Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference)

by James MacKillop

  12

  The Cycles of the Kings

  KINGS, HISTORY AND LEGEND

  Once we spoke of only three cycles. When commentators began the disciplined study of early Irish literature after the middle of the nineteenth century, they perceived the three cycles we have already considered, the Mythological, the Ulster and the Fenian. Perhaps because the concept of a cycle – of interrelated if not continuous narratives – was imposed from modern times, many stories could not be categorized within the three rubrics. These include place-name stories, voyages and adventures to the otherworlds (such as the Voyage of Bran), saints’ legends, and many stories pertaining to persons and realms of great kings. Over the decades it appeared that some of these stories, especially popular ones such as Buile Suibhne [The Frenzy of Suibne/Sweeney], might constitute a fourth cycle. Inconveniently, there is no single king at the centre of the stories, like Ulster’s Conchobar mac Nessa, but rather successive kings in unrelated stories. This led Myles Dillon to coin the phrase ‘The Cycles of the Kings’ (1946), the plural implying that this fourth narrative body is made up of several sub-units. Habit and the impulse for uniformity often reduce the plural to a singular, ‘The Cycle of the Kings’. As some of the fabled kings have at least a tenuous claim to historicity, the stories may also be known as ‘The Historical Cycle’. Tom Peete Cross and Clark Harris Slover in their often-cited Ancient Irish Tales (1936) compromised with ‘Tales of the Traditional Kings’, a sensible alternative that never gained currency.

  As we considered in Chapter 3, early Ireland is richly endowed with kings, the great majority of whom are only names, ciphers, in chronicles and genealogies. Some of the most storied bear evocative sobriquets and are the attributed ancestors of numerous families. Such a figure is Conn Cétchathach [of the Hundred Battles], who may have lived in the second century AD, and who is commemorated in the name of the western province, Connacht. He is the first to hear the Lia Fáil [Stone of Prophecy] speak, telling him not only how many of his line will follow him in the kingship at Tara, but also of the coming of St Patrick.

  Among Conn’s heirs is his admired grandson Cormac mac Airt, thought to have reigned for forty years in the third century. He is such a bountiful king that all the rivers of Ireland abound with salmon, cows produce more milk than vessels can hold, and calves are born after only three months’ gestation. He is, again, the reigning monarch during most of the adventures of Fionn mac Cumhaill and the fianna. The magical story told about him, Echtrae Cormaic, recounted below (pp. 255–7), has prompted many commentators to suggest he could not possibly be historical. T. F. O’Rahilly (1946) argued that he was only an idealization of the first Gaelic-speaking king of Tara. This was not the position of early, powerful families, several of which claimed descent from him.

  Coming over a century later is Niall Noígiallach [of the Nine Hostages], a warrior-king closely linked with the unmistakably historical Uí Néill dynasty that dominated Ireland for six centuries. He is their reputed ancestor, for their name translates as ‘grandchildren/spiritual descendants of Niall’. The attribution of ‘Nine Hostages’ to Niall testifies to his military prowess and capacity for dominating his neighbours. There are two stories about the identity of the hostages. The older version, more likely but less widely known, is that they were all taken from the Airgialla, a once powerful people who had settled in a region near Lough Foyle in what is now Northern Ireland. The later version, probably invented, is that Conn captured one hostage from each of Ireland’s five provinces as well as from the Scots, Saxons, Britons and Gauls.

  Much later and certainly historical is Brian Bórama or Boru, the victor over the Norsemen at the Battle of Clontarf (c.1014). From his birthplace at Killaloe in Co. Clare and his usual residence or ‘palace’ at nearby Kincora on the Shannon River, Brian became the ruler first of a small kingdom named Dál Cais or Dál gCais, anglicized to the Dalcassians. He ruthlessly extended his power over nearby neighbours in Limerick and Cashel, eventually becoming the dominant force in all of southern Ireland. He also achieved his ultimate goal of having himself crowned ard rí at Tara in 997, seventeen years before he perished during his defeat of the Norsemen at Clontarf, in what is today a suburb of Dublin. So many heroic stories have accrued to the career of Brian Bórama that they can be seen to constitute a small cycle of their own. Alan Bruford (1969) has dubbed it ‘The Dalcassian Cycle’, no examples of which are included here.

  The presumed rooting in history changes the tone of many of the stories in this chapter. Much depends on the distinctions between myth and legend, and from that the expectations of the listener/reader. The English word ‘legend’ derives from the Old French legende and denotes a ‘traditional tale popularly regarded as historical’, or ‘an inauthentic story popularly regarded as true’ (Shorter OED, 1993). The concept is not defined in classical culture, although the story of Theseus and the Minotaur might share some features. The term might first be applied to saints’ stories, as in the thirteenth-century Golden Legend, fabulous tales collected by Archbishop Jacobus de Voragine. By extension we call the stories of Charlemagne and King Arthur ‘legends’, even when they share motifs with the narratives of Greek and Roman mythology. Perhaps Conn, Cormac, Niall and Brian can be put in the same box with Charlemagne and Arthur.

  For all we know, the early audience of the Táin might have thought that Cúchulainn, Conchobar and Medb were historical figures. Certainly, the credulous listeners to oral traditions about Fionn mac Cumhaill as late as the twentieth century felt they were partaking of the heroic exploits of an actual defender of the Irish people, even when the stories portrayed enchantments and magical transformations. Whatever the certitude of the listeners, it could only be enhanced when stories depicted sovereign rulers commemorated in genealogies, local place names, and the names of powerful families. Experience outside the narrative implied that the elements in it came from life.

  The commonplace observation of the stories in the Cycles of the Kings is that they are less magical than in the Mythological, less heroic than in the Ulster, and less romantic than in the Fenian. That should not imply, however, that they are grim or pedestrian. Enchanted flights from the everyday are still present. Missing instead are characters like Lug Lámfhota, Balor, Mórrígan, Medb, Fionn or the Fomorians whose roots are in the pre-Christian divine. In this chapter we are more likely to see transparent borrowings or parallels with non-Irish traditions. Suibne has clear counterparts in Scotland’s Lailoken, a madman of the forest, and Britain’s Merlin, who was a woodland madman in a story separate from his becoming Arthur’s magician. The story of how Rónán killed his son borrows more than a little from the classical myth of Hippolytus and Phaedra, the lying seductress. Within these cycles we also encounter the most familiar solitary spirit from Irish tradition, the leprechaun.

  MAD SUIBNE

  Suibne or Suibhne, the antecedent of Sweeney, was a common enough name in early Ireland, but there is no indication that Suibne, the cursed king who went mad, ever existed. He does not appear in the genealogies of the people he is supposed to have ruled. The setting of his three-part story is linked to the Battle of Mag Rath (or Moira) of AD 637, the culmination of a momentous dynastic struggle in what is today Co. Down. Citations for Suibne Geilt [Mad Sweeney] appear in a ninth-century law tract, but his main story, Buile Suibhne [The Frenzy of Suibne], did not take its present form until the twelfth century, surviving in three manuscripts written five centuries later. Redactors of his narrative are careful to present the Church most favourably, especially as a repository of native learning. The two stories preceding Buile Suibhne are Fled Dúin na nGéd [The Feast of Dún na nGéd], which deals with events leading up to the battle, and Cath Maige Rátha [The Battle of Mag Rath], a description of the carnage there.

  Action begins in the petty kingdom of Dál nAraide, which straddled the border of counties Antrim and Down in what is now eastern Northern Ireland. King Suibne, son of Colmán, seeks to expel the evangelizing St Rónán from his realm
, but his wife Eórann tries to temper her husband. Enraged by the sound of Rónán’s proselytizing bell, Suibne dashes out of the front door of his castle while Eórann tries to stop him by grabbing his coat. This leaves the pagan king stark naked but still carrying weapons, like the ancient Gaulish warriors described by Posidonius. In a fit of fury, Suibne hurls Rónán’s psalter into a lake and is about to give the saint a pasting when his kingly responsibility calls him to the Battle of Mag Rath. Piously the saint gives thanks to God for being spared, but he also curses King Suibne, asking that he be made to wander through the world naked, just as he had come naked into Rónán’s presence.

  The king’s second encounter with the saint has a more lasting effect. After an otter magically restores Rónán’s psalter, so that it appears it was never dropped in water, the saint approaches the Mag Rath battlefield, hoping to bring peace. He is not successful. As he blesses the armies, his sprinkling of holy water irks Suibne so severely that he thrusts a spear through an attendant, killing him. He hurls another at the saint himself, only to see it break against Rónán’s bell, its shaft flying into the air. Thus the saint curses the king a second time, declaring that he should fly through the air like the shaft of his spear and that he may perish of a cast spear. Initially unconcerned, Suibne rejoins the battle and finds himself increasingly disoriented amid the clamour of bloodletting. Seized with trembling like a wild bird, he flees the battlefield. As he races madly, his feet barely touch the ground and he alights in a yew tree. Meanwhile, at the battle, his opponents are victorious after Suibne’s withdrawal. After a kinsman fails to restore the king to his senses, Suibne flees to a remoter corner of Ireland, perching on a tree in Tír Chonaill [Donegal].

  Always tormented, Suibne wanders the land, described in passages filled with arrays of poetic place-names, often wishing that he had been killed in battle. His lamentations come in long verse narratives, or lays. While not a member of the privileged, powerful caste of poets, filid (sing. fili), Suibne is a king who speaks poetry. He describes himself as a madman, and as he is naked, shivering in the trees, he looks like one. Eventually he finds respite in the valley of the lunatics, Glen Bolcáin. This appears to have been an actual place and is identified with the modern Glenbuck near Rasharkin, Co. Antrim. A Fenian text places the valley on the Dingle Peninsula in Co. Kerry, which may have been another such retreat.

  At some of his stops Suibne gives cryptic advice. Reaching the lyrically named church of Snám Dá Én [Swim Two Birds] on the Shannon, near the monastery of Clonmacnoise, the mad king observes the clerics reciting their Friday canonical prayers, the nones. Nearby, women are beating flax, and one of them is giving birth to a child. Unsettled by what he sees Suibne announces that it is unseemly for women to violate the Lord’s fast-day, which is how he views what the rest of humanity sees as the miracle of childbirth. Then he compares the beating of the flax with the bloody beating his folk had taken at Mag Rath. Hearing the vesper bell, he complains, ‘Sweeter indeed were it to me to hear the voices of the cuckoos on the banks of the Bann from every side than the cacophony of this bell, which I hear tonight.’ His lay that follows repeats this theme, praises the beauty of nature and ends with a plea to Christ not to sever Suibne from His sweetness.

  Throughout this torment, Suibne’s one faithful friend is Loingsechán, perhaps a foster-brother or a half-brother sharing the same mother. On three occasions Loingsechán rescues Suibne and keeps him informed about his family. In his unsettled mental state Suibne sometimes does not wish to be approached so on one occasion Loingsechán has to take on the guise of a mill-hag. She had won the king’s confidence by giving him food.

  Led by Loingsechán, Suibne speaks of his desire to be with his wife Eórann, who has gone to live with a friend of the king, Guaire. At first he reproaches his wife for this, but when she says that she would rather live with him, even in misery, he takes pity on her and recommends that she stay with her new lover.

  When a crowd gathers, Suibne flees again to the wilderness, coming to rest in a tree. On Loingsechán’s second visit the subject turns to Suibne’s kingdom. The sad news is that the king’s father, mother and brother have died. So too his only daughter, a needle to the heart. When he learns that his son also has died, Suibne is so overcome by grief that he falls from his tree. At this Loingsechán grabs Suibne, ties him up and tells him that his family is actually alive after all. The news shocks the king back to sanity, at which Loingsechán takes him back to Dál nAraide and helps re-install him as king.

  Sanity and lucidity do not last long. When Suibne is alone in his palace, he is approached by the once-helpful mill-hag, whom Loingsechán impersonated. She reminds him of his period of madness and persuades him to jump, as he had often done in his former state. Maliciously, she competes with him, and they both jump into the wilderness where Suibne falls back into his lunacy. The mill-hag and her contest reappear in Irish oral tradition and probably originate there. Arriving at the northern cliff-edge fortress of Dún Sobairche [Dunseverick, Co. Antrim], Suibne clears the battlements in a single bound. Trying to equal his feat, the mill-hag falls from a cliff and is killed. Following this, Suibne migrates to Britain and keeps company with a madman, who had been cursed by his people for sending soldiers into battle dressed in satin. This man eventually drowns himself in a waterfall, but his presence underscores the links with the Welsh-Arthurian figure Merlin, called Myrddin (G) wyllt in his madness, perhaps an anticipation of Suibne Geilt. Returning to Ireland once again, Suibne is afraid to enter his own house for fear of capture. His wife Eórann complains that she is now ashamed of his madness and as he does not choose to live with her, she wishes he would depart for ever. Crestfallen, Suibne departs, bewailing the fickleness of women.

  More torments beset Suibne’s flight around Ireland before he can find deliverance. A severely wet and cold night brings another interval of lucidity in which he seeks to return to Dál nAraide. But when this news is miraculously transmitted to St Rónán, he prays that the mad king not be allowed to persecute the Church again. Following this, a horde of fiendish phantoms vexes and harries Suibne, sending him deliriously in every direction. At last, finding forgiveness for his many misdeeds, Suibne comes to the monastery of St Moling, Tech Moling, which is now St Mullins, Co. Carlow. Moling, or Mo Ling, is an historical figure (d. 697), whom Giraldus Cambrensis (eleventh century) called ‘one of the Four Prophets of Ireland’. This saint takes pity on the wandering madman and allows him to return to the monastery each evening for a meal. More importantly, Moling also writes down his adventures. Reception from the saint’s household takes a different tone. The monastery cook delivers sustenance by poking a hole in a cowdung with her foot and then filling it with milk for Suibne to lap. Even this demeaning favour is too much for the cook’s husband, who runs Suibne through with his spear. Fainting in weakness from the wound, Suibne confesses his sins to St Moling and is given the last rites. Taking the forgiving saint’s hand, Suibne is led to the door of the church where he collapses and dies, freed from his double curse.

  Although the names are changed, Suibne is unmistakably the model for Goll in William Butler Yeats’s early poem, ‘The Madness of King Goll’ (1887).

  HOW KING RÓNÁN KILLED HIS SON

  This story and the one preceding it have many elements in common, although composed at different times by different people. We have yet another figure named Rónán, a king this time, unrelated to the saint, and some of the action takes place at Dún Sobairche in Co. Antrim. The central narrative is tied to putative historical figures whose names appear in the Chronicles. It is unlikely that the main players in the narrative, Rónán and Eochaid, knew each other in life. King Rónán mac Áeda of Leinster died in 610 or 624. His father-in-law, presumably an older man, Eochaid or Echaid Iarlaithe, is recorded as having died more than forty years later, in 665. The story citing both kings was probably invented a century or two later by a genealogist drawing on classical sources. A surviving text, perhaps of the tenth cent
ury, is found in the Book of Leinster (after 1150). More than in other stories of this cycle, the metaphysical element is absent. There are no gods, taboos or enchantments. Tension arises from everyday human elements such as love, jealousy, hate and violence. The usual Irish title is Fingal Rónáin [How Rónán Killed his Son], but it is sometimes known as Aided Maíl Fhothartaig Maic Rónáin [The Death of Máel Fhothartaig Son of Rónán].

  Rónán, king of Leinster, is the father of Máel Fhothartaig, the handsomest and most admired young man in the province. Men gather around him whenever he appears. As he matures, he increasingly becomes the darling of young girls in the court, whose favours he returns. His father Rónán, meanwhile, is a sad widower, his wife, a certain Eithne of Munster, Máel Fhothartaig’s mother, having died sometime previously. His thoughtful son recommends he seek a wife, perhaps a settled woman. Rónán chooses instead an attractive young woman, the daughter of Eochaid of Dún Sobairche in the north. The bride is never named, but she is certainly not what the son had in mind for his father. He describes her as ‘skittish’. Once she arrives at Rónán’s residence, however, she has a much more positive view of her stepson the he does of her. Indeed, she is immediately smitten with him and sends her beautiful maidservant, under threat of execution if she fails, to solicit him to come to the new queen’s bed. To strengthen the case, the maidservant sleeps with Máel Fhothartaig herself, but also reveals the new stepmother’s desires for him. Taking heed, the young hero departs with fifty retainers for Scotland, where he soon acquires an admirable reputation as a warrior and hunter. His two hounds, Doilín and Daithlenn, are swifter than those of the host Scottish king. When his fellow Leinstermen insist that he return home, he comes via Dún Sobairche where King Eochaid tells him that his daughter should have been sleeping with him, Máel Fhothartaig himself, instead of that old churl Rónán. The young man is displeased to hear this, but continues his travels to Leinster anyway.