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More detail can be found at the end of the book.
CUCHULAIN
THE HOUND OF ULSTER
[Illustration: The Raven of Ill-omen]
CUCHULAIN
THE HOUND OF ULSTER
by
ELEANOR HULL
Author of
“The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature”
“Pagan Ireland” “Early Christian Ireland”
etc.
With Eight Illustrations by Stephen Reid
“Bec a brig liomsa sin,” ar Cuchulaind, “gen
go rabar acht aonla no aonoidchi ar bith acht go
mairit m’airdsgeula dom és.”
_Stowe MS._, _C._ 6, 3.
_R. Irish Academy_.
“Though the span of my life were but for a
day,” Cuchulain said, “little should I reck of
that, if but my noble deeds might be remembered
among men.”
New York
Thomas Y. Crowell Company
Publishers
Printed in Great Britain
by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh
Contents
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 9
CHAP.
I. HOW CONOR BECAME KING OF ULSTER 15
II. QUEEN MEAVE AND THE WOMAN-SEER 18
III. THE BOY-CORPS OF KING CONOR 25
IV. HOW CUCHULAIN GOT HIS NAME 33
V. HOW CUCHULAIN TOOK ARMS 40
VI. OF CUCHULAIN’S FIRST FEATS OF CHAMPIONSHIP 47
VII. CUCHULAIN’S ADVENTURES IN SHADOW-LAND 57
VIII. HOW CUCHULAIN WOOED HIS WIFE 68
IX. MEAVE DEMANDS THE BROWN BULL OF COOLEY AND IS
REFUSED 78
X. THE PLUCKING OUT OF THE FOUR-PRONGED POLE 88
XI. THE DEER OF ILL-LUCK 94
XII. ETARCOMAL’S WELL-DESERVED FATE 104
XIII. THE FIGHT WITH SPITS OF HOLLY-WOOD 113
XIV. THE COMBAT WITH FERDIA 118
XV. THE FALL OF FERDIA 128
XVI. ULSTER, AWAKE! 143
XVII. THE END OF THE BOY-CORPS 151
XVIII. THE “RISING-OUT” OF ULSTER 160
XIX. THE HUMBLING OF QUEEN MEAVE 167
XX. THE FAIRY SWAN-MAIDENS 171
XXI. HOW CUCHULAIN WENT TO FAIRY-LAND 182
XXII. DEIRDRE OF CONTENTIONS 194
XXIII. THE UP-BRINGING OF DEIRDRE 201
XXIV. THE SLEEP-WANDERER 208
XXV. THE WILES OF KING CONOR 217
XXVI. THE SORROWFUL DEATH OF USNA’S SONS 224
XXVII. THE FIGHT OF CUCHULAIN WITH HIS SON CONLA 241
XXVIII. THE HOUND AT BAY 252
XXIX. FAME OUTLIVES LIFE 264
XXX. THE RED ROUT 270
NOTES ON THE SOURCES 275
Illustrations
PAGE
THE RAVEN OF ILL-OMEN _Frontispiece_
QUEEN MEAVE AND THE DRUID 18
CUCHULAIN SETS OUT FOR EMAIN MACHA 28
CUCHULAIN DESIRES ARMS OF THE KING 42
MACHA CURSES THE MEN OF ULSTER 80
FERDIA FALLS BY THE HAND OF CUCHULAIN 140
“THE MOMENT OF GOOD-LUCK IS COME” 160
CUCHULAIN COMES AT LAST TO HIS DEATH 268
Introduction
The events that circle round King Conor mac Nessa and Cuchulain
as their principal figures are supposed to have occurred, as we
gather from the legends themselves, about the first century of our
era. According to one of the stories, King Conor is said to have
died in a paroxysm of wrath and horror, brought on by hearing the
news of the crucifixion of our Lord by the Jews. Though this story
is evidently one of the few interpolations having their origin
in Christian times (the main body of the legends being purely
pagan), the probability that they took shape about this period is
increased almost to certainty by the remarkable agreement we find
in them with the accounts derived from classical writers who lived
and wrote about this same period, and who comment on the habits
of the Gauls of France, the Danube valley and Asia Minor, and the
Belgic tribes who inhabited South-eastern Britain, with whom the
Roman armies came into contact in the course of their wars of
aggression and expansion. The descriptions given by Poseidonius, a
century before Christ, or Diodorus, Cæsar and Livy half a century
later, agree remarkably with the notices found in these Irish
stories of social conditions, weapons, dress, and appearance. The
large wicker shields, the huge double-bladed swords lifted above
the head to strike, the courage amounting to rashness of the
Celt in attack, the furious onset of the scythed war-chariots,
the disregard of death, the habit of rushing into battle without
waiting to don their clothes, the single combats, the great feasts,
the “Champion’s Bit” reserved as a mark of distinction for the
bravest warrior; these, and many other characteristics found in our
tales, are commented upon in the pages of the Roman historians. The
culture represented in them is that known to archæologists as “late
Celtic,” called on the Continent the La Tène period, _i.e._ the
period extending from about 400 B.C. to the first century of the
Christian era; and the actual remains of weapons, ornaments, and
dress found in Ireland confirm the supposition that we are dealing
with this stage of culture.
We may, then, take it that these tales were formed about the
beginning of our era, although the earliest written documents
that we have of them are not earlier than the eleventh and
twelfth century. Between the time of their invention for the
entertainment of the chiefs and kings of Ireland to the time of
their incorporation in the great books which contain the bulk of
the tales, they were handed down by word of mouth, every bard and
professional story-teller (of whom there was at least one in every
great man’s house) being obliged to know by heart a great number of
these romances, and prepared at any moment to recite those which
he might be called upon to give. In the course of centuries of
recitation certain changes crept in, but in the main they come to
us much as they were originally recited. In some tales, of which
we have a number of copies of different ages, we can trace these
changes and notice the additions and modifications that have been
made.
Over a hundred distinct tales belonging to this one cycle alone are
known to have existed, and of a great number of them one or more
copies have come down to us, differing more or less from each other.
The old story-tellers who handed down the romantic tales of
Ireland handled their material in a very free manner, expanding
and altering as suited their own poetic feeling and the audience
they addressed. A reciter of poetic power fearlessly re-arranged,
enlarged or condensed. As a general rule, the older the form of
a story the shorter, terser, and more barbaric is its character.
In the long tale of the Táin bó Cuailgne, which forms the central
subject of the whole cycle, the arrangement of the episodes and the
number of incidents introduced is quite different in the oldest
copy we have of it, that found in the compilation called (from the
particular piece of parchment on which it was written) the “Book
of the Dun (or Brown) Cow,” compiled in 1100 in the monastery
of Clonmacnois on the Shannon, from the version in the Book of
Leinster, a great vellum book drawn up and written for Dermot
mac Morrough, the King of Leinster who invited Strongbow and the
Normans to come over from Wales half a century later. The oldest
form of the story is often the more manly and self-restrained;
there is a tendency, as time goes on, not only to soften down
the more barbarous and rougher portions, but to emphasise the
pathetic and moving scenes, and to add touches of symbolism and
imagination. Though they lack the brief dignity of the older
versions, the more recent copies are often more attractive and full
of poetry. For instance, we have in this book drawn largely on
some comparatively recent (seventeenth-eighteenth century) MSS. in
the British Museum, not hitherto translated, for the details (many
of them full of poetic imagination) of the history of Cuchulain’s
journey into Shadowland to learn feats of bravery,[1] and in the
account of his death and the incidents that immediately follow
it. In the different versions of the former story, the name of
the country to which Cuchulain went is variously given as Alba or
Scotland, Scythia, and the “Land of Scáthach,” _i.e._ the home of
the woman-warrior from whom he learned. It is evident that Scythia
is only a mistake for Scáthach, made by some scribe and copied by
others. Scáth means a “Shadow,” and probably the original idea
was purely symbolic, meaning that the hero had passed beyond the
bounds of human knowledge into an invisible world of mystery called
Shadowland. The writer of the copy that I have used returns to
this original idea, and the whole story, in his hands, becomes
symbolic and imaginative. So also, in the account of Cuchulain’s
death, the modern scribe introduces new details which add to the
beauty and striking effect of this most touching episode. To my
mind the scribes, in making these additions, acted in a perfectly
legitimate manner, and I have not hesitated in this book, which
does not aim at being a text-book, but a book written for the
pleasure of the young, to follow their example. I have freely, in
minor points, re-arranged or pruned the tales, adding details from
different sources as suited my purpose, and occasionally expanding
an imaginative suggestion indicated, but not worked out, by the
scribe. But I have seldom allowed myself deliberately to alter a
story, or to introduce anything not found somewhere in the tales as
they have come down to us. An exception is the story of Cuchulain’s
visit to fairy-land, commonly known as the “Sickbed of Cuchulain,”
which required a slight modification of the central situation in
order to make it suitable reading for any children into whose hands
the book might chance to fall; it was too poetic and touching an
episode to be altogether omitted without loss to the conception of
the cycle as a whole.
It is, after all, the human interest of these old stories, and not
primarily their importance as folklore and the history of manners,
that appeals to most of us to-day. As the Arthurian legend all
through the Middle Ages set before men’s minds an ideal of high
purpose, purity of life, and chivalrous behaviour in an age that
was not over-inclined to practise these virtues, so these old Irish
romances, so late rescued from oblivion, come to recall the minds
of men in our own day to some noble ideals.
For, rude as are the social conditions depicted in these tales,
and exaggerated and barbaric as is the flavour of some of them,
they nevertheless present to us a high and often romantic code of
natural chivalry. There is no more pathetic story in literature
than that of the fight between the two old and loving friends,
Cuchulain and Ferdia; there is no more touching act of chivalry to
a woman than Cuchulain’s offer of aid to his enemy Queen Meave, in
the moment of her exhaustion; there is no more delightful passage
of playful affection than that between the hero and his lady in
the wooing of Emer. These tales have a sprightliness and buoyancy
not possessed by the Arthurian tales, they are fresher, more
humorous, more diversified; and the characters, more especially
those of the women, are more firmly and variously drawn. For Wales
and for England Arthur has been for centuries the representative
“very gentle perfect knight”; for Ireland Cuchulain represented
the highest ideal of which the Irish Gael was capable. In these
stories, as in Malory’s “Morte D’Arthur,” we find “many joyous
and pleasant histories, and noble and renowned acts of humanity,
gentleness and chivalry”; and we may add, with Malory, “Do after
the good and leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame
and renommée.”
ELEANOR HULL
Cuchulain
CHAPTER I
How Conor became King of Ulster
There was a great war between Connaught and Ulster, that is,
between Conor, King of Ulster, and Meave, the proud and mighty
Queen of Connaught. This was the cause of the war between them.
When Conor was but a lad, his mother was a widow, and there was no
thought that Conor would be king. For the King of Ulster at that
time was Fergus mac Roy, a powerful and noble king, whom his people
loved; and though Conor was of high rank and dignity, he stood not
near the throne. But his mother, Ness, was ambitious for him, and
she used all her arts to bring it about that he should be called
to the throne of Ulster. Ness was a handsome woman, and a woman of
spirit, and in her youth she had been a warrior; and Fergus admired
her, and she wrought upon him so that in the end he asked her to be
his wife. She made it a condition that for one year Fergus would
leave the sovereignty, and that Conor should take his place; “for,”
said she, “I should like to have it said that my son had been a
king, and that his children should be called the descendants of a
king.” Fergus and the people of Ulster liked not her request, but
she was firm, and Fergus all the more desired to marry her, because
he found it not easy to get her; so, at the last, he gave way to
her, and he resigned the kingdom for one year into the hands of
Conor.
But, as soon as Conor was king, Ness set about to win away the
hearts of the people of Ulster from Fergus, and to transfer them
in their allegiance to Conor. She supplied her son with wealth,
which he distributed secretly among the people, buying them over
to his side; and she taught him how to act, so that he won over
the nobles and the great men of the province. And when, the year
being out, Fergus demanded back the sovereignty, he found that the
league formed against him was so strong that he could do nothing.
The chiefs said that they liked Conor well, and that he was their
friend, and they were not disposed to part with him; they said,
too, that Fergus having abandoned the kingdom for a year, only to
gain a wife, cared little for it, and had, in fact, resigned it.
And they agreed that Fergus should keep his wife, if he wished, but
that the kingdom should pass to Conor. And Fergus was so wrath at
this, that he forsook his wife, and went with a great host of his
own followers into Connaught, to take refuge with Queen Meave and
with Ailill, her spouse. But he swore to be revenged upon Conor,
and he waited only an opportunity to incite Meave to gather her
army together that he might try to win back the sovereignty, or at
least to revenge the insult put upon him by Conor and by Ness.
Now Fergus mac Roy was of great stature, a mighty man and a famous
warrior, and his strength was that of a hundred heroes. And all men
spoke of the sword of Fergus, which was so great and long that men
said that it stretched like a rainbow or like a weaver’s beam. And
at the head of his hosts was Cormac, the Champion of the White
Cairn of Watching, a son of Conor, who liked not the deed of his
father; for he was young, and he had been one of the bodyguard of
Fergus, and went with Fergus into exile to Connaught. And that was
called the Black Exile of Fergus mac Roy.