THE TÁIN BO CHUAILGNE
The greatest of the heroic sagas and the longest is that which is
called the Táin Bo Chuailgne,[1] or "Cattle-Raid of Cooley," a district
of Ulster contained in the present county of Louth, into which Oilioll
and Méadhbh [Mève], the king and queen of Connacht, led an enormous
army composed of men from the four other provinces, to carry off the
celebrated Dun Bull of Cooley.
Although there is a great deal of verbiage and piling-up of rather
barren names in this piece, nevertheless there are also several finely
conceived and well-executed incidents. The saga which, according to
Zimmer, was probably first committed to writing in the seventh or
eighth century, is partially preserved in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, a
manuscript made about the year 1100, and there is a complete copy of it
in the Book of Leinster made about fifty years later. I have chiefly
translated from a more modern text in my own possession, which differs
very slightly from the ancient ones.
The story opens with a conversation between Mève, queen of Connacht,
and Oilioll her husband, which ends in a dispute as to which of them
is the richest. There was no modern Married Women's Property Act in
force, but Irish ladies seem to have been at all times much more
sympathetically treated by the Celtic tribes than by the harder and
more stern races of Teutonic and Northern blood, and Irish damsels
seem to have been free to enjoy their own property and dowries.[2]
The story, then, begins with this dispute as to which, husband or
wife, is the richer in this world's goods, and the argument at last
becomes so heated that the pair decide to have all their possessions
brought together to compare them one with another and judge by actual
observation which is the most valuable. They collected accordingly
jewels, bracelets, metal, gold, silver, flocks, herds, ornaments,
etc., and found that in point of wealth they were much the same, but
that there was one great bull called Finn-bheannach or White-horned,
who was really calved by one of Mève's cows, but being endowed with a
certain amount of intelligence considered it disgraceful to be under
a woman, and so had gone over to Oilioll's herds. With him Mève had
nothing that could compare. She made inquiry, however, and found out
from her chief courier that there was in the district of Cuailgne in
Louth (Mève lived at Rathcroghan in Roscommon) a most celebrated bull
called the Dun Bull of Cuailgne belonging to a chieftain of the name
of Darè. To him accordingly she sends an embassy requesting the loan
of the bull for one year, and promising fifty heifers in return. Darè
was quite willing, and promised to lend the animal. He was in fact
pleased, and treated the embassy generously, giving them good lodgings
with plenty of food and drink--too much drink in fact. The fate of
nations is said to often hang upon a thread. On this occasion that of
Ulster and Connacht depended upon a drop more or less, absorbed by one
of the ten men who constituted Mève's embassy. This man unfortunately
passed the just limit, and Darè's steward coming in at the moment
heard him say that it was small thanks to his master to give his bull
"for if he hadn't given it we'd have taken it." That word decided the
fate of provinces. The steward, indignant at such an outrage, ran and
told his master, and Darè swore that now he would lend no bull, and
what was more, but that the ten men were envoys he swore he would hang
them. With indignity they were dismissed, and returned empty-handed to
Mève's boundless indignation. She in her turn swore she would have the
bull in spite of Darè. She immediately sent out to collect her armies,
and invited Leinster and Munster to join her. She was in fact able to
muster most of the three provinces to march against Ulster to take
the bull from Darè, and in addition she had Fergus mac Roy and about
fifteen hundred Ulster warriors who had never returned to their homes
nor forgiven Conor for the murder of the sons of Usnach. She crossed
the Shannon at Athlone, and marched on to Kells, within a few miles of
Ulster, and there she pitched her standing camp. She was accompanied
by her husband and her daughter who was the fairest among women. Her
mother had secretly promised her hand to every leader in her army in
order to nerve them to do their utmost.
At the very beginning Mève is forewarned by a mysterious female of
the slaughter which is to come. She had driven round in her chariot
to visit her druid and to inquire of him what would come of her
expedition, and is returning somewhat reassured in her mind by the
druid's promise which was--
"'Whosoever returneth or returneth not, thou shalt return,' and," says
the saga, "as Mève returned again upon her track she beheld a thing
which caused her to wonder, a single woman (riding) beside her, upon
the pole of her chariot. And this is how that maiden was. She was
weaving a border with a sword of bright bronze[3] in her right hand
with its seven rings of red gold, and, about her, a spotted speckled
mantle of green, and a fastening brooch in the mantle over her bosom.
A bright red gentle generous countenance, a grey eye visible in her
head, a thin red mouth, young pearly teeth she had. You would think
that her teeth were a shower of white pearls flung into her head.
Her mouth was like fresh coral? [_partaing_]. The melodious address
of her voice and her speaking tones were sweeter than the strings of
curved harp being played. Brighter than the snow of one night was the
splendour of her skin showing through her garments, her feet long,
fairy-like, with (well) turned nails. Fair yellow hair very golden
on her. Three tresses of her hair round her head, one tress behind
falling after her to the extremities of her ankles.
"Mève looks at her. 'What makest thou there, O maiden?' said Mève.
"'Foreseeing thy future for thee, and thy grief, thou who art
gathering the four great provinces of Ireland with thee to the land of
Ulster, to carry out the Táin Bo Chuailgne.'
"'And wherefore doest thou me this?" said Mève.
"'Great reason have I for it,' said the maiden. 'A handmaid of thy
people (am I),' said she.
"'Who of my people art thou?' said Mève.
"'Féithlinn, fairy-prophetess of Rathcroghan, am I,' said she.
"'It is well, O Féithlinn, prophetess,' said Mève, 'and how seest thou
our hosts?'
"'I see crimson over them, I see red,' said she.
"'Conor is in his sickness[4] in Emania,' said Mève, 'and messengers
have reached me from him, and there is nothing that I dread from the
Ultonians, but speak thou the truth, O Féithlinn, prophetess,' said
Mève.
"'I see crimson, I see red,' said she.
"'Comhsgraidh Meann ... is in Innis Comhsgraidh in his sickness, and
my messengers have reached me, and there is nothing that I fear from
the Ultonians, but speak me truth, O Féithlinn, prophetess, how seest
thou our host?'
"'I see crimson, I see red.'
"'Celtchar, son of Uitheachar, is in his sickness,' said Mève, 'and
there is nothing I dread from the Ultonians, but speak truth, O
Féithlinn, prophetess.'
"'I see crimson, I see red,' said she.
"' ...?' said Mève, 'for since the men of Erin will be in one place
there will be disputes and fightings and irruptions amongst them,
about reaching the beginnings or endings of fords or rivers, and about
the first woundings of boars and stags, of venison, or matter of
venery, speak true, O Féithlinn, prophetess, how seest thou our host?
said Mève.
"'I see crimson I see red,' said she."
After this follows a long poem, wherein "she foretold Cuchulain to the
men of Erin."
The march of Mève's army is told with much apparent exactness. The
names of fifty-nine places through which it passed are given; and many
incidents are recorded, one of which shows the furious, jealous, and
vindictive disposition of the amazon queen herself. She, who seems to
have taken upon herself the entire charge of the hosting, had made
in her chariot the full round of the army at their encamping for the
night, to see that everything was in order. After that she returned to
her own tent and sat beside her husband Olioill at their meal, and he
asks her how fared the troops. Mève then said something laudatory about
the Gaileóin,[5] or ancient Leinstermen, who were not of Gaelic race,
but appear to have belonged to some early non-Gaelic tribe, cognate
with the Firbolg.
"'What excellence perform they beyond all others that they be thus
praised?' said Oilioll.
"'They give cause for praise,' said Mève, 'for while others were
choosing their camping-ground, they had made their booths and
shelters; and while others were making their booths and shelters, they
had their feast of meat and ale laid out; and while others were laying
out their feasts of bread and ale, these had finished their food and
fare; and while others were finishing their food and fare, these were
asleep. Even as their slaves and servants have excelled the slaves
and servants of the men of Erin, so will their good heroes and youths
excel the good heroes and youths of the men of Erin in this hosting.'
"'I am the better pleased at that,' said Oilioll, 'because it was with
me they came, and they are my helpers.'[6]
"'They shall not march with thee, then,' said Mève, 'and it is not
before me, nor to me, they shall be boasted of.'
"'Then let them remain in camp,' said Oilioll.
"'They shall not do that either,' said Mève.
"'What shall they do, then?' said Findabar, daughter of Oilioll and
Mève, 'if they shall neither march nor yet remain in camp.'
"'My will is to inflict death and fate and destruction on them,' said
Mève."
It is with the greatest difficulty that Fergus is enabled to calm
the furious queen, and she is only satisfied when the three thousand
Gaileóins have been broken up and scattered throughout the other
battalions, so that no five men of them remained together.
Thereafter the army came to plains so thickly wooded, in the
neighbourhood of the present Kells, that they were obliged to cut down
the wood with their swords to make a way for their chariots, and the
next night they suffered intolerably from a fall of snow.
"The snow that fell that night reached to men's legs and to the wheels
of chariots, so that the snow made one plain of the five provinces of
Erin, and the men of Ireland never suffered so much before in camp,
none knew throughout the whole night whether it was his friend or his
enemy who was next him, until the rise early on the morrow of the
clear-shining sun, glancing on the snow that covered the country."
They are now on the borders of Ulster, and Cuchulain is hovering on
their flank, but no one has yet seen him. He lops a gnarled tree,
writes an Ogam on it, sticks upon it the heads of three warriors he had
slain, and sets it up on the brink of a ford. That night Oilioll and
Mève inquire from the Ultonians who were in her army more particulars
about this new enemy, and nearly a sixth part of the whole Táin
is taken up by the stories which are then and there related about
Cuchulain's earliest history and exploits, first by Fergus, and, when
he is done relating, by Cormac Conlingeas, and when he has finished,
by Fiacha, another Ultonian. This long digression, which is one of the
most interesting parts of the whole saga, being over, we return to the
direct story.
Cuchulain, who knows every tree and every bush of the country, still
hangs upon Mève's flank, and without showing himself during the day, he
slays a hundred men with his sling[7] every night.
Mève, through an envoy, asks for a meeting with him, and is astonished
to find him, as she thinks, a mere boy. She offers him great rewards in
the hope of buying him off, but he will have none of her gold. The only
conditions upon which he will cease his night-slaying is if Mève will
promise to let him fight with some warrior every day at the ford, and
will promise to keep her army in its camp while these single combats
last, and this Mève consents to, since she says it is better to lose
one warrior every day than one hundred every night.
A great number of single combats then take place, each of which is
described at length. One curious incident is that of the war-goddess,
whom he had previously offended, the Mór-rígu,[8] or "great queen,"
attacking him while fighting with the warrior Loich. She came against
him, not in her own figure, but as a great black eel in the water, who
wound itself around his legs, and as he stooped to disengage himself
Loich wounded him severely in the breast. Again she came against him in
the form of a great grey wolf-bitch, and as Cuchulain turned to drive
her off he was again wounded. A third time she came against him as a
heifer with fifty other heifers round her, but Cuchulain struck her and
broke one of her eyes, just as Diomede in the Iliad wounds the goddess
Cypris when she appears against him.[9] Cuchulain, thus embarrassed,
only rids himself of Loich by having recourse to the mysterious feat of
the Gae-Bolg, about which we shall hear more later on. His opponent,
feeling himself mortally hurt, cries out--
"'By thy love of generosity I crave a boon.'
"'What boon is that?' said Cuchulain.
"'It is not to spare me I ask,' said Loich, 'but let me fall forwards
to the east, and not backward to the west, that none of the men of
Erin may say that I fell in panic or in flight before thee.'
"'I grant it,' said Cuchulain, 'for surely it is a warrior's request.'"
After this encounter Cuchulain grew terribly despondent, and urged his
charioteer Laeg again to hasten the men of Ulster to his assistance,
but their pains were still upon them, and he is left alone to bear
the brunt of the attack as best he may. Mève also breaks her compact
by sending six men against him, but them he overcomes, and in revenge
begins again to slay at night.
Thereafter follows the episode known in Irish saga as the Great Breach
of Moy Muirtheimhne. Cuchulain, driven to despair and enfeebled by
wounds, fatigue, and watching, was in the act of ascending his chariot
to advance alone against the men of the four provinces, moving to
certain death, when the eye of his charioteer is arrested by the
figure of a tall stranger moving through the camp of the enemy,
saluting none as he moved, and by none saluted.
"That man," said Cuchulain, "must be one of my supernatural friends of
the shee[10] folk, and they salute him not because he is not seen."
The stranger approaches, and, addressing Cuchulain, desires him to
sleep for three days and three nights, and instantly Cuchulain fell
asleep, for he had been from before the feast of Samhain till after
Féil Bhrighde[11] without sleep, "unless it were that he might sleep a
little while beside his spear, in the middle of the day, his head on
his hand, and his hand on his spear, and his spear on his knee, but all
the while slaughtering, slaying, preying on, and destroying, the four
great provinces."
It was after this long sleep of Cuchulain's that, awaking fresh and
strong, the Berserk rage fell upon him. He hurled himself against
the men of Erin, he drove round their flank, he "gave his chariot
the heavy turn, so that the iron wheels of the chariot sank into
the earth, so that the track of the iron wheels was (in itself) a
sufficient fortification, for like a fortification the stones and
pillars and flags and sands of the earth rose back high on every side
round the wheels." All that day, refreshed by his three days' sleep, he
slaughtered the men of Erin.
Other single combats take place after this, in one of which the druid
Cailitin and his twenty sons would have slain him had he not been
rescued by his countryman Fiacha, one of those Ultonians who with
Fergus had turned against their king and country when the children of
Usnach were slain.
It was only at the last that his own friend Ferdiad was despatched
against him, through the wiles of Mève. Ferdiad was not a Gael, but of
the Firbolg or Firdomhnan race,[12] yet he proved very nearly a match
for Cuchulain. Knowing what Mève wanted with him, he positively refused
to come to her tent when sent for, and in the end he is only persuaded
by her sending her druids and ollavs against him, who threatened "to
criticise, satirise, and blemish him, so that they would raise three
blisters[13] on his face unless he came with them." At last he went
with them in despair, "because he thought it easier to fall by valour
and championship and weapons than to fall by [druids'] wisdom and by
reproach."
The fight with Ferdiad is perhaps the finest episode in the Táin. The
following is a description of the conduct of the warriors after the
first day's conflict.
THE FIGHT AT THE FORD.[14]
"They ceased fighting and threw their weapons away from them into
the hands of their charioteers. Each of them approached the other
forthwith and each put his hand round the other's neck and gave him
three kisses. Their horses were in the same paddock that night, and
their charioteers at the same fire; and their charioteers spread beds
of green rushes for them with wounded men's pillows to them. The
professors of healing and curing came to heal and cure them, and they
applied herbs and plants of healing and curing to their stabs, and
their cuts, and their gashes, and to all their wounds. Of every herb
and of every healing and curing plant that was put to the stabs and
cuts and gashes, and to all the wounds of Cuchulain, he would send an
equal portion from him, westward over the ford to Ferdiad, so that the
men of Erin might not be able to say, should Ferdiad fall by him, that
it was by better means of cure that he was enabled to kill him.
"Of each kind of food and of palatable pleasant intoxicating drink
that was sent by the men of Erin to Ferdiad, he would send a fair
moiety over the ford northwards to Cuchulain, because the purveyors of
Ferdiad were more numerous than the purveyors of Cuchulain. All the
men of Erin were purveyors to Ferdiad for beating off Cuchulain from
them, but the Bregians only were purveyors to Cuchulain, and they used
to come to converse with him at dusk every night. They rested there
that night."
The narrator goes on to describe the next day's fighting, which was
carried on from their chariots "with their great broad spears," and
which left them both in such evil plight that the professors of healing
and curing "could do nothing more for them, because of the dangerous
severity of their stabs and their cuts and their gashes and their
numerous wounds, than to apply witchcraft and incantations and charms
to them to staunch their blood and their bleeding and their gory
wounds."
Their meeting on the next day follows thus:--
"They arose early the next morning and came forward to the ford of
battle, and Cuchulain perceived an ill-visaged and a greatly lowering
cloud on Ferdiad that day.
"'Badly dost thou appear to-day, O Ferdiad,' said Cuchulain, 'thy hair
has become dark this day and thine eye has become drowsy, and thine
own form and features and appearance have departed from thee.'
"'It is not from fear or terror of thee that I am so this day,' said
Ferdiad, 'for there is not in Erin this day a champion that I could
not subdue.'
"And Cuchulain was complaining and bemoaning and he spake these words,
and Ferdiad answered:
CUCHULAIN.
Oh, Ferdiad, is it thou?
Wretched man thou art I trow,
By a guileful woman won
To hurt thine old companion.
FERDIAD.
O Cuchulain, fierce of fight,
Man of wounds and man of might,
Fate compelleth each to stir
Moving towards his sepulchre."[15]
The lay is then given, each of the heroes reciting a verse in turn, and
it is very possibly upon these lays that the prose narrative is built
up. The third day's fighting is then described in which the warriors
use their "heavy hand-smiting swords," or rather swords that gave
"blows of size. "[16] The story then continues--
"They cast away their weapons from them into the hands of their
charioteers, and though it had been the meeting pleasant and happy,
griefless and spirited of two men that morning, it was the separation,
mournful, sorrowful, dispirited, of the two men that night.
"Their horses were not in the same enclosure that night. Their
charioteers were not at the same fire. They rested that night there.
"Then Ferdiad arose early next morning and went forwards alone to the
ford of battle, for he knew that that day would decide the battle and
the fight, and he knew that one of them would fall on that day there
or that they both would fall.
* * * * *
"Ferdiad displayed many noble, wonderful, varied feats on high that
day, which he never learned with any other person, neither with
Scathach, nor with Uathach, nor with Aife, but which were invented by
himself that day against Cuchulain.
"Cuchulain came to the ford and he saw the noble, varied, wonderful,
numerous feats which Ferdiad displays on high.
"'I perceive these, my friend, Laeg' [said Cuchulain to his
charioteer], 'the noble, varied, wonderful, numerous feats which
Ferdiad displays on high, and all these feats will be tried on me in
succession, and, therefore, it is that if it be I who shall begin to
yield this day thou art to excite, reproach, and speak evil to me, so
that the ire of my rage and anger shall grow the more on me. If it be
I who prevail, then thou shalt laud me, and praise me, and speak good
words to me that my courage may be greater.'[17]
"'It shall so be done indeed, O Cuchulain,' said Laeg.
"And it was then Cuchulain put his battle-suit of conflict and of
combat and of fight on him, and he displayed noble, varied, wonderful,
numerous feats on high on that day, that he never learned from anybody
else, neither with Scathach, nor with Uathach, nor with Aife. Ferdiad
saw those feats and he knew they would be plied against him in
succession.
"'What weapons shall we resort to, O Ferdiad?' said Cuchulain.
"'To thee belongs thy choice of weapons till night,' said Ferdiad.
"'Let us try the Ford Feat then,' said Cuchulain.
"'Let us indeed,' said Ferdiad. Although Ferdiad thus spoke his
consent it was a cause of grief to him to speak so, because he knew
that Cuchulain was used to destroy every hero and every champion who
contended with him in the Feat of the Ford.
"Great was the deed, now, that was performed on that day at the
ford--the two heroes, the two warriors, the two champions of Western
Europe, the two gift and present and stipend bestowing hands of the
north-west of the world; the two beloved pillars of the valour of the
Gaels, and the two keys of the bravery of the Gaels to be brought to
fight from afar through the instigation and intermeddling of Oilioll
and Mève.
"Each of them began to shoot at other with their missive weapons from
the dawn of early morning till the middle of midday. And when midday
came the ire of the men waxed more furious, and each of them drew
nearer to the other. And then it was that Cuchulain on one occasion
sprang from the brink of the ford and came on the boss of the shield
of Ferdiad, son of Daman, for the purpose of striking his head over
the rim of his shield from above. And it was then that Ferdiad gave
the shield a blow of his left elbow and cast Cuchulain from him like
a bird on the brink of the ford. Cuchulain sprang from the brink of
the ford again till he came on the boss of the shield of Ferdiad, son
of Daman, for the purpose of striking his head over the rim of the
shield from above. Ferdiad gave the shield a stroke of his left knee
and cast Cuchulain from him like a little child on the brink of the
ford.
"Laeg [his charioteer] perceived that act. 'Alas, indeed,' said Laeg,
'the warrior who is against thee casts thee away as a lewd woman would
cast her child. He throws thee as foam is thrown by the river. He
grinds thee as a mill would grind fresh malt. He pierces thee as the
felling axe would pierce the oak. He binds thee as the woodbine binds
the tree. He darts on thee as the hawk darts on small birds, so that
henceforth thou hast nor call nor right nor claim to valour or bravery
to the end of time and life, thou little fairy phantom,' said Laeg.
"Then up sprang Cuchulain with the rapidity of the wind and with the
readiness of the swallow, and with the fierceness of the dragon and
the strength of the lion into the troubled clouds of the air the third
time, and he alighted on the boss of the shield of Ferdiad, son of
Daman to endeavour to strike his head over the rim of his shield from
above. And then it was the warrior gave the shield a shake, and cast
Cuchulain from him into the middle of the ford, the same as if he had
never been cast off at all.
"And it was then that Cuchulain's first distortion came on, and he
was filled with swelling and great fulness, like breath in a bladder,
until he became a terrible, fearful, many-coloured, wonderful Tuaig,
and he became as big as a Fomor, or a man of the sea, the great and
valiant champion, in perfect height over Ferdiad.[18]
"So close was the fight they made now that their heads met above and
their feet below and their arms in the middle over the rims and bosses
of their shields. So close was the fight they made that they cleft and
loosened their shields from their rims to their centres. So close was
the fight which they made that they turned and bent and shivered their
spears from their points to their hafts. Such was the closeness of
the fight which they made that the Bocanachs and Bananachs, and wild
people of the glens, and demons of the air screamed from the rims of
their shields and from the hilts of their swords and from the hafts
of their spears. Such was the closeness of the fight which they made
that they cast the river out of its bed and out of its course, so that
it might have been a reclining and reposing couch for a king or for
a queen in the middle of the ford, so that there was not a drop of
water[19] in it unless it dropped into it by the trampling and the
hewing which the two champions and the two heroes made in the middle
of the ford. Such was the intensity of the fight which they made that
the stud of the Gaels darted away in fright and shyness, with fury and
madness, breaking their chains and their yokes, their ropes and their
traces, and that the women and youths, and small people, and camp
followers, and non-combatants of the men of Erin broke out of the camp
south-westwards.
"They were at the edge-feat of swords during the time. And it was then
that Ferdiad found an unguarded moment upon Cuchulain, and he gave
him a stroke of the straight-edged sword, and buried it in his body
until his blood fell into his girdle, until the ford became reddened
with the gore from the body of the battle-warrior. Cuchulain would not
endure this, for Ferdiad continued his unguarded stout strokes, and
his quick strokes and his tremendous great blows at him. And he asked
Laeg, son of Riangabhra, for the Gae Bulg. The manner of that was
this: it used to be set down the stream and cast from between the toes
[_lit._ in the cleft of the foot], it made the wound of one spear in
entering the body, but it had thirty barbs to open, and could not be
drawn out of a person's body until it was cut open. And when Ferdiad
heard the Gae Bulg mentioned he made a stroke of the shield down to
protect his lower body. Cuchulain thrust the unerring thorny spear off
the centre of his palm over the rim of the shield, and through the
breast of the skin-protecting armour, so that its further half was
visible after piercing his heart in his body. Ferdiad gave a stroke
of his shield up to protect the upper part of his body, though it was
'the relief after the danger.' The servant set the Gae Bulg down the
stream and Cuchulain caught it between the toes of his foot, and he
threw an unerring cast of it at Ferdiad till it passed through the
firm deep iron waistpiece of wrought iron and broke the great stone
which was as large as a millstone in three, and passed through the
protections of his body into him, so that every crevice and every
cavity of him was filled with its barbs.
"'That is enough now, indeed,' said Ferdiad, 'I fall of that. Now
indeed may I say that I am sickly after thee, and not by thy hand
should I have fallen,' and he said [_here follow some verses_]....
"Cuchulain ran towards him after that, and clasped his two arms about
him and lifted him with his arms and his armour and his clothes across
the ford northward, in order that the slain should lie by the ford on
the north, and not by the ford on the west with the men of Erin.
"Cuchulain laid Ferdiad down there, and a trance and a faint and a
weakness fell then on Cuchulain over Ferdiad.
"'Good, O Cuchulain,' said Laeg, 'rise up now for the men of Erin are
coming upon us, and it is not single combat they will give thee since
Ferdiad, son of Daman, son of Dare, has fallen by thee.'
"'Servant,' said he, 'what availeth me to arise after him that hath
fallen by me.'"
Cuchulain is carried away swooning after this fight and is brought by
the two sons of Géadh to the streams and rivers to be cured of his
stabs and wounds, by plunging him in the waters and facing him against
the currents, "for the Tuatha De Danann sent plants of grace and herbs
of healing (floating) down the streams and rivers of Muirtheimhne, to
comfort and help Cuchulain, so that the streams were speckled and green
overhead with them." The Finglas, the Bush, the Douglas, and eighteen
other rivers are mentioned as aiding to cure him.
During the period of Cuchulain's leeching many events were happening in
Mève's camp, amongst others the tragic death of her beautiful daughter,
Finnabra.[20] Isolated bands of the men of Ulster were now beginning
to at last muster in front of Mève, and amongst them came a certain
northern chief, who was, as her daughter secretly confessed to Mève,
her own love and sweetheart beyond all the men of Erin.
The prudent Mève immediately desires her to go to him, if he is
her lover, and do everything in her power to make him draw off his
warriors. This design, however, got abroad, and came to the ears of the
twelve Munster princes who led the forces of the southern province in
Mève's army. These gradually make the discovery that the astute queen
had secretly promised her daughter's hand to each one of the twelve,
as an inducement to him to take part in her expedition. Infuriated
at being thus trifled with and at Mève's treachery in now sending
her daughter to the Ultonian, they fall with all their forces upon
the queen's battalion and the whole camp becomes a scene of blood
and confusion. The warrior Fergus at last succeeds in separating the
combatants, not before seven hundred men have fallen. But when Finnabra
saw the slaughter that was raging, of which she herself was cause, "a
blood-torrent burst from her heart in her bosom through (mingled) shame
and generosity," and she was taken up dead.
In the meantime Cuchulain is joined by another great Ultonian warrior,
who is also being leeched. He had fallen upon the men of Erin
single-handed, and received many wounds, one from Mève herself, who
fought, like Boadicea, at the head of her troops. He describes the
amazon who wounded him to Cuchulain--
"A largely-nurtured, white-faced, long-cheeked woman, with a yellow
mane on the top of her two shoulders, with a shirt of royal silk over
her white skin, and a speckled spear red-flaming in her hand; it was
she who gave me this wound, and I gave her another small wound in
exchange.
"'I know that woman,' said Cuchulain, 'that woman was Mève, and it had
been glory and exultation to her had you fallen by her hand.'"
Afterwards Sualtach, father of Cuchulain, heard the groans of his son
as he was being cured, and said, "Is it heaven that is bursting, or the
sea that is retiring, or the land that is loosening, or is it the groan
of my son in his extremity that I hear?" said he. Cuchulain despatches
him to urge the Ultonians to his assistance. "Tell them how you found
me," he said; "there is not the place of the point of a needle in me
from head to foot without a wound, there is not a hair upon my body
without a dew of crimson blood upon the top of every point, except my
left hand alone that was holding my shield."
And now the Ultonians begin to rally and face the men of Erin. Troops
are seen to pour in from every quarter of Ulster, gathering upon the
plains of Meath for the great battle that was impending. Mève sends
out her trusted messenger to bring word of what is going on amongst
the hostile bands. His first report is that the noise of the Ultonians
hewing down the woods before their chariots with the edge of their
swords was "like nothing but as it were the solid firmament falling
upon the surface-face of the earth, or as it were the sky-blue sea
pouring over the superficies of the plain, as it were the earth being
rent asunder, or the forests falling [each tree] into the grasp and
fork of the other."
Mac Roth, the chief messenger, is again sent out to observe the
gathering of the hosts and to bring word of what bands are coming in
to the hill where Conor, king of Ulster, has set up his standard. On
his return at nightfall there follows a long, minute, and tedious
account, something like the list of ships in the Iliad, only broken
by the questions of Mève and Oilioll, and the answers of Fergus. It
contains, however, some passages of interest. The scout describes the
arrival of twenty-nine different armaments around their respective
chiefs at the hill where King Conor is encamping. Incidentally he gives
us descriptions of characters of interest in the Saga-cycle. As he ends
his description of each band and its leaders, Oilioll turns to Fergus,
and Fergus from Mac Roth's description recognises and tells him who
the various leaders are. In this way we get a glimpse at Sencha, the
wise man, the Nestor of the Red Branch, whose counsel was ever good.
"That man," said Fergus, "is the speaker and peace-maker of the host
of Ulster, and I pledge my word that it is no cowardly or unheroic
counsel which that man will give to his lord this day, but counsel
of vigour and valour and fight." We see the arrival of Feirceirtné,
the arch-ollav of the Ultonians, of Cathbadh the Druid, he who had
prophesied of Déirdre at her birth, who was supposed, according to
the earliest accounts, to have been the real father of King Conor,
he who weakened the children of Usnach by his spells; and we see
also Aithirne, the infamous and overbearing poet of the Ultonians,
about whom much is related in other tales. "The lakes and rivers,"
said Fergus, "recede before him when he satirises them, and rise up
before him when he praises them." "There are not many men in life more
handsome or more golden-locked than he," said Mac Roth, "he bears a
gleaming ivory[-hilted] sword in his right hand." With this sword he
amuses himself, something like the Norman trouvère Taillefer at the
battle of Hastings, by casting it aloft and letting it fall almost on
the heads of his companions but without hurting them. The arch-druid
is described as having scattered whitish-grey hair, and wearing a
purple-blue mantle with a large gleaming shield and bosses of red
brass, and a long iron sword of foreign look. Conor's leech, Finghin,
led a band of physicians to the field; "that man could tell," said
Fergus, "what a person's sickness is by looking at the smoke of the
house in which he is." Another hero whom we catch a glimpse of is the
mighty Conall Cearnach, the greatest champion of the north, whose name
was till lately a household word around Dunsevrick, he who afterwards
so bloodily avenged Cuchulain's death, "the sea over seas, the bursting
rock, the furious troubler of hosts," as Fergus calls him.
We also see the youth Erc, son of Cairbré Niafer the High-king, who
comes from Tara to assist his grandfather King Conor. It is curious,
however, that in this catalogue of the Ultonians quite as much space is
given to the description of men whose names are now--so far, at least,
as I know--unknown to us, as to those who often and prominently figure
in our yet remaining stories.
At last the great battle of the Táin comes off, when the men of Ulster
meet the men of Ireland fairly and face to face. Prodigies of valour
are performed on both sides, and Fergus--who after Cuchulain is
certainly the hero of the Táin--seconded by Oilioll, by Mève, by the
Seven Mainès, and by the sons of Magach, drives the Ultonians back on
his side of the battle three times. Conor, who is on the other flank,
perceives that the men of his far wing are being broken, and loudly
"he shouts to the Household of the Red Branch, 'hold ye the place
in the battle where I am, till I go find who it is who has thrice
inclined the battle against us on the north.'
"'We take that upon ourselves,' said they, 'for heaven is over us,
and earth is under us, and unless the firmament fall down upon the
wave-face of the earth, or the ocean encircle us, or the ground give
way under us, or the ridgy blue-bordered sea rise over the expanse[21]
of life, we shall give not one inch of ground before the men of Erin
till thou come to us again, or till we be slain.'"
Conor hastens northward and finds himself confronted by the man he had
so bitterly wronged, whose hand had lain heavy on his province and
himself, Fergus, who now comes face to face with him after so many
years. Tremendous are the strokes of Fergus.
"He smote his three enemy blows upon Conor's shield 'Eochain' so that
the shield screamed thrice upon him, and the three leading waves of
Erin answered it.
"'Who,' cries Fergus, 'holds his shield against me in this battle?'[22]
"'O Fergus,' cried Conor, 'one who is greater and younger and
handsomer, and more perfect than thyself is here, and whose father
and whose mother were better than thine; one who slew the three great
candles of the valour of the Gaels, the three prosperous sons of
Usnach, in spite of thy guarantee and thy protection, the man who
banished thee out of thy own land and country, the man who made of it
a dwelling-place for the deer and the roe and the foxes, the man who
never left thee as much as the breadth of thy foot of territory in
Ulster, the man who drove thee to the entertainment of women,[23] and
the man who will drive thee back this day in the presence of the men
of Erin, [I] Conor, son of Fachtna Fathach, High-king of Ulster, and
son of the High-king of Ireland."
Despite this boasting he would certainly have been slain by his great
opponent had not one of his sons clasped his arms in supplication
around Fergus's knees and conjured him not to destroy Ulster, and
Fergus, melted by these entreaties, consented to remain passive if
Conor retired to the other wing of the battle, which he did.
In the meantime Mève had sent away the Dun Bull with fifty heifers
round him and eight men, to drive him to her palace in Connacht, "so
that whoever reached Cruachan alive, or did not reach it, the Dun Bull
of Cuailgne should reach it as she had promised."
Cuchulain, who had joined the Ultonians, and whose arms had been taken
from him, lest in his enfeebled condition he should injure himself by
taking part in the fray, unable to bear any longer the look of the
battle, the shouting and the war-cries, rushes into the fight with
part of his broken chariot for a weapon, and performs mighty feats.
At length he ceases to slay at Mève's solicitation, whose life he
spares, and the shattered remnants of her host begin slowly to withdraw
across the ford. "Oilioll draws his shield of protection behind the
host [_i.e._, covers the rear], Mève draws her shield of protection in
her own place, Fergus draws his shield of protection, the Mainès draw
their shield of protection, the sons of Magach draw their shield of
protection behind the host; and in this manner they brought with them
the men of Erin across the great ford westward," nor did they cease
their retreat till Mève and her army found themselves at Cruachan in
Connacht, whence they had set out.
The long saga ends with a decided anti-climax, the encounter between
the Dun Bull, whom Mève had carried off, and her own bull, the
White-Horned.[24] These bulls, according to one of the most curious
of the short auxiliary sagas to the Táin, were really rebirths of two
men who hated each other during life, and now fought it out in the form
of bulls. When they caught sight of each other they pawed the earth
so furiously that they sent the sods flying across their shoulders,
"they rolled the eyes in their heads like flames of fiery lightning."
All day long they charged, and thrust, and struggled, and bellowed,
while the men of Ireland looked on, "but when the night came they could
do nothing but be listening to the noises and the sounds." The two
bulls traversed much of Ireland during that night.[25] Next morning
the people of Cruachan saw the Dun Bull coming with the remains of
his enemy upon his horns. The men of Connacht would have intercepted
him, but Fergus, ever generous, swore with a great oath that all that
had been done in the pursuit of the Táin was nothing to what he would
do if the Dun Bull were not allowed to return to his own country with
his kill. The Dun made straight for his home at Cuailgne in Louth. He
drank of the Shannon at Athlone, and as he stooped one of his enemy's
loins fell off from his horn, hence Ath-luain, the Ford of the Loin.
After that he rushed, mad with passion, towards his home, killing every
one who crossed his way. Arrived there, he set his back to a hill and
uttered wild bellowings of triumph, until "his heart in his breast
burst, and he poured his heart in black mountains of brown blood out
across his mouth."
Thus far the Táin Bo Chuailgne.
[1] Pronounced "Taun Bo Hooiln'ya."
[2] Yet in the Brehon law a woman is valued at only the seventh part
of a man, three cows instead of twenty-one; but if she is young and
handsome she has her additional "honour price."
[3] "Findruini." See Book of Leinster, f. 42, for the old text of this,
but I am here using a modern copy, not trusting myself to translate
accurately from the old text.
[4] This is the mysterious sickness which seizes upon all the Ultonians
at intervals except Cuchulain. _See_ ch. XXIV, note 3.
[5] For more about the Gaileóin see p. 598 of Rhys's Hibbert Lectures,
and O'Curry, "M. and C.," vol. ii. p. 260.
[6] They were countrymen of Oilioll's.
[7] Crann-tábhail; it is doubtful what kind of missile weapon this
really was. It was certainly of the nature of a sling, but was partly
composed of wood.
[8] _See_ above, p. 54 and 291. _Rigú_ is the old form of _roghan_.
[9]
"ὁ δέ Κύπριν ἐπῴχετο νηλέι χαλκῷ
Γιγνώσκων ὅτ᾽ ἄναλκις ἔην θεός, οὐδὲ θεάων
Τάων αἵ τ᾽ ἀνδρῶν πόλεμον κατα κοιρανέουσιν,
Οὔτ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Ἀθηναίη, οὔτε πτολίπορθος Ἐνυώ.
Ἀλλ ὅτε δή ῥ᾽ ἐκίχανε πολὺν καθ᾽ ὅμιλον ὀπάζων,
Ἐνθ᾽ ἐπορεξάμενος, μεγαθύμου Τυδέος υἱὸς
Ἄκρην οὔτασε χεῖρα, μετάλμενος ὀξέϊ δουρὶ
Ἀβληχρήν. εἶθαρ δὲ δόρυ χροὸς ἀντετόρησεν
Ἀμβροσίου διὰ πέπλου, ὁν οἱ Χάριτες κάμον αὐταὶ,
Πρυμνὸν ὑπερ θέναρος ῥέε δ᾽ ἄμβροτον αἷμα θεοῖο
Ἰχώρ, οἷος πέρ τε ῥέει μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν."
_Iliad_, v. 330.
A better instance except for the sex is where he afterwards wounds
Ares. (_See_ v. 855.)
[10] In Irish, _sidh._ The stranger is really Cuchulain's divine father.
[11] This is incredible, for the sickness of the Ultonians could not
have endured so long.
[12] The prominence given to and the laudatory comments on the
non-Gaelic or non-Milesian races, such as the Gaileóins and Firbolg
in this saga is very remarkable. It seems to me a proof of antiquity,
because in later times these races were not prominent.
[13] These are the three blisters mentioned in Cormac's Glossary under
the word _gaire_. Nede satirises--wrongfully--his uncle Caier, king
of Connacht; "Caier arose next morning early and went to the well. He
put his hand over his countenance, he found on his face three blisters
which the satire had caused, namely, Stain, Blemish, and Defect [_on,
anim, eusbaidh_], to wit, red and green and white."
[14] I give here, for the most part, the translation given by Sullivan
in his Addenda to O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," but it is an
exceedingly faulty and defective one from a linguistic point of view.
However, even though some words may be mistranslated or their sense
mistaken, it is immaterial here. Windisch is said to have finished
a complete translation of the Táin, but it has not as yet appeared
anywhere. Max Netlau has studied the texts of the Ferdiad episode in
vols. x. and xi. of the "Revue Celtique."
[15] This is the metre of the original. The last lines are literally,
"A man is constrained to come unto the sod where his final grave shall
be." The metre of the last line is wrong in the Book of Leinster.
[16] Tortbullech = toirt-bhuilleach.
[17] A common trait even in the modern Gaelic tales, as in the story
of Iollan, son of the king of Spain, whose sweetheart urges him to the
battle by chanting his pedigree; and in Campbell's story of Conall
Gulban, where the daughter of the King of Lochlann urges her bard to
exhort her champion in the fight lest he may be defeated, and to give
him "Brosnachadh file fir-ghlic," _i.e._, the urging of a truly wise
poet.
[18] Compare this with the Berserker rage of the Northmen.
[19] _Cf._ the common Gaelic folk-lore formula, "they would make soft
of the hard and hard of the soft, and bring cold springs of fresh water
out of the hard rock with their wrestling."
[20] Or Findabar, the fair-eyebrowed one.
[21] "Tulmuing." _See_ p. 7.
[22] I do not think this is rightly translated, but the passage is
obscure to me.
[23] Alluding to Fergus serving with Queen Mève.
[24] The Finnbheannach, pronounced "Fin-van-ach." Both the bulls were
endowed with intelligence. One of the virtues of the Dun Bull was that
neither Bocanachs nor Bananachs nor demons of the glens could come into
one cantred to him. There emanated from him, too, when returning home
every evening, a mysterious music, so that the men of the cantred where
he was, required no other music. The war-goddess herself, the Mór-rigú,
speaks to him.
[25] Every place in Ireland, says the saga, that is called
Cluain-na-dtarbh, Magh-na-dtarbh, Bearna-na-dtarbh, Druim-na-dtarbh,
Loch-na-dtarbh, _i.e._, the Bull's meadow, plain, gap, ridge, lake,
etc., has its name from them!