{{Short description|Body of Old and Middle Irish literature}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{more citations needed|date=March 2018}} {{Celtic mythology}} The '''Cycles of the Kings''' or '''Kings' Cycles''', sometimes called the '''Historical Cycle''', are a body of Old and Middle Irish literature. They comprise legends about historical and semi-historical kings of Ireland (such as ''Buile Shuibhne'', "The Madness of King Suibhne"), stories about the origins of dynasties and peoples (such as ''The Expulsion of the Déisi''), accounts of significant battles (such as ''Battle of Mag Mucrama''), as well as anecdotes that explain rites and customs.<ref name="Koch">{{cite book |last1=Koch |first1=John |author1-link=John T. Koch |title=Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia |date=2006 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |page=995}}</ref> It is one of the four main groupings of early Irish sagas, along with the Mythological Cycle, the Ulster Cycle and the Fianna Cycle.<ref name="Koch"/>
The kings that are included range from the almost entirely fictional Labraid Loingsech, who allegedly became High King in the 4th century BC, to the entirely historical Brian Boru. Other kings include Cormac mac Airt, Niall of the Nine Hostages, Conall Corc, Diarmait mac Cerbaill, Lugaid mac Con, Conn of the Hundred Battles, Lóegaire mac Néill and Crimthann mac Fidaig. It was part of the duty of the medieval Irish bards, or court poets, to record the history of the family and the genealogy of the king they served. This they did in poems that blended the mythological and the historical to a greater or lesser degree.
One of the most famous legends is the ''Buile Shuibhne'', a 12th-century tale told in verse and prose. Suibhne, king of Dál nAraidi, was cursed by St Ronan Finn and became a kind of half-man, half-bird, condemned to live out his life in the woods, fleeing from his human companions. The story has captured the imaginations of contemporary Irish poets and has been translated by Trevor Joyce and Seamus Heaney.
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== *{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Mac Eoin |first=Gearóid |author-link=Gearóid Mac Eoin |title=Orality and Literacy in some Middle-Irish King-Tales |editor=Stephen Tranter |encyclopedia=Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit in der frühen irischen Literatur |location=Tübingen |year=1989 |pages=149–83|display-editors=etal}} *{{cite book|last1=Poppe|first1=Erich|title=Of cycles and other critical matters : some issues in Medieval Irish literary history and criticism|date=2008|publisher=Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-9554568-5-5}} *Wiley, Dan M. (2008). Essays on the Early Irish King Tales. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
==External links== *Dan M. Wiley's "The Cycles of the Kings Web Project" https://web.archive.org/web/20081227214217/http://www.hastings.edu/academic/english/Kings/Home.html
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cycles Of The Kings}} Category:Cycles of the Kings Category:Early Irish literature Category:Irish mythology Category:Irish-language literature
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