugly misshapen lad named Amargein. Amargein is incapable even of keeping himself clean and subsists on a diet of curds, salt, berries and nuts. One day Athirne sends his assistant Greth to put his master’s axe into the forge’s fire when Amargein “cast a hard look at him” thus terrifying Greth. Suddenly Amargein, previously mute, speaks for the first time, uttering the same phrase three times: “Does Greth eat curds?” a pun on Greth’s name and the Irish word for curds gruth. In the end Amargein is fostered by the poet Athirne, and takes his place as the chief poet of Ireland after Athirne (I am paraphrasing from Ford’s translation in Ford 1990, 28–30. Ford cites R. I. Best et al 1954–83. Vol. II ll. 13565–617 (ff. 117b–118b). In Amargein’s case, the catalyst that caused him to speak was the potential for a pun occasioned by the appearance of Athirne’s servant Greth. Labraid Loingsech is another poet who moves from speechlessness to poetic utterance:
For Moén, the catalyst that brings him from silence to speech occurs when he is struck in the shin with a hurling stick during a game. “That got me” he says. “Móen speaks [labraid]” say the other boys, and he earns his adult name (Ford 1992, 25).
There are other oddities, too; a fellow named Donn Bo who, after a head injury, "lost his brain of forgetting," and proceeded to learn all three branches of Irish scholarship, the traditional lore of poets, the Brehon lore of the judicial system, and Christian lore.
The Welsh über poet Taliesin is another case of spontaneous poet from an idiot savant, of sorts.
If this stuff interests you, there's a neat book called The Role of the Poet in Early Societies by Morton W. Bloomfield and Charles W. Dunn; published by D. S. Brewer.
Works Cited
Ford, Patrick. "The Blind, the Dumb, and the Ugly: Aspects of Poets and Their Craft in Early Ireland and Wales." Cambridge Medieval Studies 19 (1990): 27-40.
Ford, Patrick. Ed. Ystoria Taliesin. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992.
One of the paradoxes of medieval Irish literature is that future poets and prophets often begin life as hideously ugly individuals, who are mute until an external catalyst spurs them into speech. Ecet Salach or Echen was an Ulster smith and the father of an hideously ugly misshapen lad named Amargein. Amargein is incapable even of keeping himself clean and subsists on a diet of curds, salt, berries and nuts. One day Athirne sends his assistant Greth to put his master’s axe into the forge’s fire when Amargein “cast a hard look at him” thus terrifying Greth. Suddenly Amargein, previously mute, speaks for the first time, uttering the same phrase three times: “Does Greth eat curds?” a pun on Greth’s name and the Irish word for curds gruth. In the end Amargein is fostered by the poet Athirne, and takes his place as the chief poet of Ireland after Athirne (I am paraphrasing from Ford’s translation in Ford 1990, 28–30. Ford cites R. I. Best et al 1954–83. Vol. II ll. 13565–617 (ff. 117b–118b). In Amargein’s case, the catalyst that caused him to speak was the potential for a pun occasioned by the appearance of Athirne’s servant Greth. Labraid Loingsech is another poet who moves from speechlessness to poetic utterance:
For Moén, the catalyst that brings him from silence to speech occurs when he is struck in the shin with a hurling stick during a game. “That got me” he says. “Móen speaks [labraid]” say the other boys, and he earns his adult name (Ford 1992, 25).
There are other oddities, too; a fellow named Donn Bo who, after a head injury, "lost his brain of forgetting," and proceeded to learn all three branches of Irish scholarship, the traditional lore of poets, the Brehon lore of the judicial system, and Christian lore.
The Welsh über poet Taliesin is another case of spontaneous poet from an idiot savant, of sorts.
If this stuff interests you, there's a neat book called The Role of the Poet in Early Societies by Morton W. Bloomfield and Charles W. Dunn; published by D. S. Brewer.
Works Cited
Ford, Patrick. "The Blind, the Dumb, and the Ugly: Aspects of Poets and Their Craft in Early Ireland and Wales." Cambridge Medieval Studies 19 (1990): 27-40.
Ford, Patrick. Ed. Ystoria Taliesin. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992.
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