Point of View

The point of view in Tain is primarily third-person omniscient. These events are well in the past and have become a part of the collective consciousness. As with other ancient texts, surely Tain had its origin in oral storytelling, where after many generations one definitive version of events emerged to be recorded as a written text, though interestingly in several places the text provides an alternative version of events, admitting its own uncertainty. This early form of an "unreliable narrator" is partly born from the reality of coalescing many oral stories into one written text and the inherent problem of multiple versions. It also provides a sense of realism to the text, insofar that, like "real" history, truth and certainty is elusive, and there are several perspectives and debates on the same event.

Otherwise, the text provides its own answer to questions of point of view...