The Myths, Legends, and Lore of Ireland

by Blackwell, Amy Hackney

  This bull had been born to one of Medb’s cows, but it had left her herd because it didn’t want to belong to a woman. Medb was devastated, and she decided then and there that she would get a bull to equal the white-horned one. The only bull as good as this one was the brown bull of Cuailnge, the property of Daire mac Fiachna, king of Ulster.

  Medb sent messengers to Ulster requesting the loan of the brown bull for one year. She offered generous terms: fifty yearling heifers, a large piece of land, a fabulous chariot, and her own “friendly thighs.” Daire agreed readily, but that evening Medb’s messengers boasted that if he had not accepted her terms, they would have taken the bull by force. After that, the deal was off.

  Medb wasn’t particularly perturbed by this; she had sort of expected this to happen and quickly assembled a vast army. It marched off to Ulster to capture the brown bull.

  The Ulster army started marching to meet its attackers, but on the way the soldiers were all struck by strange, debilitating pains, the result of an old curse by the goddess Macha. So instead of encountering an army, Medb’s warriors met a single hero: Cuchulain (koo-hool-n).

  22 { The Heroic Deeds of Cuchulain

  Cuchulain was the Celtic Achilles. He was seventeen years old, handsome, and utterly fearless. He had grown up as a foster son of King Conchobar (konn-r) of Ulster. Cuchulain’s name means “Culann’s hound.” He got this name because when the hound of Culann the smith attacked him, he killed it with his bare hands. Culann was upset because his watchdog was dead, and Cuchulain offered to do the job himself until he found a replacement canine.

  When Cuchulain met the army from Connacht, he killed 100 soldiers single handed. Next, he fought a series of Medb’s warriors in single combat; Medb had persuaded soldiers to fight for her by bribing them with anything from land, to her own daughter in marriage, to her own thighs, which she had previously offered in exchange for the brown bull. Her warriors found these rewards enticing enough, but Cuchulain defeated all of them.

  Turning back toward Ulster, Cuchulain discovered Medb’s forces leading away the brown bull. He killed the leader, but the rest escaped with the bull, much to Cuchulain’s distress. He took to his bed and slept for three days and nights, while the god Lug (who happened to be his father) healed his wounds.

  While Cuchulain slept, the army of Ulster fought Medb’s forces. The Ulster side was winning, but in the process lost 150 soldiers. When Cuchulain woke up and heard about this, he was furious and was transfigured by the warp-spasm, a battle-rage that turned him into the most fearsome sight anyone had ever seen. Possessed by this rage, he slaughtered hundreds of warriors, women, children, horses, and dogs. No man from Connacht escaped uninjured, but Cuchulain came away without a scratch on himself.

  Cuchulain was a fearsome opponent, but Medb finally came up with a way to get the best of him. She forced him to fight his foster brother, Fer Diad, whom Cuchulain loved more than any other man. She persuaded Fer Diad to fight on her behalf by promising him her daughter as a wife. The men fought for three days without either one gaining an advantage, and each one sent assistance to the other at night. On the fourth day, though, Cuchulain killed Fer Diad with the gae bolga, a frightful weapon that would expand into twenty-four barbs within a wound, like an exploding shell. Then Cuchulain sang a lament over his fallen friend.

  The Ulster forces pursued Medb’s army all the way to the border of Connacht. There, Cuchulain met Medb face-to-face and chose to spare her because she was a woman. But the conflict wasn’t over.

  Medb had sent the brown bull straight to Connacht to keep it safe. As soon as it arrived, it bellowed three times. The white-horned bull heard it and came racing to defend his territory. All the warriors watched this mighty duel, which lasted into the night and ranged over the entire island of Ireland.

  In the morning, the brown bull reappeared, carrying the dead white-horned bull on his horns. He galloped back to Ulster, scattering bits of his enemy’s flesh as he went. When he arrived at the border of Cuailnge, his heart broke and he died. Medb and Ailill made peace with Cuchulain and the men of Ulster, and there was no fighting between them for the next seven years.

  Truce or no, Medb spent the years of peace scheming to get revenge on Cuchulain. During the cattle-raid wars, he had killed a man named Cailidín, who had six children. Medb sent off Cailidín’s children to study sorcery. When they returned, she got them to make Cuchulain think that all of Ulster was overrun by invading armies. Deceived, Cuchulain prepared to go to battle.

  Conchobar feared some trickery and sent Cuchulain to the Valley of the Deaf, where he wouldn’t be able to hear the fake battle cries. The children of Cailidín redoubled their efforts to convince Cuchulain that battle was nigh, and Babd, one of the girls (and also a goddess of war), went to the hero in the shape of his mistress and asked him to fight the men of Ireland. Cathbad the druid and Cuchulain’s real mistress tried to tell him that he had been bewitched, but he went off to fight anyway.

  23 { Conchobar and Deirdre

  Conchobar, king of Ulster, was not a pleasant character, especially not with his wife Deirdre, whom he met back in the days before the big cattle raid. Before Deirdre was born, Cathbad the druid predicted that she would be very beautiful but would bring ruin on the kingdom of Ulster. Conchobar liked the sound of the beautiful part, so he hid her away, intending to marry her when she was grown.

  Deirdre grew up alone, away from the court. One day she saw her foster mother skinning a calf in the snow and a black raven drinking its blood. She said that she would like a husband with hair as black as a raven, cheeks red as blood, and a body white as snow. As it happened, just such a man lived nearby: Naoise, son of Uisneach.

  Deirdre and Naoise got together and ran away to Scotland. They lived at the Scottish court for a while, but the Scottish king began to want Deirdre for himself, so they returned to Ireland. There, Naoise was killed by Conchobar’s ally Eoghan mac Durthacht, and Deirdre went to Conchobar’s court.

  She spent a year there, never smiling or lifting her head from her knee. One day Conchobar asked her what she hated most, and she replied “you and Eoghan.” Conchobar wickedly then decided to give her to Eoghan. As she was riding in a chariot with both men, she leaped out of the chariot and smashed her head to pieces on a giant rock.

  24 { Finn MacCool

  Fionn mac Cumhaill, or Finn MacCool, was a great warrior and a major hero of ancient Ireland. His stories come from the Duanaire Finn (the “Lays of Finn”), part of the Fenian Cycle. Scholars have long debated whether Finn was a real historical figure from the third century C.E., but the current consensus is that he was completely mythical.

  Finn was the son of Cumhaill, king of Leinster; he served the high king Conn, who reigned at Tara. Cumhaill was head of the Fianna, an elite band of warriors. Men seeking admission to this band had to pass a test of skill, such as fending off six men with spears, armed only with a shield and a stick. All members had to swear an oath of allegiance to the high king. If one of the Fianna was killed, the dead man’s relatives were supposed to let the Fianna avenge him.

  After Cumhaill refused an order to attend a meeting at Tara, Conn declared war on him. While he was getting ready to fight, Cumhaill met Muirne, the daughter of a druid, and got her pregnant. Her outraged father vowed that Cumhaill would die in battle.

  Cumhaill told Muirne to run away and hide someplace where she could raise the baby in safety. Another druid had foretold that this child, Finn, would be a great leader of the Fianna, and Cumhaill wanted to make sure that this came to pass. Then he died, slain by the king’s ally Goll mac Morna.

  Muirne fled to a cave and gave birth to Finn, who grew up vowing revenge on Goll mac Morna and all his clan. Finn went to study with a druid named Fionn. Fionn was perpetually searching for the salmon of knowledge, a fish that would bring boundless knowledge to whoever ate it. One day, Finn caught the fish and went to cook it for Fionn. A blister rose up on its skin, and he pressed it down with his thumb. He th
en put his thumb in his mouth to soothe the burn, and he realized that he now knew everything. From then on, whenever Finn didn’t know something, he would suck his thumb, and all would be revealed to him.

  Finn became leader of the Fianna. The Fianna loved the woods and wild animals. They cooked their meals in ovens of the Fianna, small, circular holes lined with stones and surrounded by low stone walls. (You can still find these all over Ireland.) Finn had two hounds that were actually his own nephews. His wife was a deer-woman from the otherworld. She raised their son Ossian (USH-een) in the wilderness; he grew up to be the poet of the Fianna and was a famous bard. (The stories about Finn are sometimes called the Ossianic Cycle because Ossian supposedly composed them.)

  Finn and the Fianna had many magical adventures. They encountered ghosts and witches but always escaped with their lives. They got magical weapons from a giant with three arms, one foot, and an eye in the middle of his forehead; he was a fabulous blacksmith who could make blades fiercer than any made by humans.

  When Finn was an old man, he got engaged to a beautiful young woman named Gráinne. She didn’t want to marry him, so she cast a spell on Diarmait, the handsomest of the Fianna. Diarmait and Gráinne ran away together and lived happily for a while.

  One day, all the Fianna went to hunt the magic boar of Beann Ghulban. This boar had been Diarmait’s foster brother, and there was a prophecy that it would cause his death. Sure enough, the boar gored Diarmait and ripped open his belly. The only way to save his life was for Finn to bring him a drink of water in his hands. Finn went and got the water, but then he remembered how Diarmait had stolen Gráinne away from him, and he let it trickle out through his fingers. Diarmait died, and the god Oenghus took his body away to Brú na Bóinne, where he was buried in Newgrange tomb.

  These Celtic myths have been around for a long time. Christians of the medieval period read and wrote down stories about Celtic heroes, adding their own Christian twists. Irish storytellers have always loved these legends and embellished them, creating scenarios in which pagan heroes from ancient days encountered Christian saints from a later time. Irish patriots of a more modern day took mythical characters as models for heroism. All of these myths have helped the Irish create a sense of their own unique Irishness.

  Part 2

  The Arrival of Christianity (and the British, Too!)

  It’s impossible to understand the spread of Christianity in Ireland without examining the lives of the men and women who made it their life’s work to teach others about their new faith — the lives of the Irish saints. It is not known what actually happened and what was added by imaginative storytellers. But that’s no reason to dismiss the stories of saints as pure fancy.

  25 { Christianity Arrives

  The Roman Empire formally accepted Christianity when the emperor Constantine converted in 312 C.E. (Although there had been Roman Christians during the previous three centuries, they were persecuted and Christian practices were illegal.) As Christianity spread gradually throughout the empire, it percolated up through Gaul and into Britain. It arrived in Ireland sometime in the early 400s.

  Although everyone knows that St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland, it’s possible that someone beat him to it. In 431 — the first reliable date in Irish history, as recorded by Prosper of Aquitaine — a Christian missionary named Palladius was ordained by the pope to go to Ireland as the island’s first bishop. But St. Patrick also supposedly arrived in Ireland as bishop around this time — 432 is the traditional date for his arrival. So who was this Palladius person?

  No one knows. There is nothing else written about Palladius. Patrick, on the other hand, left behind a written record of his accomplishments. The medieval Irish all credit St. Patrick with bringing Christianity to Ireland. Some people think Palladius and St. Patrick were the same man, or that Palladius’s deeds have been subsumed into the St. Patrick legend. Some people even suggest that St. Patrick never existed.

  26 { Who Was St. Patrick?

  Irish tradition credits St. Patrick with bringing Christianity to the Irish and transforming the island from a wild warrior society to a peaceful, scholarly kingdom. Not much is known about his life, or whether he existed at all. Most of what modern scholars know about the historical Patrick comes from his “Confession”, an autobiographical sketch he (supposedly) wrote toward the end of his life. It’s very short, and actually pretty readable, though some parts of it are incomprehensible — Patrick wasn’t very good at writing Latin. Patrick never mentions dates, so any dates that scholars claim for his deeds are just guesses.

  Patrick’s family was of British Celt (Briton) ancestry, and had lived in Britain for several centuries. His father was a well-to-do landowner, and Patrick probably grew up as a privileged young man, waited on by servants and educated in the classical tradition as it survived in Britain at the end of the Roman Empire. His family was Christian; his father was a deacon and his grandfather a priest. Young Patrick was not a pious youth. By his own account, he had turned his back on the Christian god, and he committed some serious, unknown crime in his midteens (more on that later).

  When Patrick was almost sixteen, he was captured by a group of Irish slave traders and was sold into slavery in Ireland. Patrick spent the next six years herding sheep alone in the hills, hunger and cold his constant companions. In his desolation, he turned to God and prayed constantly.

  One day God spoke to Patrick, telling him that his ship was ready to take him away from Ireland. It was not nearby, but in fact 200 miles away (which is unlikely, since very few places in Ireland are 200 miles from any body of water). Patrick set off on foot over the countryside, taking a great risk by running away from his master; he had no idea what he was headed for, but Patrick had no fear.

  He reached the coast and found a ship ready to set sail. He asked the captain if he could sail with them, and the captain brusquely refused. So Patrick returned to the hut where he was staying and started to pray. Before he had finished his prayer, the sailors called him back and said that he could sail with them.

  The ship sailed for three days and then landed. It’s not clear where; Patrick reports that he and the sailors wandered “in a desert” for twenty-eight days, and there’s no place three days’ sail from Ireland that matches that description. Some scholars have suggested that they landed in Gaul (modern France) after it was ravaged by barbarians in 407; others think it more likely that they were making circles around Britain.

  In any case, they had nothing to eat. The captain turned to Patrick and asked him what his Christian god could do for them. Patrick admonished him telling him, to put his faith in God and ask Him for food. Sure enough, a whole herd of pigs came running across their path. The sailors killed and cooked a few, and their problems were solved.

  Eventually, Patrick got back to his parents, who were overjoyed to see him after so many years and begged him never to leave them again. But Patrick discovered that home wasn’t home anymore; he had changed too much in the last few years to feel comfortable resuming his life as a British landowner.

  One night, he dreamed about a man named Victoricus, whom he had known in Ireland. Victoricus gave him a letter entitled “The Voice of the Irish.” At the same time, Patrick heard the voices of Irish people calling him back to them. He knew that Ireland would be his destiny.

  He left home again and studied for the priesthood. Some scholars think he went to Gaul, while others are sure he stayed in Britain, but it doesn’t really matter. Patrick struggled with his coursework. His education had been interrupted by his abrupt enslavement back when he was a teenager, and he never did make up the ground he had lost; in his later writings, he often laments that his Latin is not very good and that he is uneducated. But he managed to learn the required material and was ordained a priest.

  Now a priest, Patrick went back to Ireland as its bishop, one of the first Christian missionaries in history; the traditional date for this journey is 432. There was a lot for him to do in Ireland. The I
rish were still barbarians, worshipping Celtic gods, raiding one another’s cattle, and abducting slaves. Patrick was genuinely concerned about these problems; he found slavery to be particularly bad for women (his respect and concern for women made him very unusual among early medieval leaders).

  Patrick was incredibly successful. He converted thousands of Irish to Christianity, established monasteries, and ordained priests all over the island. He placed bishops next to local kings, both to improve the Church’s position with the Irish and to have someone to keep an eye on the worst raiders and warriors. By the end of his life, the Irish had stopped their endless tribal warfare and the slave trade had ended.

  Converting the Irish wasn’t always easy. As the Romans left Britain, local British kings grabbed the abandoned territory and took over the piracy trade. One British king named Coroticus attacked in northern Ireland and killed or carried off thousands of recent converts. Patrick sent some priests to Coroticus to ask for the return of his people, but the king only laughed at them. Patrick responded with his “Letter to Coroticus,” one of the two pieces of writing he left behind, in which he took the king to task for visiting this horror on his people. He also excommunicated him from the Christian faith, the worst punishment a priest could inflict on a believer. Patrick knew firsthand what it meant to be a slave, and his genuine love of his flock and grief at their suffering comes through in his prose quite clearly.

  Over time, Patrick developed into a legendary figure. As the patron saint of Ireland and founder of Irish Christianity, he has been credited with numerous deeds. Here are a few of them: