Táin Bó Cuailnge

Táin Bó Cuailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley), the central saga of the Ulster cycle and one of the oldest stories in European vernacular literature. Already very old when it was written down, it survives in three main manuscript recensions: in the Book of the Dun Cow, the Book of Leinster, and the Yellow Book of Lecan. The Book of Leinster version, though it produces a consistent narrative, is florid in style, whereas the other two preserve earlier and starker forms of the tale, written perhaps in the 8th cent. The Táin tells how Medb, Queen of Connacht, makes a raid on the Ulaid (Ulstermen) to carry off the Donn (Brown) Cuailnge, a great bull from Cooley in Co. Louth, so that she can rival her husband, Ailill, who possesses a comparable bull called Finnbennach (White-Horned). When the Connacht army reaches Ard Cuillenn they find the first sign of Cú Chulainn, the hero of the narrative. A boy of 17, he defends Ulster alone since the Ulstermen are suffering a debility laid on them by Macha [see mythology] for compelling her to race while pregnant. Cú Chulainn attacks the Connacht army in a series of devastating night raids, but the army still advances. Fergus makes an agreement with Cú Chulainn, committing him to a bout of single combat each day. A troop of boys, training in arms at Emain Macha and exempted from Macha's sickness because of their youth, now come against Medb and are killed. When Cú Chulainn awakes and finds that the boy-troop has been destroyed, he goes into a ‘warp-spasm’ (riastrad): in this enraged condition, he makes a great slaughter. According to a late and highly formulaic accretion to the story, Ferdia, Cú Chulainn's foster-brother, is persuaded to enter combat against him. The heroes fight for three days at Áth Fhirdia (Ardee, Co. Louth). Finally Cú Chulainn sends a lethal weapon called the gae bolga downstream, killing Ferdia when its barbs open out inside his body. After a fierce struggle between the bulls the Donn carries Finnbennach's carcass on his horns across Ireland.

Bibliography

Thomas Kinsella's The Tain (1969), a translation which has a valuable introduction and maps.

Irish title of the greatest work of classical Irish literature, an epic or epic-like saga and the key text of the Ulster Cycle; known in English as The Cattle Raid of Cooley (Quelgny, etc.). The central action pits Queen Medb (Maeve) of Connacht against the Ulster hero Cúchulainn as well as Finnbennach [the White Bull] against Donn Cuailnge [the Brown Bull]. Initial composition in both prose and verse dates from the 7th and 8th centuries with texts surviving in the Book of the Dun Cow [Lebor na hUidre] (c.1100), the Book of Leinster [Lebor Laignech] (c.1160), and the Yellow Book of Lecan [Lebor Buide Lecáin] (c.1390). The many revisions and interpolations indicate a trend from the lean prose and sharp humour of the earlier passages to the bombast, florid alliteration, and sentimentality of the later.

Foretales

. When the action of the Táin begins, the listener/reader is presumed to have had an introduction to characters and events that are the key to what follows. An explanation of these details is found in seven foretales or rémscéla that date from several centuries and are found in different codices. Preceding them is a 9th-century anecdote explaining that the Táin was recovered when Fergus mac Róich returned from the dead and recited the text to the poet Senchán Torpéist. The seven points of the rémscéla are (1) that Conchobar mac Nessa became king of Ulster when his mother persuaded the previous king, Fergus mac Róich, to resign in his favour; Conchobar was none the less a popular king. (2) Ulster warriors suffered ‘pangs’ [Irish noínden] like those of a woman in labour whenever they were in greatest difficulty. These were inflicted on them in a curse by Macha (3), when her husband, Crunniuc, obliged her to run a foot-race just as she was about to give birth. (3) The story of Conchobar's frustrated love for the beautiful Deirdre (Longas mac nUislenn [the Exile of the Sons of Uisnech]), whom Cathbad tells will bring evil to Ulster. (4) The mysterious conception of Cúchulainn, perhaps by Lug Lámfhota, and his birth under the name Setanta. At birth, Cúchulainn is thought to be the son of the mortal Sualtam. (5) Cúchulainn's demonstrated skill with arms and his winning of Emer, the daughter of Forgall Manach. Later, the improvement of his fighting prowess while being tutored by Scáthach and Aífe in Scotland. (6) Cúchulainn's unknowing slaying of Connla, his child from an affair with Aífe; see AIDED ÓENFHIR AÍFE [The Tragic Death of Aífe's Only Son]. (7) The story of the begetting of Finnbennach and Donn Cuailnge.

The narrative

. Medb, warrior queen of Connacht, disputes with her husband, Ailill mac Máta, in their bedroom at Cruachain [Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon]. The issue is not romance but power. Who has the more valuable possessions, husband or wife? Ailill claims that his are greater because he has the white horned bull, Finnbennach, which was born in Medb's herds but has departed as it did not wish to be ruled by a woman. All her wealth seems worthless to Medb because she has no bull to match that of Ailill. Bulls equalled wealth in this milieu; in pre-Christian Celtic culture they had been worshipped. Medb feels that the only way her wealth could appear to be more than that of her husband would be if she possessed the greatest bull in all of Ireland, Donn Cuailnge of the cantred of Cuailnge [Cooley peninsula, north-east Co. Louth] in Ulster. She sends emissaries to bargain with the owner, Dáire mac Fiachna, offering many treasures, including access to her own ‘friendly thighs’. Dáire refuses, and so Medb resolves to take the bull by force.

Medb summons the armies of Connacht and Leinster as well as those of the Ulster exiles, Cormac Connloinges (a son of Conchobar) and Fergus mac Róich. Before the expedition gets under way, the Connacht army consults a mysterious prophetess, Fedelm (1), who rides on the shaft of a chariot, weaving a fringe with a gold staff. When asked what she foresees, Fedelm responds, ‘Crimson’. Medb and others challenge her vision, but Fedelm repeats it and adds a description of the deeds of Cúchulainn, the great Ulster champion. Medb's only consolation is a druid's prophecy that she will return alive.

Camping on the first night, Medb reviews her troops. Noting that her Leinster allies are the most eager soldiers, she thinks for a moment of slaughtering them, lest they betray her. She instead distributes them among different battalions so that their threat is dissipated. Fergus mac Róich is appointed to guide the entire expedition, even though he has exiled himself from Ulster for his murder of the sons of Uisnech (see DEIRDRE). He is uneasy in opposing his countrymen. Still, most of the Ulstermen still suffer under the birth pangs put upon them by Macha (3). Two excepted were Cúchulainn and his mortal father, Sualtam, who set out to meet the Connacht army at Iraird Cuillenn [Crossakeel, Co. Westmeath]. Cúchulainn sends his father back to warn Ulster, while he writes the message for the advancing army. To make sure it is read, Cúchulainn cuts an oak sapling with a single stroke, and using only one arm, one leg, and one eye, he makes it into a hoop. He writes the message in the ogham alphabet and fixes the hoop around a pillar-stone, before departing for a tryst with a girl, possibly Fedelm Noíchrothach (daughter of Conchobar mac Nessa) or her bond-woman, near Tara. The message reads, ‘Come no further, unless you have a man who can make a hoop like this one, with one hand, out of one piece.’ On the next night, Cúchulainn leaves another warning. He cuts the fork of a tree with a single stroke and casts it into the earth so that two-thirds of the stem is buried. On the branches he sets the heads of four Connachtmen so unfortunate as to have strayed from the army. Fergus says that it is geis [Irish, taboo] for them to pass the tree with four heads, unless someone can pull it out. Medb commands Fergus to extract the tree, and after seven attempts he succeeds. When asked who could have put the tree so deep in the earth, Fergus answers that it could only have been Cúchulainn, his own foster-son and the foster-son of Conchobar. Following this, Fergus gives a long account of Cúchulainn's childhood deeds.

The Connacht army moves eastward, devastating Brega [eastern Co. Meath] and Mag Muirtheimne (Co. Louth). Fergus warns his comrades about Cúchulainn's vengeance, which comes quickly with the slaughter of one hundred soldiers. Medb can find no one to oppose him in combat. She then asks for a parley, but Cúchulainn refuses, slaughtering one hundred more men each night instead. Then Cúchulainn proposes terms: he will meet with one warrior at a ford of a river. Medb agrees, but Cúchulainn kills each of six adversaries, at which point Medb breaks the agreement.

Medb then departs, turning towards Dún Sobairche [Dunseverick, Co. Antrim], which she plunders. Cúchulainn at first follows her, but then returns to his own country, where he finds Buide mac Báin leading Donn Cuailnge, in the bull's first appearance in the narrative; Cúchulainn kills Buide, while others drive off the bull.

Lug Lámfhota, Cúchulainn's immortal father, comes and heals the hero of his accumulated wounds, telling him to rest for three days and nights. While Cúchulainn is regaining his strength, the 150 strong boy army of Ulster, not suffering the birth pangs from Macha, march out to battle. Though they wreak destruction on Connacht for a while, they are themselves destroyed. News of the boy army's terrible end brings on Cúchulainn's ríastrad [battle fury], during which he vows to seek vengeance upon Medb's army. Cúchulainn, then begins a long series of single combats, in which he is always the victor. Medb persuades Fergus mac Róich to go against Cúchulainn, but once in the field they will not fight one another. By agreement, they yield to one another by turns.

At last Medb persuades Ferdiad to enter the fray. A foster-brother of Cúchulainn, Ferdiad is threatened with disgrace if he refuses and is offered rich rewards if he consents-including the pledged troth of Medb's daughter Finnabair. The four-day battle of the foster-brothers at the ford of Áth Fhirdiad [Ardee, Co. Louth] constitutes the climactic action of the entire narrative. Neither combatant wishes to fight the other. Each night Cúchulainn sends Ferdiad leeches and herbs to heal his wounds, while Ferdiad sends a share of his food. They fight with darts, slender spears, heavy spears, and heavy swords, with neither gaining the advantage. At last Cúchulainn calls for the Gáe Bulga, the mysterious weapon whose use he had learned from Scáthach, the woman warrior. It is a spear that enters a wound at one point but makes thirty points within. With the assistance of his charioteer Láeg, Cúchulainn sets the Gáe Bulga against Ferdiad, killing him. In an instant Cúchulainn begins to lament the death of his foster-brother and friend, but he is prostrate from his own wounds.

While Cúchulainn lies recovering, single champions from Ulster come forth to oppose the Connacht army. Hearing them, Sualtam thinks his son in danger. Cúchulainn disabuses him, but asks him to return to Emain Macha, the capital, to rouse the Ulstermen. Arriving at the palace, Sualtam calls out three times, but no one responds. The druid Cathbad tells Sualtam that he offends protocol by speaking unbidden. Turning away in anger, Sualtam falls on the sharp edge of his own shield and beheads himself. When his severed head is brought back on the shield, it roars out his earlier warning to the Ulstermen.

Hearing his call, Conchobar rouses the men of his kingdom, and the Ulstermen are released from their pangs. In the description of the armed companies' advance, the text here includes more than 500 lines of description of colour and armaments, all in anticipation for the climactic battle at Gáirech. As the battle begins, the Connacht army under Fergus's command breaks through the lines. Cúchulainn still lying ill from his wounds, the Ulster hero Conall Cernach rises to the fore, taunting Fergus for opposing his kith and kin ‘for the sake of a whore's [Medb's] backside’. Fergus turns to Conchobar and almost kills him, but cannot finish him off as he is a fellow Ulsterman. Cúchulainn, hearing of Conchobar's plight, rises up in a frenzy and enters the fray. Fergus, upon seeing him, withdraws from the fighting, as he had earlier promised.

This leaves Medb and Ailill alone on the battlefield. And though Cúchulainn comes upon her at a vulnerable moment, as she is relieving herself, he spares her and allows her to return home, unharmed, with Donn Cuailnge the brown bull in tow. The human battle is over.

When Donn Cuailnge comes to Cruachain, he gives out three mighty bellows, challenging Finnbennach the white-horned bull to fight him. All who have returned from battle watch the bulls at Tarbga [north-east Co. Roscommon] in a battle that lasts all day and into the dark. During the night the bulls fight all over Ireland, and in the morning Donn Cuailnge is seen passing Cruachain with Finnbennach on his horns. He gallops back to Ulster, scattering the white bull's entrails as he passes. When he comes to the border of Cuailnge, his heart breaks and he dies.

Medb and Ailill make peace with Ulster and with Cúchulainn, but their daughter Finnabair stays with the former enemy. The men of Ulster go to Emain Macha, celebrating great triumph.

Bibliography

• Translations: Joseph Dunn, The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin Bó Cúalnge (London, 1914)
• Winifred Faraday, The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (London, 1904)
• Christian-J. Guyonvarc'h, “‘La Razzia des vaches de Cooley (version de Lebor na hUidre)’”, Ogam, 15 (1963), 139–60, 265–88, 393–412; 16 (1964), 225–30, 463–70 [incomplete]
• Thomas Kinsella, The Táin (Dublin and London, 1969)
• Cecile O'Rahilly, Táin Bó Cúailnge from the Book of Leinster (Dublin, 1967)
• Táin Bó Cúailnge: Recension I (Dublin, 1978)
• Ernst Windisch, Die altirische Heldensage Táin Bó Cúailnge nach dem Buch von Leinster … (Leipzig, 1905).
• Commentary: Rudolf Thurneysen, Die irische Helden- und Königsaga bis zum siebzehnten Jahrhundert (Halle, 1921)
• James Carney, Studies in Irish Literature and History (Dublin, 1955)
• David Greene, “‘Táin Bó Cúailnge’”, in Irish Sagas, ed. Myles Dillon (Dublin, 1968), 93–104
• Eleanor Hull, The Cuchullin Saga of Irish Literature (London, 1898)
• John V. Kelleher, “‘The Táin and the Annals’”, Ériu, 22 (1971), 107–22
• J. P. Mallory (ed.,) Aspects of the Táin (Belfast, 1992)
• Studien zur Táin Bó Cuailnge (Tübingen, 1993).
• Adaptations and popularizations: Kenneth C. Flint, A Storm Upon Ulster (New York, 1981)
• Gregory Frost, Táin (New York, 1986)
• Augusta Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemne (London, 1902)
• Horselips, The Táin [rock music] (London, 1973)
• Mary Hutton, The Táin (Dublin, 1907, 1948)
• Liam MacUistin, The Tain [juvenile fiction] (Dublin, 1989)
• Joan Denise Moriarty, The Táin [ballet] (Dublin, 1981)
• Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill's five poems, sometimes subtitled the Atáin, offer feminist commentary, Selected Poems/Rogha Dánta (Dublin, 1988), 110–25