Táin Bó Cúailnge
Encyclopedia
Early Irish literature
-The earliest Irish authors:It is unclear when literacy first came to Ireland. The earliest Irish writings are inscriptions, mostly simple memorials, on stone in the ogham alphabet, the earliest of which date to the fourth century...
, often considered an epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
, although it is written primarily in prose rather than verse. It tells of a war against Ulster
Ulaid
The Ulaid or Ulaidh were a people of early Ireland who gave their name to the modern province of Ulster...
by the Connacht
Connacht
Connacht , formerly anglicised as Connaught, is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the west of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for...
queen Medb
Medb
Medb – Middle Irish: Meḋḃ, Meaḋḃ; early modern Irish: Meadhbh ; reformed modern Irish Méabh, Medbh; sometimes Anglicised Maeve, Maev or Maive – is queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology...
and her husband Ailill
Ailill mac Máta
Ailill mac Máta is the king of the Connachta and the husband of queen Medb in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. He rules from Cruachan .-Family background, marriage and offspring:...
, who intend to steal the stud bull Donn Cuailnge
Donn Cuailnge
In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology Donn Cúailnge, the Brown Bull of Cooley, was an extremely fertile stud bull over whom the Táin Bó Cúailnge was fought....
, opposed only by the teenage Ulster hero Cú Chulainn
Cú Chulainn
Cú Chulainn or Cúchulainn , and sometimes known in English as Cuhullin , is an Irish mythological hero who appears in the stories of the Ulster Cycle, as well as in Scottish and Manx folklore...
. A similar tale set in the West of Ireland is Táin Bó Flidhais
Táin Bó Flidhais
Táin Bó Flidhais, also known as the Mayo Táin, is a tale from the Ulster Cycle of early Irish literature. It is one of a group of works known as Táin Bó, or "cattle raid" stories, the best known of which is Táin Bó Cúailnge...
.
Traditionally set in the 1st century AD in an essentially pre-Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
heroic age, the Táin is the central text of a group of tales known as the Ulster Cycle
Ulster Cycle
The Ulster Cycle , formerly known as the Red Branch Cycle, one of the four great cycles of Irish mythology, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster and northern Leinster, particularly counties Armagh, Down and...
. It survives in two main written versions or "recensions" in 12th century manuscripts, the first a compilation largely written in Old Irish, the second a more consistent work in Middle Irish.
Synopsis
The Táin is preceded by a number of remscéla, or pre-tales, which provide background on the main characters and explain the presence of certain characters from Ulster in the Connacht camp, the curse that causes the temporary inability of the remaining Ulstermen to fight and the magic origins of the bulls Donn Cuailnge and FinnbhennachFinnbhennach
In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, Finnbhennach was an extremely fertile stud bull owned by king Ailill of Connacht....
. The eight remscéla chosen by Thomas Kinsella
Thomas Kinsella
Thomas Kinsella is an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.-Early life and work:Kinsella was born in Lucan, County Dublin. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated in the Irish language at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell Christian...
for his 1969 translation are sometimes taken to be part of the Táin itself, but come from a variety of manuscripts of different dates. Several other tales exist which are described as remscéla to the Táin, some of which have only a tangential relation to it.
The first recension begins with Ailill and Medb assembling their army in Cruachan
Cruachan, Ireland
Rathcroghan is a complex of archaeological sites near Tulsk in County Roscommon, Ireland. It is identified as the site of Cruachan, the traditional capital of the Connachta. While it is debatable whether this was a place of residence, it had huge importance as a cemetery and also hosted some of...
, the purpose of this military build-up taken for granted. The second recension adds a prologue in which Ailill and Medb compare their respective wealths and find that the only thing that distinguishes them is Ailill's possession of the phenomenally fertile bull Finnbhennach
Finnbhennach
In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, Finnbhennach was an extremely fertile stud bull owned by king Ailill of Connacht....
, who had been born into Medb's herd but scorned being owned by a woman so decided to transfer himself to Ailill's. Medb determines to get the equally potent Donn Cuailnge
Donn Cuailnge
In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology Donn Cúailnge, the Brown Bull of Cooley, was an extremely fertile stud bull over whom the Táin Bó Cúailnge was fought....
from Cooley
Cooley peninsula
The Cooley Peninsula is a hilly peninsula in County Louth, Ireland, which includes towns such as Omeath, Carlingford and Greenore.-Geography:...
to equal her wealth with her husband. She successfully negotiates with the bull's owner, Dáire mac Fiachna
Dáire mac Fiachna
In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, Dáire mac Fiachna was an Ulster cattle-lord and owner of Donn Cuailnge, the Brown Bull of Cooley, over which the Táin Bó Cuailnge was fought....
, to rent the animal for a year until her messengers, drunk, reveal that they would have taken the bull by force even if they had not been allowed to borrow it. The deal breaks down, and Medb raises an army, including Ulster exiles led by Fergus mac Róich
Fergus mac Róich
Fergus mac Róich is a character of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology...
and other allies, and sets out to capture him.
The men of Ulster are disabled by an apparent illness, the ces noínden (literally "debility of nine (days)", although it lasts several months). A separate tale explains this as the curse of the goddess Macha
Macha
Macha is the name of a goddess and several other characters in Irish mythology.Macha can also mean:*The LÉ Macha , a ship in the Irish Naval Service, named for the goddess*The Macha crater in Russia, less than 7000 years old...
, who imposed it after being forced by the king of Ulster to race against a chariot while heavily pregnant. The only person fit to defend Ulster is seventeen-year-old Cú Chulainn
Cú Chulainn
Cú Chulainn or Cúchulainn , and sometimes known in English as Cuhullin , is an Irish mythological hero who appears in the stories of the Ulster Cycle, as well as in Scottish and Manx folklore...
, and he lets the army take Ulster by surprise because he's off on a tryst when he should be watching the border. Cú Chulainn, assisted by his charioteer Láeg
Láeg
Láeg, or Lóeg, son of Riangabar, is the charioteer and constant companion of the hero Cú Chulainn in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. His horses are Liath Macha and Dub Sainglend....
, wages a guerrilla campaign against the advancing army, then halts it by invoking the right of single combat at fords, defeating champion after champion in a stand-off lasting months. However, he is unable to prevent Medb from capturing the bull.
Cú Chulainn is both helped and hindered by supernatural figures. Before one combat the Morrígan
Morrígan
The Morrígan or Mórrígan , also written as Morrígu or in the plural as Morrígna, and spelt Morríghan or Mór-Ríoghain in Modern Irish, is a figure from Irish mythology who appears to have once been a goddess, although she is not explicitly referred to as such in the texts.The Morrigan is a goddess...
visits him in the form of a beautiful young woman and offers him her love, but he spurns her. She then reveals herself and threatens to interfere in his next fight. She does so, first in the form of an eel who trips him in the ford, then as a wolf who stampedes cattle across the ford, and finally as a heifer at the head of the stampede, but in each form Cú Chulainn wounds her. After he defeats his opponent, the Morrígan appears to him in the form of an old woman milking a cow, with wounds corresponding to the ones Cú Chulainn gave her in her animal forms. She offers him three drinks of milk. With each drink he blesses her, and the blessings heal her wounds.
After a particularly arduous combat he is visited by another supernatural figure, Lugh
Lugh
Lug or Lugh is an Irish deity represented in mythological texts as a hero and High King of the distant past. He is known by the epithets Lámhfhada , for his skill with a spear or sling, Ildánach , Samhildánach , Lonnbeimnech and Macnia , and by the...
, who reveals he is his father. He puts Cú Chulainn to sleep for three days while he works his healing arts on him. While he sleeps the youth corps of Ulster come to his aid but are all slaughtered. When Cú Chulainn wakes he undergoes a spectacular ríastrad or "distortion", in which his body twists in its skin and he becomes an unrecognisable monster who knows neither friend nor foe. He makes a bloody assault on the Connacht camp and avenges the youth corps sixfold.
After this extraordinary incident, the sequence of single combats resumes, although on several occasions Medb breaks the agreement by sending several men against him at once. When Fergus, his foster-father, is sent to fight him, Cú Chulainn agrees to yield to him on the condition that Fergus yields the next time they meet. Finally there is a physically and emotionally gruelling three-day duel between the hero and his foster-brother and best friend, Ferdiad
Ferdiad
Ferdiad , son of Damán, son of Dáire, of the Fir Domnann, is a warrior of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. In the Táin Bó Cúailnge, Ferdiad finds himself on opposite sides to his best friend and foster-brother Cúchulainn, with whom he had trained in arms under the renowned warrior...
, whom Cú Chulainn kills.
Eventually the Ulstermen start to rouse, one by one at first, then en masse, and the final battle begins. Ailill and Medb pressure Fergus into Battle. Cύ Chulainn wishes to go to battle exclaiming, "If only I were fit, you would see me breaking through along with the rest of them", referring to the great kings and warriors of the land of Ulster that have arrived to take on Aillill and Medb’s forces. For example, Conchobar, Seancha Mac Ailill, Láegaire Buadach the victorious, Munremar Mac Gerrcinn, Feidlimid, and many more great warrriors showed up to fight for Ulster. All of the warriors from Ulster came together and impressed great awesomeness and power upon Ailill and Medb since they originated from the most powerful province of Ireland. It ends after Fergus makes good on his promise and yields to Cú Chulainn, pulling his forces off the field. Connacht's other allies panic and Medb is forced to retreat. She does, however, manage to bring Donn Cuailnge back to Connacht, where he fights Finnbhennach, kills him, but, mortally wounded himself, wanders around Ireland creating placenames before finally returning home to die of exhaustion.
The image of Cú Chulainn dying, tied to a post so that even in death he might face his enemies standing, adopted by early 20th century Irish republicans, does not come from the Táin but from a later story. However it has been incorporated into some oral versions of the Táin, in which Cú Chulainn dies from wounds sustained during his final duel with Ferdiad.
The text
The Táin Bó Cúailnge has survived in two main recensions. The first consists of a partial text in the Lebor na hUidreLebor na hUidre
Lebor na hUidre or the Book of the Dun Cow is an Irish vellum manuscript dating to the 12th century. It is the oldest extant manuscript in Irish. It is held in the Royal Irish Academy and is badly damaged: only 67 leaves remain and many of the texts are incomplete...
(the "Book of the Dun Cow"), a late 11th/early 12th century manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
compiled in the monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
at Clonmacnoise
Clonmacnoise
The monastery of Clonmacnoise is situated in County Offaly, Ireland on the River Shannon south of Athlone....
, and another partial text of the same version in the 14th century manuscript called the Yellow Book of Lecan
Yellow Book of Lecan
The Yellow Book of Lecan , or TCD MS 1318 , is a medieval Irish manuscript written no later than the dawn of the 15th century. It is currently housed at Trinity College, Dublin and should not be confused with the Great Book of Lecan.-Overview:The manuscript is written on vellum and contains 344...
. These two sources overlap, and a complete text can be reconstructed by combining them. This recension is a compilation of two or more earlier versions, indicated by the number of duplicated episodes and references to "other versions" in the text. Many of the episodes are superb, written in the characteristic terse prose of the best Old Irish literature, but others are cryptic summaries, and the whole is rather disjointed. Parts of this recension can be dated from linguistic evidence to the 8th century, and some of the verse passages may be even older.
The second recension is found in the 12th century manuscript known as the Book of Leinster
Book of Leinster
The Book of Leinster , is a medieval Irish manuscript compiled ca. 1160 and now kept in Trinity College, Dublin, under the shelfmark MS H 2.18...
. This appears to have been a syncretic exercise by a scribe who brought together the Lebor na hUidre materials and unknown sources for the Yellow Book of Lecan materials to create a coherent version of the epic. While the result is a satisfactory narrative whole, the language has been modernised into a much more florid style, with all of the spareness of expression of the earlier recension lost in the process.
The Book of Leinster version ends with a colophon in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
which says:
An incomplete third recension is known from fragments in a number of later manuscripts.
There is reason to suspect that the Táin had a considerable oral history before any of it was committed to writing: for example, the poem Conailla Medb michuru ("Medb enjoined illegal contracts") by Luccreth moccu Chiara
Luccreth moccu Chiara
Luccreth moccu Chíara was a poet from County Kerry, Ireland who wrote in archaic Old Irish. Moccu is an archaic form marking affiliation to an ancestral population group or gens, in this case the Cíarraige...
, dated to c. 600, tells the story of Fergus' exile with Ailill and Medb, which the poet describes as sen-eolas ("old knowledge"). Two further 7th century poems also allude to elements of the story: in Verba Scáthaige ("Words of Scáthach"), the warrior-woman Scáthach
Scáthach
Scáthach is a figure in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. She is a legendary Scottish warrior woman and martial arts teacher who trains the legendary Ulster hero Cú Chulainn in the arts of combat...
prophesies Cú Chulainn's combats at the ford; and Ro-mbáe laithi rordu rind ("We had a great day of plying spear-points"), attributed to Cú Chulainn himself, refers to an incident in the Boyhood Deeds section of the Táin.
The Táin in translation
Two translations by Irish poets are available in mass market editions: Thomas KinsellaThomas Kinsella
Thomas Kinsella is an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.-Early life and work:Kinsella was born in Lucan, County Dublin. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated in the Irish language at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell Christian...
's The Táin (1969, Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
) and Ciarán Carson
Ciaran Carson
Ciaran Gerard Carson is a Belfast, Northern Ireland-born poet and novelist.-Early years:Ciaran Carson was born in Belfast into an Irish-speaking family...
's The Táin (2007, Penguin Classics). Both are based primarily on the first recension with passages added from the second, although they differ slightly in their selection and arrangement of material. Kinsella's translation is illustrated by Louis le Brocquy
Louis le Brocquy
Louis le Brocquy is an Irish painter born in Dublin. His work has received many accolades in a career that spans seventy years of creative practice...
(see Louis le Brocquy Táin illustrations
Louis le Brocquy Táin illustrations
In 1967 Louis le Brocquy was commissioned by the publisher Liam Miller to illustrate Thomas Kinsella's inspired version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the dramatic record of Ireland's proto-historic past...
) and also contains translations of a selection of remscéla.
Cecile O'Rahilly
Cecile O'Rahilly
Dr. Cecile O'Rahilly was a scholar of the Celtic languages and the sister of the Celtic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly. She is best known for her editions/translations of the various recensions of the Ulster Cycle epic saga Táin Bó Cúailnge....
has published academic editions/translations of both recensions, Táin Bó Cúailnge from the Book of Leinster (1967) and Táin Bó Cúailnge Recension 1 (1976), as well as an edition of the later Stowe Version (1984), a variant version of recension 2 in more modern language, with a few extra passages. Winifred Faraday's The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (1904) translates the first recension, and Joseph Dunn's The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin Bó Cúailnge (1914) translates the second, with passages added from the first recension and the Stowe version.
Cultural influence
- See Irish mythology in popular culture
External links
- text and translation of Táin Bó Cúailnge Recension 1, published by Cecile O'Rahilly, provided at CELT
- text and translation of Táin Bó Cúailnge from the Book of Leinster, published by Cecile O'Rahilly, provided at CELT
- Timeless Myths: Ulaid Cycle