pangs/debility of the Ulstermen

When Crunniuc mac Agnomain forced his wife Macha (3) to run a foot-race with a horse, she cursed the watching Ulster warriors unto nine times nine generations with the debilitating pains suffered by women in child-birth when they were in greatest difficulty. Known in Irish as [ces] noínden Ulad [nine days' affliction of Ulster]. The episode is retold here at the beginning of the Táin Bó Cuailnge [Cattle Raid of Cooley].