Introduction
In this Introduction the case is made for using the narrative literature of the medieval period to access the emotional lives of foster families in medieval Ireland. Foster families in this context are those formed when freeborn families send their children – often at a very young age – to another family to be raised and educated until the child entered its late teens. The early exposure and continued association between foster parents and siblings to these children created close and lasting emotional ties. The current study will examine those emotional ties by critically engaging with the language used around fosterage and the assumptions that underpin the relationship, as expressed in narratives, to trace the emotional ties of medieval Irish fosterage.