The repentant aspect of his pilgrimage is reinforced by Sweeney’s description of the inhospitable and wounding arboreal environment. His physical transformation leaves him exposed to the elements and he has no roof over his head as he “roosts” in tree-tops. Thus, despite the refuge offered to Sweeney by the woods, the beauty of his habitat is countered by its roughness, especially during winter season: Wood, adj., n.2, and adv.”, Oxford English Dictionary Online. Likewise, the Irish word geilt (used to describe Sweeney in the early manuscripts of the text) can either translate as terror, cowardice, frenzy, and fear or can refer to someone who dwells in the woods or deserts: a wild man or woman. See Feargal Ó Béarra, “ Buile Shuibhne: vox insaniae from Medieval Ireland”, in Mental Health, Spirituality, and Religion in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, Albrecht Classen (ed.), Berlin, De Gruyter, 2014, p. 242-289 and particularly p. 263-269. Note that Ó Béarra lists as the third definition for the term geilt, based on the Dictionary of the Irish Language, “a crazy person living in the woods and supposed to be endowed with the power of levitation”. He highlights the absence of verifiable other source texts that substantiate such a definition, wondering “what other texts apart from Buile Shuibhne (if any) were excerpted to arrive at such a definition” ( ibid., p. 266). On Heaney and geilt, see Stephen Regan, “Seamus Heaney and the Making of Sweeney Astray”, Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, 2015, p. 331-332.

But in O’Brien’s book, as Sweeney continues to eulogise the trees in rich Irish, while still naked, he is further tortured by the company of misfits whose idea of poetry includes “A Pint of Plain is Your Only Man”. I am a bent tree / in misfortune’s wind”, says Sweeney in an early draft (Seamus Heaney, “Sweeney (...) O'Brien, Eugene, Seamus Heaney: Creating Ireland of the Mind, Liffey Press (Dublin, Ireland), 2003. Edel Bhreathnach, “Perceptions of Kingship in Early Medieval Irish Vernacular Literature”, in Lordship in Medieval Ireland: Image and Reality, Linda Doran, James Lyttleton (eds.), Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2007, p. 21. Seamus Heaney on Mad Sweeney the king cursed by a saint and condemned to live as a bird until his death.Library Journal, May 15, 1997, review of The Spirit Level, p. 120; September 1, 1997, review of The Spirit Level, p. 235; April 1, 1999, Barbara Hoffert, review of Opened Ground, p. 96; December, 1999, Thomas L. Cooksey, review of Beowulf, p. 132; August, 2000, p. 110; April 1, 2001, p. 104; April 1, 2002, p. 106; June 1, 2002, p. 155. Joep Leerssen, “Wildness, Wilderness, and Ireland: Medieval and Early-Modern Patterns in the Demarc (...) Observer (London, England), March 23, 1997, p. 16; January 4, 1998, p. 15; September 6, 1998, review of Opened Ground, p. 17; November 7, 1999, p. 8; January 23, 2000, p. 11; September 10, 2000, p. 16; April 15, 2001, p. 15; April 7, 2002, p. 13. Often thought of as a poet of place, preserving and remaking a rural Irish world, and of the Troubles that bloodied his purest source of memory, the extensive commentary in this invaluable collection repeatedly reminds readers of how Heaney drew deeply on the poetry of other places and other times.” —Michael Autrey, Booklist

The poem is mostly plotless. The poem's catalyst is Sweeney's curse and metamorphosis, but from there, Sweeney journeys across Ireland (and beyond) and the poem becomes an ode to the landscape as much as it does his character and arc. Ireland is at the heart of the poem. The American photographer Rachel Giese (now Rachel Brown) accompanies Heaney's poem with incredible, dramatic photographs of Northern Ireland in her subsequent publication called Sweeney in Flight. Her phot New York Times, April 22, 1979; January 11, 1985; November 24, 1998, Michiko Kakutani, review of Opened Ground; January 30, 1999, p. B11; January 20, 2000, Sarah Lyall, "Wizard vs. Dragon: A Close Contest, but the Fire-Breather Wins," p. A17; January 27, 2000, p. A27; February 22, 2000, Richard Eder, "Beowulf and Fate Meet in a Modern Poet's Lens," p. B8; March 20, 2000, Mel Gussow, "An Anglo-Saxon Chiller (with an Irish Touch)," p. B1; February 1, 2001, pB3, E3; April 20, 2001, p. B37, E39; May 27, 2001, p. AR19; June 2, 2001, p. A15, B9; September 30, 2002, p. B3, E3. Astray,'' a complete translation of the medieval Irish work ''Buile Suibhne,'' shows that Seamus Heaney's imagination is continuing to deepen in intensity and range.

Book contents

In a line-up worthy of the winning side at the Battle of Moyra, the Martin-Heaney-Rea-Ó Lionárd battalion have the RTÉ Concert Orchestra on their side too. Fergus Kelly, “Trees in Early Ireland”, Irish Forestry: Journal of the Society of Irish Foresters, (...)