Researching the Irish poetry which Sean O'Faolain presented in The Silver Branch, from which Samuel Barber selected several English translations for his Hermit Songs, led me to a complete surprise.

O'Faolain included a little verse -- it loses its rhyme in translation -- about fair Etan/Aiden who will not sleep alone tonight. Barber turned it into one of the Hermit Songs, with the title Promiscuity. It pops up in the cycle and provides a bit of relief from some of the weightiness of the other selections. I was having a hard time tracking this down in the source material for the Hermit Songs.

And no wonder. It comes from the Red Branch saga with Cuchullain. In fact it comes straight out of Cuchullain's mouth, and he is looking right at Etan Ban -- "fair Aiden" -- when he says it! It has nothing whatsoever to do with hermits, ascetics, cloisters, or Christianity.

In the Old Irish it is a notable example of metrics and rhyming, so the scholars publishing around 1900 snatched it out of context and put it in more than one of their academic publications, to show off. And somehow, by singling it out in that fashion, the academics set up this little verse to travel far from Cuchullain and the Red Branch to the cycle of poems/songs about Pangur Ban, Isucan, Brigid's Heavenly Banquet, St Patrick's Purgatory at Loch Dearg, and all the rest of it. I wonder if Samuel Barber had the slightest clue that he had set a witticism of Cuchullain to music?? I rather doubt that he took any notice!

Oh, the verse? The Old Irish is tricky. I'll do my best here.

Ni fetar
cía lasa faífea Etan;
acht ro-fetar Etan bán
nochon faífea a óenarán.


Roughly:
It is not known
with whom will sleep Etan
but I know that Etan the Fair [white, bán]
will not sleep alone.

Oh, and yes, Etan shared Cuchullain's bed that night, and the next day when he took his leave (he was on a mission to find three exiled sons of somebody's), he gifted Etan Bán with a thumb-ring heavy with solid gold.