Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference)

by James MacKillop

  STORIES ABOUT THE ULAID

  So great has the literary prestige of the Ulster or Ultonian Cycle been, both in the Irish language and in English translation, that from a distance it sometimes appears to be the only cycle of early heroic stories. Contained within its mostly prose narratives are ferocious exploits of early Ireland’s greatest mortal hero, Cúchulainn, and plangent tales of the celebrated tragic lover Deirdre, as well as the Táin Bó Cuailnge, the only epic in any Celtic language to stand comparison with Beowulf or even the Iliad. Some of the glow surrounding the phrase ‘Ulster Cycle’ derives from the attempts of nineteenth-century nationalists to recast the action in a chivalric mode. The impulse was to see the stories of the Ulster Cycle as equivalent to those of the Arthurian legends, exalted in Britain at that time as a kind of national myth. In the 1870s and 1880s writers such as Standish James O’Grady freely expanded upon fragments of early texts to fashion the kinds of figures, Cúchulainn especially, that would rally the aspirations of an oppressed people. Such sentiment favoured the alternative name ‘Red Branch’ for the Ulster Cycle and conceived of its leading male figures as knights. Seen with a colder eye, however, the narratives of the Ulster Cycle are much older than the high Middle Ages and their meaning is subject to wider interpretation than mere role modelling.

  The wellspring of history at the root of the Ulster Saga concerns a powerful prehistoric people of the north of Ireland known as the Ulaid. With a traditional seat at the 18-acre Bronze Age hillfort of Emain Macha, now called Navan Fort, two miles west of the town of Armagh, the Ulaid dominated much of the northeastern quadrant of Ireland. At times their hegemony spread from the mouth of the Boyne River to as far west as Leitrim. The nine-county province of Ulster is named for them, ‘Ulster’ being a later coinage employing the Norse suffix -ster. The now archaic Ultonia, from the Latin for Ulster, also derives from the Ulaid. Six counties are still a part of the United Kingdom – Antrim, Down, Armagh, (London-) Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh, while three are in the Republic of Ireland: Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. All Irish counties were carved out and named by English occupiers in the seventeenth century and thus are not cited in early narratives, except as a means of interpreting archaic place names. Archaeological investigation at Emain Macha from the mid-twentieth century on has yielded extensive information about the wealth and power of the Ulaid, but it no more proves the historicity of the Ulster stories than excavation of the true Troy demonstrates that the Iliad is a historical document. Imagined Irish narratives, like Greek and also Welsh stories, exist with real-world references. Most of them, including most of the action of the Táin Bó Cuailnge, can be plotted on the map.

  In most Ulster stories, Conchobar mac Nessa reigns at Emain Macha. He bears a matronymic rather than a patronymic, perhaps a nod to the intrigues of his mother Ness, who helped him to achieve the throne. Protagonist in several of his own stories, none of them recounted here, Conchobar is usually portrayed as a benign and just ruler, except for his unsavoury lust in the Deirdre story for a young woman whom he cannot have. As contemporary readers are likely to know the Deirdre story best, they often take a darker view of Conchobar than his portrayals elsewhere would warrant. One of his three residences is Cráebruad [Red Branch], containing a large roofbeam painted red, thus giving the alternative name for the Cycle, Red Branch. Given that his name may have three irreconcilable pronunciations, depending on the context, ‘KON-ah-hoor’, ‘KONK-uh-var’, and ‘KRA-hoor’, ‘Conchobar’ is often anglicized to the simpler ‘Conor’.

  Ulster struggles with mortal not supernatural enemies, the men and women of the five-county province of Connacht, west of the Shannon, comprising what today are Leitrim, Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon and Galway. Steeliest of these foes is Queen Medb, whose fortress at Cruachain lies near Tulsk, Co. Roscommon. Leading the Ulstermen against Connacht are three heroes. Cúchulainn, the most prominent, is the focus of the next chapter. The other two command much attention on their own.

  Lusty Fergus mac Róich is a tutor and foster-father of Cúchulainn and had a prior claim to the throne at Emain Macha before Ness’s machinations gave it to Conchobar. Tall as a giant, Fergus has something of the supernatural in him. He boasts the strength of 700 men and can consume at one sitting seven deer, seven pigs, seven cows and seven vats of liquor. His magical sword, Caladbolg, is as long as a rainbow. His sexual energy is implicit in his name. Fergus means man-strength or semen in Irish; his earliest patronymic Roach may derive from ro-ech [great horse]. He has huge genitalia, requiring seven women to satisfy him. The phallus-like upright stone at the hill of Tara, often known as Lia Fáil, was called Bod Fhearghais [Fergus’s penis]* in the nineteenth century. In the Táin Βó Cuailnge Fergus goes into exile with the enemy Queen Medb but remains in touch with the Ulster champions. As cited in Chapter 4, Fergus encourages Deirdre and Noise to return to Ireland, where they suffer Conchobar’s treachery. Some commentators believe the Deirdre episodes may have become attached to the Táin as a means of explaining Fergus’s sojourn with Medb. Six centuries after the action, his spirit is recalled from the afterlife to recount the story of the Táin to the poet Senchán Torpéist, to whom the writing of the epic is attributed.

  Like Fergus, Conall Cernach embodies many supernatural elements. His names mean ‘wolfish’ and ‘of the victories’. Conall too has a tremendous appetite, once consuming an entire boar, a beast so large it required sixty oxen to pull it. He has a distinguished lineage: Amairgin of the Milesians, the first poet in Ireland, lies with Findchóem, foster-mother of Cúchulainn, to become Conall’s father. A guardian of boundaries, Conall appears to be an ancestor deity. He is a foster-brother and virtual twin of Cúchulainn, his partner in many adventures, whose death he will avenge. Like the classical Perseus and the Christian St George, he can be a dragon slayer. His aggression against the Connachtmen is relentless, but Medb asks Conall to kill her husband Ailill when he is caught in an act of infidelity. In Chapter 8 p. 162, Conall is an ally of Conaire Mór in Togail Bruidne Da Derga [The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel], a story sometimes included with the Ulster Cycle.

  Stories in the Ulster Cycle probably started in oral tradition and began to be transcribed as early as the seventh century. Surviving written texts are most numerous from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and they continued to flourish in the oral traditions of Ireland, Gaelic Scotland and the Isle of Man through the eighteenth century, with some survivals in small communities as late as the twentieth century. Emain Macha, seat of the Ulaid, was founded sometime in the first millennium BC, and appears to be noted in Ptolemy’s Geography (second century AD). It was destroyed or abandoned before the advent of Christian evangelization in the fifth century. Medieval ecclesiastical redactors of the stories contrived a pseudo-history in which Emain Macha was created in the seventh century BC and many Ulster events synchronize with episodes in the Bible. In such a reckoning the death of Conchobar mac Nessa occurs at the very moment of Christ’s crucifixion on Calvary. This timetable is still found in popular memory.

  As with the other four cycles, the Ulster stories do not form a continuous narrative whole, except as modern readers have imposed an order upon them. The narratives in the present chapter are disconnected, although the first dealing with the unique debility of the Ulstermen is usually seen as a remscél or foretale of the Táin Βó Cuailnge and bound with it. Another remscél of the Táin is Longas mac nUislenn [Exile of the Sons of Uisnech], which is recounted in Chapter 4 along with another Deirdre story, Oided Mac nUisnig [Death of the Sons of Uisnech]. Cúchulainn, principal hero of the cycle, does not appear in the first two stories in this chapter but provides dynamic presence in the second two. He dominates the action of the next chapter.

  MACHA’S CURSE

  The question of how the Ulstermen came to suffer debilitating pain at the time of their greatest difficulty, equal to that of a woman in the pangs of labour, is usually thought to precede the action of the Táin. Implications of Macha’s fatal footrace, however, are i
mplicit in many Ulster stories. The Irish title for this vignette is Noínden Ulad, an abbreviation of Ces Noínden Ulad or The Nine Days’ Debility of the Ulstermen.

  A rich landlord named Crunniuc mac Agnomain lives in a lonely place in the mountains of Ulster with his four sons. He is a widower without female companionship. While he is alone in the house a refined and elegant woman comes to him, and immediately settles in, taking on the domestic chores as if she were familiar with the house and used to the routines there. At evening she puts everything in order without being asked, all without speaking. Then she climbs into bed and lays her hand on his side, signalling that she wishes to be his wife. Together they prosper, Crunniuc much aided by his still unnamed wife’s efforts. Good food and fine clothing abound. She delights in her husband’s handsomeness, and soon she conceives their first child.

  The announcement of a fair in Ulster attracts crowds of men and women, boys and girls. Crunniuc, dressed in his best finery, makes clear his desire to join the crowds. Darkly cautious, the wife warns her husband not to go. ‘You will talk about us at the gathering, and that will bring us danger. Our happy union together will continue only if you do not speak of me at all.’

  ‘I won’t utter a word,’ Crunniuc promises.

  The brilliant festival turns out to be all that Crunniuc had wished for, with bright costumes and plenty of processions, games, combats, tournaments and races. At the ninth hour the chariot races begin, and the royal horses carry the day. Crowds praise the king (who is never named as Conchobar mac Nessa) and queen, repeating the poems of the bards. A retainer cries out, ‘Never before have two such horses been seen to match these. They are the swiftest in all of Ireland!’

  ‘My wife is faster,’ boasts Crunniuc impetuously, forgetting his pledge.

  ‘Seize that man,’ thunders the king. ‘And lock him up until his wife can be brought here to compete in the races.’

  The king’s messengers are quickly sent to Crunniuc’s residence, where his wife greets them graciously, but asks why they have come. They explain that they have come so that she might release her husband because he has bragged that her speed is greater than that of the royal horses, news that fills her with dismay.

  ‘He has spoken unwisely,’ she murmurs. ‘It was not fitting for him to say that. As you can see, I cannot come. I am about to deliver our child.’

  ‘If you don’t come,’ the messengers remind her, ‘he’ll be a dead man.’

  So she agrees to go with the king’s messengers to the festival. Once there her advanced pregnancy draws unwanted attention, causing her to grumble, ‘It is not becoming that I should be stared at because of my condition.’ And then she cries out to them: ‘A mother bore each one of you! Help me! At least wait until I have delivered my child!’

  When the crowd is unresponsive, her tone changes. ‘Because you have taken no pity on me, a long-lasting evil will come out of this and it will descend on all the Ulstermen.’

  ‘What is your name?’ asks the king.

  ‘My name, and the name of my offspring will be attached to this place,’ she answers. ‘I am Macha, the daughter of Sainrith mac Imaith.’

  In all of early Irish tradition there are three Machas, each a discrete personality, although each is a daughter of the same mother, Ernmass. One, a prophetess, is the wife of Nemed in the Lebor Gabála. The second, a warrior, also called Mong Ruadh [red-haired], is an Ulster queen who marries her rival, Cimbáeth, and dominates him. The Macha of this story is the daughter of a king whose name means ‘Strange, son of ocean’.

  The king’s horses are brought forward, and the race begins. There is little suspense as Crunniuc’s boast turns out to be well justified. Macha is ahead all around the track, and as she crosses the finish line she gives out a cry of pain. Her time has come. Having just won the race she falls to the ground and delivers not one but two children, a son and a daughter. As she gives birth, she cries out in her agony that all who hear her will suffer the same pangs for five days and four nights in their times of greatest difficulty. And this debility will be upon them for nine generations.

  And so all who hear her are afflicted, made so weak with simulated labour pains they cannot lift a weapon. Some are exempted – Crunniuc, her still beloved husband, small boys, women and Cúchulainn because he is a son and avatar of the divine Lug Lámfhota.

  According to the text, Macha’s curse also explains the meaning of Emain Macha, as emain may mean ‘twins’. The rival etymology, authorized by the seventeenth-century historian Geoffrey Keating, is that Macha wife of Cimbáeth marked out the area with her brooch, and eo [bodkin] + muin [neck] gives us emain.

  CARVING UP MAC DA THÓ’S PIG

  Two very old themes dominate the sometimes humorous ninth-century narrative of Scéla mucce Meic Dathó [The Story of Mac Da Thó’s Pig]. The first is the incalculably ancient enmity between Ulster and Connacht. The second is the violent contest over the ‘champion’s portion’ [Ir. curadmír], the favoured cut of pork given to the strongest man at a table. Posidonius (first century BC) described a similar competition among the ancient Gauls. This story is one of the very few in the Ulster Cycle where Cúchulainn does not make an appearance, even though thirty other heroes are cited.

  Mac Da Thó [son of two mutes(?)] is a wealthy landowner in Leinster, who delights in his ownership of two animals. The greater of these is the mighty hound, Ailbe, who musters the ferocity of ten armies and can defend all of Mac Da Thó’s properties by himself. Second is a huge, tame boar that has been reared for seven years and seven days on milk so that it may someday furnish a year-long feast when it is slaughtered. Interest in Ailbe, the fighting hound, prompts a bidding contest between two forces who despise each other, Ailill and Medb of Connacht on one hand, and Conchobar mac Nessa of Ulster on the other.

  A host of innate nobility and generosity, Mac Da Thó receives visitors from the opposing forces at his well-appointed residence marked by the magical number seven: seven gates, seven doors, seven hearths and seven cauldrons always brimming with beef and pork. He explains his attraction to the number by explaining that guests receive hospitality as we have openings in our heads: two eyes, two nostrils, two ears and a mouth. And, further, he feels that to walk by a cauldron and not partake of the plenty would be an insult to the host.

  Mac Da Thó’s graciousness as a host is abruptly challenged when the two forces offer favours to him simultaneously to gain possession of the hound. Medb and Ailill will provide 160 prime dairy cows, and a prize chariot drawn by the two best horses in the western province, and these gifts will be repeated each year through the lives of his children and grandchildren. Not to be outdone, Conchobar responds with offers of jewellery, warm friendship and a secure alliance, and an offering of fresh cattle every year for ever. At the same time, Mac Da Thó senses a threat. If Medb and Ailill do not get what they want, they could easily assassinate Mac Da Thó and his wife, and if Conchobar is insulted by the host’s response, he will surely attack as well.

  Mac Da Thó finds the dilemma perplexing and thus scrambles for a solution. Although he has been cautioned (unwisely) never to share his secrets with a woman, he does speak of his difficulties with his wife, who hits upon a simple and deft solution: give the dog Ailbe to both parties and let them fight out the ownership between themselves.

  To carry out this strategy Mac Da Thó acts with cool mendaciousness in a humorous passage meant to invite the reader’s admiration. As the two delegations arrive in different coloured finery, Mac Da Thó greets them separately and keeps them from seeing one another. When Ulster and Connacht confront each other in the hall, Mac Da Thó feigns surprise, followed by bland indifference to the electric tensions of the occasion. He asks the parties to sit on opposite sides of the hall in anticipation of the sumptuous feast he is about to present. The magnificent pig, now slaughtered, is ready for the table.

  The question of who should carve Mac Da Thó’s pig now becomes the centre of the action. Notorious for his mischief-maki
ng, the Ulster hero Briccriu, nicknamed Neimthenga [bitter-tongued], suggests that the magnificent mound of pork before them should be divided according to ‘battle victories’. A long succession of warriors from both sides claims primacy, always with vain boasting followed by puncturing, abusive retorts. Conflict is momentarily resolved when Cet mac Mágach, the Connacht hero, seizes the rhetorical moment by taunting and shaming the pride of Ulster’s premier fighters. He claims the right to hang his weapons higher on the wall than anyone present and shouts that, unless anyone can best him, he will carve the pig. Sickened by Cet’s reminders of their failures, the men of Ulster seem ready to submit.

  At that moment the door crashes open, and in strides Conall Cernach, one of the three greatest Ulster warriors, who demands that Cet back away from the roast pig on the table. Never has he spent a day without slaying a Connachtman, he trumpets, never spent a night without plundering their property, and never slept without having a Connachtman’s head beneath his knee. A bit shaken by Conall’s thunder, Cet acknowledges that the Ulsterman may indeed be a better fighter but that his brother Anluan is greater still, and he if were present he would prove it. ‘But he is,’ Conall roars, throwing Anluan’s severed head to Cet’s chest with such force that blood gushes from his mouth. Flushed with his own bravado, Conall then proceeds to carve the pig, keeping the choicest portions for himself, and leaving only the forelegs to the humiliated westerners.

  Enraged at this insult, the men of Connacht descend upon the men of Ulster, and soon bodies are heaped upon the floor and blood is flowing through the doorway. At just this moment of mayhem, Mac Da Thó decides to reintroduce Ailbe, the fighting hound at the centre of the current conflict between north and west. The host wants to see which side Ailbe will choose, and as the hound sees Conchobar’s forces in the lead, he takes the side of Ulster. His rapacious teeth bared, Ailbe tears into the flesh of the Connacht fighters, giving Ailill and Medb such a fright that the royal couple take flight with their charioteer, Fer Loga.