Acallam Bec

Acallam Bec or Agallamh Bheag ("The Little Colloquy") is the title of a medieval Irish compilation of fianaigecht tales, preserved in the fifteenth-century Book of Lismore and the Reeves manuscript. It is closely related to the Acallam na Senórach ("The Colloquy of the Elders"), of which it is sometimes considered to be a later recension.^[1] It differs from it in making Oisín rather than Caílte the principal character. Douglas Hyde has suggested that the text may preserve the lost beginning of Acallam na Senórach.^[2]

References

1. Murphy, The Ossianic Lore and Romantic Tales of Medieval Ireland. p. 26.
2. Hyde, "The Reeves Manuscript of the Agallamh na Senorach."

Editions and translations

• A new edition by Julia S. Kuhns is forthcoming. Source
• An Craoibhín (pseudonym of Douglas Hyde) (ed. and trans.). "An Agallamh Bheag." Lia Fáil 1 (1927): 79-107. Partial edition with translation into Modern Irish. Available online from Celtic Digital Initiative
• Pennington, Walter (tr.). "The Little Colloquy." Philological Quarterly 9.2 (1930): 97-110. Available online from Celtic Digital Initiative

Secondary sources

• Hyde, Douglas. "The Reeves Manuscript of the Agallamh na Senorach." Revue Celtique 38 (1920): 289-95.
• Murphy, Gerard. The Ossianic Lore and Romantic Tales of Medieval Ireland. Dublin, 1955. Text Extract from 1961 edition reproduced online