'The change in Sláine...

[TordelBack]

Bisley took two legs off the Knucker, turned Medb into Vampirella and Niamh into Barbarella, but I do love his Feg. I put it down to physical deterioration caused by magically shifting the ice sheets about.

[Dark Jimbo]

Medb, for example, is at least 4 completely different-looking women.

That is part of her modus operandi, though. When she infiltrates the Sessair it's under a glamour, so that Slaine doesn't immediately recognise her on his return. She does the same again when she honeytraps Cathbad during Slaine's time travels - so that's legitimately three separate faces she's allowed.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Medb, for example, is at least 4 completely different-looking women.

That is part of her modus operandi, though. When she infiltrates the Sessair it's under a glamour, so that Slaine doesn't immediately recognise her on his return. She does the same again when she honeytraps Cathbad during Slaine's time travels - so that's legitimately three separate faces she's allowed.

Fair enough; and it does say somewhere that she'd changed her appearance since the Wickerman days. It doesn't quite explain how she changed between Sláine the Kind and the Horned God.. I wasn't complaining at the time, though, I was 14 or 15 and topless Goth chicks were fine by me.

[broodblik]

Slough Feg the gallery

Belardinell's:




Pugh:


Fabry:


Bisley:


Langley:

[sixmo]

Back in the "Before Time" (last year), I attended the Enniskillen Comics Con. I was chatting to a Northern Irish fella running a back issues stall. Got around to the topic of 'Sláine' and the Northern Irish lad was explaining that he didn't really understand the Irish pronunciations. (There are *ahem* reasons behind this that are probably outside the scope of this post!).

I ran through the various permutations for him:
i) The end of the name is like the Irish for Anne (Áine) and that's pronounced Awn-ye, so Slawn-ye seems legit Irish-wise. Áine would be a common enough name in Ireland, Sláine very very uncommon.

ii) There is an Irish town on the River Boyne called "Slane" in english or "Baile Sláine" in irish, so Slane (ie. slain) is back on the table.

iii) There's also a River Slaney in the South East of Ireland which is "Abhann na Sláine" in Irish. So could 'slaney' be a possibility?

iv) Ultimately, the accent on the A was probably added to make the name more Celtic looking, so the 'slain' pronunciation has nosed back in front at this point.

A familiar looking big English fellow joined in the conversation and was intrigued with all the various theories. He was not really au fait with the Irish naming patterns so was interested to hear how the pronunciations worked as he had always wondered what the 'right' way was.

As he walked off to return to his own table where he was doing some sketches, I turned back to the Northern Irish lad and he said to me: "Jesus Christ, it's not every day you get to explain how to pronounce 'Sláine' to Simon Bisley." I'd like to say I said something on-brand like "I didn't think it too many", or "Soth!", or something, but I just managed to look a bit startled instead.



 

[Funt Solo]

iv) Ultimately, the accent on the A was probably added to make the name more Celtic looking, so the 'slain' pronunciation has nosed back in front at this point.

Cool story. As for why the accent was added, it was (according to Pat Mills), definitely just because it looked cool.

[sheridan]

iv) Ultimately, the accent on the A was probably added to make the name more Celtic looking, so the 'slain' pronunciation has nosed back in front at this point.

Cool story. As for why the accent was added, it was (according to Pat Mills), definitely just because it looked cool.

"It's like a pair of eyes. You're looking at the umlaut, and it's looking at you."

[JayzusB.Christ]

To be fair to Pat, the accent can't really be added to the word 'Sláine', as it's as much a part of the name as the letters.  It can only be removed, and to me it looks weird without it, as does the abovementioned name 'Áine' (who is one of my work colleagues, and a fecking nutjob in the best possible way).

But yeah, the town of Slane isn't too far from me, and it's pronounced as it looks even though the Irish version is 'Sláine'.  So why not pronounce the barbarian lad's name in English?  Don't think I'll ever get used to it myself, though, after thirty seven years of saying 'Slawnyeh'.

PS - Sixmo, that's some story.  Classic.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Futhermore, in the unlikely event that anyone's interested, 'Medb' should have accents too - a little dot over the 'd' and another one over the 'b'.  These changed the 'd' sound to a 'y' one, and the 'b' to a 'v'.   'Meyv', see?   It's more phonetic than it looks.

Modern Irish replaces the dots over consonants with 'h's after them.  So the modern spelling is 'Meadhbh'.  Don't ask me why there's an 'a' - I say all this as if I'm some kind of authority on Irish, but the truth is I'm fairly rubbish at it and getting worse by the year.

[TordelBack]

As Sláine was given his uncle's name in a time before the Irish Sea basin was completely flooded, and thus prior to 16,000BP at the very latest, it's impossible that anyone at that putative time was speaking Irish in *any* form. Plus have a look at the map, Sláine isn't even from "Ireland", the Sessair are shown to live on the present sea bed somewhere south of the Isle of Man (Monadh in the Brutannia Chronicles), he just moves there after the events of The Horned God. 

The mytho-historical king Sláine is traditionally one of the Fir Bolg, who just-about-conceivably equate to the chalcolithic peoples who may have brought the North-western branch of Indo-European that spawned Irish to Ireland - but as Sláine is first written down in an 11th C AD compilation of earlier traditions, I wouldn't worry about that spelling either.  And that's not getting into the fact that 'our' Sláine identifies as one of the (S)Cessair, the first of the six invading tribes in the Lebor Gabála, as well as claiming to be one of the Tuatha de Dannan, the second-last of the invading groups, who succeeded the Fir Bolg, which mytho-historical Sláine is supposed to belong to.

Which is all by way of saying, this is the name of a made-up character in an English-language strip who lived in a time that never was and was born in a country that never was, not the name of an historical person. Appeals to actual history or linguistics are irrelevant, so pronounce it the way you like best, or are most used to, or as the author instructs.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Cromwell-loving traitor.

Sorry, I mean, yeah, I agree with you; hope it didn't come across as me telling people how they should pronounce it - as I said, if my Dad hadn't happened to spot the logo on the very first Sláine strip and say it out loud, I'd most likely be saying 'Slane' these days too.

Just out of curiousity TB, to a fellow Mick - is it 'Slane' or 'Slawnyeh' for you?  I've heard both from various different Irish prog-fans.  I've also heard 'Slawn' (which it clearly isn't, because that means 'goodbye'). 

[TordelBack]

I'm afraid it's always "Slain" my head, because I was just as much of an idiot when I fell in love with him aged 12 and it seemed like another Sam Slade-style pun, but I try, I really try, to say "Slawnyeh": just because English can't be bothered to help anyone through its absurd pronunciation minefield by deploying diacritics doesn't mean the rest of us have to go along....

Wasn't trying to fada-shame you there for your efforts Jayzus, especially not with your extensive experience actually teaching language, it was far more in the vein of "don't worry about it, it's all made-up and Pat didn't know either, so do what thou wilt".  That's not the line I take with those deplorable "Suther" types, mind.

[Dandontdare]

..aaand that's why we've misssed TB - serious information about the proper history, with the ever present knowledge that it's just a comic mish-mash and, as Vic'n'Bob would say, it doesn't really matter.

Extra points for "fada-shame" 


(digression: I stuck this fascinating vid I found on the threadjacking thread, but thought it may be of interest here, even though it's mainly post-Slaine - animated map of who ruled the British Isles through history. The centre of Ireland is white (no government at all) for many many years later than anywhere else)

[JayzusB.Christ]

I'm afraid it's always "Slain" my head, because I was just as much of an idiot when I fell in love with him aged 12 and it seemed like another Sam Slade-style pun, but I try, I really try, to say "Slawnyeh": just because English can't be bothered to help anyone through its absurd pronunciation minefield by deploying diacritics doesn't mean the rest of us have to go along....

Wasn't trying to fada-shame you there for your efforts Jayzus, especially not with your extensive experience actually teaching language, it was far more in the vein of "don't worry about it, it's all made-up and Pat didn't know either, so do what thou wilt".  That's not the line I take with those deplorable "Suther" types, mind.

No fada-shaming taken, TB.  Sadly, though, the only language I teach, and know a lot about, is English - and even that's debatable.

At the risk of incurring your warp-spasm, I said 'Suther' until very recently, when with the help of this forum I realised it couldn't possibly be right.  So when Eamonn and I did Cinnabar on his podcast, it took me a bit of effort to remember to say 'Sow-ther' consistently but I think I pulled it off.

I said 'Curst Earth' until I was about 18, when I saw a metal band live who called themselves 'Curs-ed Earth' (Without the hyphen, of course, but pronouncing it as such).  So I changed it in my head.  Then I later saw sense, and have in recent years been trying hard to change it back.  On the other podcast I did with Eamonn (Cradlegrave), I said the two syllable version, then repeated the sentence with 'Curst' hoping he'd edit the first one.  But the two versions remain intact for eternity, making me a walking Stallone Dredd script forevermore.*

I'm not having 'pizzen' for what Fink Angel concocts, though.  It's clearly 'pie-zen', which is exactly how it's pronounced in the town I come from.  And as everybody knows, Fink is adopted from the wasteland shanty-town of Kells outside Murphyville.

*No offence to Eamonn - I loved doing both podcasts and download every new one he does.

[TordelBack]

Heh, these particular worms never stay factory-sealed for long!

While I'm a longstanding "South-er", I have come to the realisation that "Suther" makes a lot of sense: if you assume that 'Nort' is 'North' with the last letter taken off to make the sound harder and more germanic, and thus 'Souther' is just 'Southern' with the last letter taken off to make the sound softer and more American.

But I'll never, ever, say it.