Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference)

by James MacKillop

Other single champions come forth from Ulster while Cúchulainn lies exhausted, but their futile efforts serve only to disturb Sualtam, the hero’s mortal father. Frightened, he thinks that either the sky is falling or his son is continuing against unequal odds and so seeks him out on the battlefield. Unable to rise, Cúchulainn sends Sualtam back to Emain Macha to rouse the rest of the troops. Taking this call most seriously, Sualtam rushes to the palace shouting with all the fury he can muster: ‘Men murdered! Women stolen! Cattle plundered!’ Three times he calls out, but there is no answer. A geis forbids a commoner to speak before the king, and a king to speak before the druid. Cathbad asks about the meaning of Sualtam’s cry, and learning that Sualtam has broken protocol by speaking before the king, refuses any help. Angered by the response, Sualtam shouts even louder, and in so doing loses his footing and trips on his scallop-edged but razor-sharp shield, instantly separating his head from his shoulders. The severed head is brought before Conchobar, where Sualtam still shouts the same warnings.

  In death Sualtam achieves what he could not in life. Conchobar rouses the men of Ulster, and, at long last, the debilities of Macha’s curse begin to fall away from the fighting men. The charioteer Láeg, speaking for Cúchulainn, joins in the call to arms. The narrative now recognizes that immense forces are hurtling toward each other. As the armed companies advance, the text includes more than 500 lines of description of colour and armaments, all in anticipation of the massed assembly at Gáirech and Irgairech, southwest of Mullingar in what is now Co. Westmeath. During the night before what must be the final encounter, Mórrígan incites both armies against each other. As the battle begins the Connacht forces under Fergus’s command break through the lines. In Cúchulainn’s absence, Conall Cernach rises to the fore and taunts Fergus for betraying his own kind for ‘the sake of a whore’s backside’. Undeterred, Fergus makes his way to Conchobar and almost succeeds in killing him but pulls back when he remembers the king is a fellow Ulsterman. Word of the assault on Conchobar reaches the still-recovering Cúchulainn, driving him from his bed and thrusting him into his battle frenzy. This is enough to drive Fergus from the field; as he had earlier promised, there would be no duel with Ulster’s prime hero.

  Ailill and Medb are now alone on the battlefield, and they have the Brown Bull with them. Suddenly, and to Ailill’s displeasure, Medb announces that she has to relieve herself, and she withdraws. This is the time of her period, and the massive flow of her menstrual blood (urine, in an alternative reading) digs three great channels, each big enough to take a household. This is also just the moment Cúchulainn, restored from his bed of pain, comes upon her. He resists taking her when she is at a disadvantage. And when she pleads to be spared, he answers that it would be right to execute her, but he is not a killer of women. Thus he allows her to escape, taking the prized Donn Cuailnge with her. In anger Cúchulainn slices off the tops of three nearby hills. The human battle is over.

  Surveying the carnage, Fergus observes: ‘We followed the rump of a misguiding woman.’ (The pun tóin [rump] and táin [cattle raid] disappears in translation.) And Fergus adds, ‘It is the usual thing for a herd led by a mare to be strayed and destroyed.’

  Once Donn Cuailnge is led to Cruachain, Ailill and Medb’s residence, he gives out three mighty bellows, challenging Finnbennach the white-horned bull, which is grazing nearby. Finnbennach rises to the call, charging toward Cruachain, attracting a huge crowd. As Donn Cuailnge is tired from the trek across Ireland, Finnbennach gains an initial advantage. Briccriu Neimthenga, known for fairness as well as his bitter tongue, is called in as judge, but the raging beasts trample him under their hooves. In a reversal, Donn Cuailnge stamps his hoof on Finnbennach’s horn, pinning him to the ground. Standing nearby, Fergus goads the Brown Bull, saying too many men have died to let the White-horned Bull throw away his honour so easily. Thus released, the two bulls continue the battle all over Ireland until, at dawn, Donn Cuailnge emerges at Cruachain with Finnbennach’s bloody remains dangling from his horns. With the battle decided, Donn Cuailnge starts out on a circuitous route home, scattering Finnbennach’s body parts hither and yon. The loins are memorably dropped at the principal ford of the Shannon, Ath Luain [ford of the loins, modern Athlone]. When Donn Cuailnge reaches Ulster at last, he falls at Druim Tairb [ridge of the bull], victim of his own bursting heart.

  Ailill and Medb make peace with Ulster and with Cúchulainn, but their beautiful daughter stays with the former enemy. The men of Ulster return to Emain Macha in triumph.

  Medb meets an absurd death in an eleventh-century story retold on pp. 87–8. In it Furbaide Ferbend, son of her murdered sister, punctures her skull with a hardened piece of cheese on an island in Lough Ree, Co. Roscommon. Her prowess and resilience fail her at the end.

  Cúchulainn, though destined to live only a short life, still faces many more adventures.

  MORE TROUBLES WITH WOMEN

  Having been trained in martial arts by Scáthach, Cúchulainn is a fit adversary for the bellicose Queen Medb. He is less prepared to resist women endowed with other wiles, the flatterers, the beguilers and the temptresses. His interactions with a series of women, where he often finds himself at a disadvantage, fill the curious tenth- and eleventh-century narrative Serglige Con Culainn agus Óenét Emire, known in English as ‘The Wasting Sickness of Cúchulainn’ or ‘The Sickbed of Cúchulainn and the Only Jealousy of Emer’. As the title implies, there is a lack of coherence between two surviving portions, implying derivation from two earlier stories. Cúchulainn’s wife is first known as Eithne Ingubai and secondly as Emer, a conflict resolved in this retelling.

  At the always portentous Samain time, the men of Ulster assemble at Mag Muirtheimne, Cúchulainn’s bailiwick, when a flock of birds descends upon a nearby lake. Learning that all the women desire the beautiful birds, one for each shoulder, Cúchulainn withdraws from an intense match of the board-game fidchell and goes hunting for them. He captures enough to supply each noblewoman with two, leaving none for his wife Emer, who thought herself deserving of the first pick of the lot. To repair relations with her Cúchulainn promises her two superior feathered creatures, ones linked with a golden chain who can sing a song of sleep-inducing sweetness. When he tries to hunt them down he only grazes them with his spear, after which Cúchulainn falls into a deep sleep while seated next to a pillarstone. In a dream more real than any he had known before, he envisions two beautiful women coming toward him, one in green and one in red. They begin to laugh, but their intentions are anything but coquettish. The one in green takes out a horsewhip and begins to flail Cúchulainn, and then she is joined by the woman in red. They beat him for such a long time that life seems drained from him. And then they leave without explanation.

  Cúchulainn is carried to Emain Macha, where he does not answer any questions about how he finds himself in this state, nor does he speak a word for another year. He lies in his ‘wasting sickness’, prostrate for a full turning of the seasons.

  On the next Samain a stranger of otherworldly mien appears at Cúchulainn’s bedside, offering to cure him in a cryptic song. He is Angus the son of Áed Abrat (not related to Angus Óg). He invites Cúchulainn to come with him to Mag Cruchna (Co. Roscommon) where the hero can be healed and where Angus’s lovely sister Fand is longing to be with him. On Conchobar’s advice, Cúchulainn is carried back to the pillarstone where he had first fallen into his state, and there he meets an attractive woman. Clad in green, she is recognizably one of the two who whipped him in the dream. Identifying herself as Lí Ban [paragon of women], she promises that she means him no further harm and instead seeks his friendship and possibly an alliance. She brings the greeting of her husband, Labraid Luathlám ar Claideb [swift hand on sword] of the otherworldly Mag Mell. The husband promises him Lí Ban’s extraordinary sister Fand [tear], now released from her husband Manannán mac Lir, the sea god. His demand is only one day of Cúchulainn’s service against Labraid’s three frightful enemies: Senach Siaborthe, Eochaid Iúil and Eochaid
Inber. The offer interests Cúchulainn, especially in view of Fand’s renowned beauty – but as he is still stricken with the wasting sickness, he sends his charioteer Láeg to look into the matter for him. The charioteer sails with Lí Ban in a bronze boat to an island where they are greeted by Fand and three fifties of women lying on three fifties of couches. Greeting Láeg also is Labraid who expresses his disappointment that Cúchulainn has not come. On his return Láeg speaks glowingly of his time in Mag Mell and the people he met there. On Cúchulainn’s bidding, Láeg summons Emer to her husband, whereupon she tells him it is time to rise from his sickbed. Scolding him for being weakened by ‘woman-love’, she tells him it is time to throw off the wasting sickness. Her words have the desired effect. He rises to find that the debilitation has passed from him. With his strength restored, Cúchulainn returns to the pillarstone where he again encounters Lí Ban, who repeats her invitation to return to Mag Mell. Saying he does not wish to follow a woman’s bidding, Cúchulainn refuses and again sends Láeg on his behalf, this time travelling by land. In Mag Mell Láeg is greeted by Labraid along with Fáilbe Finn, a regent. Fand is also there, and when she hears that Cúchulainn said he would not respond to a woman’s call, she reminds Láeg to tell his master that the invitation came from her. On his return Láeg again recounts the wonders he has seen and tells Cúchulainn he would be a fool not to visit the island of Fand and Labraid for himself.

  With Lí Ban and Láeg in tow, Cúchulainn harnesses his chariot and makes for Mag Mell, where he receives a warm welcome. Fand, seeing the Ulster hero for the first time, shows her pleasure at what she beholds. Cúchulainn has little time for ceremony and forges ahead, eager for combat. To Labraid’s dismay, he announces he will take on all three enemies and their retinues. After reconnoitring during the night, partly with the help of ravens, Cúchulainn is seized by his ríastrad or battle fury at dawn. Then, single-handedly, he makes short work of Labraid’s antagonists. A thrown spear impales Eochaid Iúil as he bathes in a river. Wielding his sword with lightning speed, Cúchulainn flattens thirty-three soldiers to the left and right before crushing the skull of Senach Siaborthe with a terrible blow. Heartened by the Ulsterman’s swift success, Labraid’s army surges forward to drive the invading forces away, and Labraid himself asks that the killing cease. To withdraw from his battle fury, Cúchulainn is cooled in three vats of water, the first of which his body heat causes to boil over.

  All of Mag Mell rejoices, and both Lí Ban and Fand honour Cúchulainn with poetry. Fand’s offering is more warmly accepted. Soon she and Cúchulainn are off by themselves and they make love continually for the next month. As he makes ready to depart, Cúchulainn agrees to tryst with her by the yew tree at Ibor Cind Trácha, near the modern town of Newry, Co. Down. News of this reaches Emer’s ears, and she is quickly consumed by her own fury. She leads fifty women with whetted knives to the appointed spot at the appointed time. What follows, however, reverses expectations. Emer delivers an oration denouncing men’s lust for what they do not have and their rejection of the familiar, which causes Cúchulainn to pledge his intention to live with his wife for ever. Seeing such exquisite love, Fand asks to be abandoned. Touched by the lover’s unselfishness, Emer then asks to be left behind. Each woman would deliver Cúchulainn’s love to the other. This ticklish impasse is resolved by the unanticipated arrival of Manannán mac Lir, Fand’s husband, who spirits her away with him. Cúchulainn, anguished at this turn of events, wanders the mountains of Munster, unwilling to eat or drink until the druids give him a vial of forgetfulness. The same drink also washes away all of Emer’s jealousy. In a magical conclusion, Manannán mac Lir shakes his cloak of forgetfulness between Cúchulainn and Fand so that they may never meet again.

  DEATH OF CÚCHULAINN

  Stories of how Cúchulainn dies began to circulate as early as the tenth century, well before the Táin Βó Cuailnge reached its final form. In all accounts he is no more than twenty-seven years old, the magic number built on Celtic triplism: 3 x 3 x 3. Always invincible in combat, Cúchulainn is brought down by a combination of the physical and the metaphysical: the deceptions of wizardry, the violations of gessa, and the implacable vengeance of wronged heroes. The vision of the champion forcing himself to stand tall in his final moments has appealed deeply to later generations of readers. It is the unmistakable inspiration for Oliver Sheppard’s famous statue in Dublin and has been the starting point for numerous modern illustrators.

  In his battles with Medb, Cúchulainn had killed a warrior named Cailitin, who was also a wizard and possibly of Fomorian origin. After this Cailitin’s wife gave birth to sextuplets, three boys and three girls, all of them hideous and misshapen. As their father had been her ally, Medb takes the venomous little creatures under her protection and sends them all to Scotland to study sorcery. On their return she incites them against her long-time adversary, Cúchulainn. She begins with an invasion of Cuailnge, to the southeast of Emain Macha, certain of drawing Conchobar mac Nessa into the fray. Hearing that treachery is planned against Ulster’s prime hero, Conchobar orders Cúchulainn to come to Emain Macha, while still sharing the company of Emer, his druids and the women of Ulster. The loathsome children of Cailitin come to the plain before the fortress and fling up showers of dead oak leaves and withered stalks of thistles. They raise an ear-splitting clamour that sounds like a vast army. Thinking Emain Macha undefended, Cúchulainn starts to rush out to meet the invaders when Cathbad, the wise druid, tells him it is all a hallucination, designed to lure him to his death. Wait three days, he adds, and it will all be gone. One of the witches transforms herself into a crow and flies over Cúchulainn’s head, taunting him with reports of the destruction of Dún Delgan and of his followers.

  Within the fortress, Cúchulainn is comforted by his Emer as well as by other women. One of them is Niam, usually seen as the wife of Conall Cernach, who in this context has become Cúchulainn’s mistress with Emer’s apparent compliance. (She is not the Niam who is the lover of Oisín.) On Emer’s advice, Niam tries to take Cúchulainn to the Glen of the Deaf [Silent Valley in the Mourne Mountains], where the bewitching sounds of the supposed attack cannot penetrate. After first refusing, Cúchulainn agrees to leave for a safe place. Meanwhile, the children of Cailitin scour the landscape, filling valleys and glens with their howling and screaming. A daughter of Cailitin magically takes the form of one of Niam’s attendants, and in this guise leads Niam away from the safety of the assembled company. This allows another daughter to assume Niam’s lovely form in which she tells Cúchulainn to leave Emain Macha to save Ulster from Medb’s armies. Surprised but still deluded, he agrees. As he readies himself to depart a gold brooch falls and punctures his foot, a decidedly bad omen. Departing with Láeg he is subject to more hallucination from clan Cailitin, that Emer’s headless body has been thrown from the ramparts of Dún Delgan and then the entire fortress burned and levelled. Immediately, Cúchulainn and Láeg return to Emain Macha, where they find Emer safe and whole. She reminds him that he has been victim of continuing wizardry, and pleads with him to stay with her. Still hearing the call to save Ulster, and sensing that his end may be near, Cúchulainn’s answers Emer’s imploring by telling her that he has never shirked a fight and that fame outlives life. With this he and Láeg depart for the south.

  After passing the house of his nursemaid, where he stops for some refreshment, Cúchulainn comes upon three crones, all blind in the left eye. They are cooking something on a rowan-tree spit over a fire; it is the carcass of a dog. As the crones also have poisons and spells, Cúchulainn is wary, much more because the eating of dog meat is a violation of a geis, incumbent upon him because of his name, ‘hound of Culann’. But he cannot simply withdraw because he would violate another geis if he visited any cooking hearth and did not accept food offered to him. His chariot speeds by, implying he does not wish to stop, when one of the crones calls out to him to stop and be sociable. He refuses, but she entreats him further by saying her small meal is only a roasting hou
nd. Then she adds the taunt that it is unseemly to see the great ones of the world who cannot stand the company of the humble and the poor. With this he relents and draws near to her fire, where she gives him a dog shoulder-blade with her left hand. He eats some of the meat, holding it in his left hand. Uneasy, he then tries to put the meat aside, hiding it under his left thigh. Forces beyond Cúchulainn’s person are not deceived, and immediately he feels a seizure. The strength in his left arm and thigh begins to diminish. Cúchulainn and Láeg quickly leave the crones’ fire and push on to Muirtheimne.

  Racing to the plain near his fortress of Dún Delgan, Cúchulainn and Láeg bound through enemy forces, scattering them like hailstones in a storm or leaves in a gale. Greater challenges lie ahead in the persons of the clan Cailitin, Erc son of Cairbre Nia Fer, still smouldering with anger from Cúchulainn’s murder of his father (p. 205, above), and Lugaid son of the murdered Cú Roí. The clan Cailitin supply their allies with three spears, throwing the first one themselves. After missing Cúchulainn, their intended target, the spear impales Láeg, spilling his intestines on the cushions of the chariot. Erc hurls the second spear, which again misses Cúchulainn, finding its mark instead in the flesh of the Grey of Macha. Lugaid, the third adversary, has a lethal thrust. His spear pierces Cúchulainn’s armour and tears the flesh away from the entrails. This panics the remaining horse, Saingliu, who gallops off with half the chariot’s yoke, leaving Cúchulainn to die alone with the rest of the vehicle.

  Enemies, watching from a cautious distance, know the champion is nearing his end but dare not approach him as they can still see the hero’s light flickering around his head. Holding the huge wound together, Cúchulainn drags himself to a nearby lake for a soothing drink and a chance to wash himself. Seeing a pillarstone nearby, he struggles toward it, putting his back against it for support. Taking his belt, he ties himself to the stone so that he might die standing up, as he had once pledged. Lugaid and Erc banter between themselves over who should have the courage to act. Cúchulainn’s faithful horse, the Grey of Macha, though bleeding from his wounds, returns to make a last pass with teeth and hooves against the timid attackers. The agony continues for three days while the ravens of battle, Badb and Mórrígan, hover about the champion’s head until the hero’s light at last flickers out. Cúchulainn then lets out a great sigh, splitting the stone at his back. A raven lights on his slumped shoulder and settles there. The Grey of Macha fetches Conall, brings him to Cúchulainn’s body and lays his head on the dead hero’s breast.