Here is Part Four of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the various mythological works in Ireland’s Lebor na hUidre, The Book of the Dun Cow. For Part One click HERE.
THE VISION OF ADOMNAN (Fis Adomnain) – This was a tale of the vision that Saint Adomnan supposedly had during his lifetime (c 679-704 A.D.). Several centuries before Dante’s Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso), The Vision of Adomnan depicted the future saint being conducted through Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell so that he could share this “vision” with others.
Dante was guided in a different order by the dead poet Virgil, but Adomnan is shown being guided by his Guardian Angel.
I. On the Feast of Saint John, Adomnan feels as if he has died and his Guardian Angel leads him through the Afterlife. The first stop in Heaven is the Land of the Saints, a realm of eternal fair weather, where dwell the saints, all of them clad in white cassocks with white hoods. Continue reading
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Vol 1 #82 (August 1970) 
THE VOYAGE OF MAEL DUIN (Immram curaig Mail Duin) – Dated to around the late 900s A.D. or earlier, this story deals with the epic quest of Mael Duin (aka Maildun and Maeldune) and the crew of his ship as he seeks revenge on his father’s killers. This lengthy epic deserves to be as well-known as the Odyssey or the Quest for the Golden Fleece.
Mael Duin matured, and proved better than his presumed siblings at athletic, martial and academic competitions. Losing their temper over this, one of our hero’s foster brothers ridiculed Mael Duin for not even knowing who his real father and mother were. 
Yesterday’s blog post about the dystopian film Golem (1980) called to mind a pair of Robert Ludlum’s espionage novels from the 1970s. Both of them are spy thrillers but reflected Ludlum’s distrust of both left-wing and right-wing fanatics. Sadly, they also predicted a lot of what citizens around the world face right here in 2023. It’s not just science fiction that can prove virtually prophetic. 
TWO SORROWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (Dá brón flatha nime) – This is a variation of the tales about Elijah and Enoch, who asked to be risen physically to Heaven while still alive. Because of their virtuous lives, their desire was fulfilled, but their “sorrows” centered around the limitations of their physical forms amid the wonders of Heaven. For just one example, they cannot fly like the angels and souls around them. 
Next, he reads to them about Christ returning for the Final Judgment accompanied by the Hosts of Heaven. Each human who appears before him is accompanied by a personal angel and a personal devil. The angel speaks of the person’s good deeds and the devil about their bad deeds. Jesus then assigns souls to Heaven or Hell. 
BOOK OF THE DUN COW (Lebor na hUidre) – In the past, Balladeer’s Blog has done deep dives into gods, goddesses and epics from 
SIX AGES OF THE WORLD (Sex aetates mundi) – This was one of the many texts from many Christian-influenced cultures that viewed the world from Creation through Jesus Christ as being Six Ages. In this fictional context each age was roughly 1,000 years. 
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Vol 1 #21 (August 1963) 
The company’s method of adapting more “up to date” versions of their Golden Age heroes without losing the copyrights on those figures was to state that the original versions of all their old heroes came from an alternate Earth, designated Earth-Two. The Earth with the newer heroes was called Earth-One, since they were the newer, CURRENT versions. 
THE MONK (1796) – Written by Matthew G. Lewis. Though The Monk was preceded by other works of Gothic Horror like The Castle of Otranto (1764) and The Necromancer (1794), Lewis’ novel cranked up the supernatural elements a great deal. It also painted the Catholic clergy in extremely unflattering terms, at least in the initial edition. 
SKULL THE SLAYER Vol 1 #1 (August 1975) 
It is not truly the Earth of millions of years ago, because it is anachronistically populated by dinosaurs and primates that were never alive during the same time periods. The only survivors of the plane crash are Scully, a young Native American man named Jeff Turner, an African American physician named Raymond Corey, and Corey’s young research assistant Ann Reynolds. 
SWORD WOMAN – This was the first story about Robert E. Howard’s fiery woman warrior Agnes the Dark aka Agnes de Chastillon, a sword fighting, butt kicking woman in 1500s France. Previously, Balladeer’s Blog reviewed 
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