05 — The Legends
The companion flagship to Section 01. Here the famous legends — the snakes, the shamrock, the Paschal fire at Tara, the contest with the druids, Croagh Patrick — are sorted carefully from the authentic core and pinned to their earliest written attestation, which is in every case the seventh-century Lives or later. The first file does the source-critical work; the second follows the legends downstream into national memory, where they did their real cultural work.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-later-hagiography.md | FLAGSHIP (§3.5): the 7th-century Lives by Muirchú and Tírechán and the Book of Armagh; the snakes, the shamrock, the Paschal fire at Tara, the druid-contest, Croagh Patrick — each named with its attestation and reported as what that source attests, never as history |
| legend-and-national-memory.md | How the legend grew, why Armagh built it, and how the legendary Patrick — not the historical one — became the national figure |
See Also
- 01 — The Two Authentic Writings — the authentic core the legends overlay
- 06 — The Lorica Question — the most famous legendary attribution of all, handled under §4
- 09 — Patrick in Irish Identity — the national afterlife of the legendary Patrick
- Master README — the collection overview