This is a blog about reading the Ulster Cycle, both as an entity and in all of its wonderful, glorious, and sometimes thoroughly weird parts. There will also be some detours along the way into other things I think about, including medieval Irish stories that aren’t part of the Ulster Cycle, medieval Welsh stories, comparative mythology, teaching, the hows and whys of academic communication, and maybe even linguistics.

My first experience reading any part of the Ulster Cycle was when I was in high school and tried to make my way through Jeffrey Gantz’s Early Irish Myths and Sagas. I had a hard time following the stories and figuring out who the characters were. I’d spend a lot of time reading Greek myths nicely retold for children, and the contrast was disorienting, to say the least. Maybe the confusion is what appealed to me though, because I decided that Celtic Studies was the thing for me, and I’ve been reading those stories and many others in different translations and in the original Irish ever since.  I still find some of the stories confusing, but I love (most of) them all the same.

In 2020 I decided to read the Ulster Cycle as a complete entity instead of focusing on individual stories or groups of stories.  I sat down with the checklist of translations of Ulster Cycle texts in the proceedings of the first Ulidia conference¹ and began to make my way through it. These are some of the things that particularly stood out to me while working my way through the texts on the list:

1. Alphabetical order really isn’t the best way to approach reading these stories, but there is (currently) no chronologically ordered list. The first 12 stories on the list are aideda “death tales,” most of which take place towards the end of the storyline of the Ulster Cycle. The last of these is Aided Meidbe “The Violent Death of Medb,” which I think might be the last (or very close to the last) story in the internal chronology of the Ulster Cycle.
2. It doesn’t take long to reach texts that don’t have published or publicly available editions (Aided Chonlaeich mic ConCulainn “The Violent Death of Conlaech son of Cú Chulainn”) or English translations (Aided Chon Roí I “The Violent Death of Cú Roí,” version 1, Cath Leitrech Ruide “The Batlle of Leitir Ruide,” which respectively only have German and French translations available).
3. Many of the translations aren’t easy to find, even with access to a university library. Many of the older translations are now available on the Internet Archive and are linked to directly by CODECS, but tracking down more recent translations can be a challenge, especially if they are contained in doctoral dissertations that are not available, for whatever reason.  The Internet Archive has also had recent trouble with a DDoS attacks and legal issues, so even these older translations are vulnerable and may not always be available. (If you can, I really recommend making a small donation to the Internet Archive to help keep this wonderful and essential resource up and running.)
4. The older translations that are available online can be inaccessible for other reasons, including extremely archaic language and not being formatted for screen readers.  Many of these translations were produced for a very specific audience: late 19^th and early 20^th century academic readers.  Later anthologies may be targeted at more general audiences but have some of the same issues. One particular problem is that earlier editors and translators of texts would sometimes just skip difficult passages, especially poetic passages.  Many of these passages remain neglected.
5. The Ulidia list is somewhat inconsistent in the way it separates or combines different versions of stories. There are two listed versions of Aided Chon Roí “The Violent Death of Cú Roí, three of Táin Bó Cúailnge “The Cattle Raid of Cúailnge,” and two of Táin Bó Flidais(e) “The Cattle Raid of Flidais.” Brislech Mór Maige Muirthemne “The Great Rout of Mag Muirthemne” (often just called “The Death of Cú Chulainn”) and Tochmarc Emire “The Wooing of Emer” are listed as single entries with subitems. In contrast, the different versions of Compert Conchobuir “The Birth of Conchobar” are listed as a single item, and the entry for Ces Noínden “The Debility (of the Ulstermen)” lists all texts that explain the debility of the Ulstermen, even where they contain completely unrelated stories. (The story of Macha’s curse vs. the story of Cú Chulainn’s encounter with Fedelm Foltchaín and her husband Elcmaire.)
6. The list is a wonderful and essential starting point for the study of the Ulster Cycle, but it only contains independent texts.  There is a great quantity of Ulster Cycle materials elsewhere, such as in the dindshenchas,² Cóir Anmann “The Fitness of Names,” Banshenchas “Lore of Women,” or even embedded in other independent texts that are not themselves Ulster Cycle stories, such as Cath Maige Mucrama “The Battle of Mag Mucrama,” which contains a section detailing activities of Ulster Cycle figures like Medb and Amairgen at the Cave of Crúachan.  There’s also a lot of poetry (some untranslated) about Ulster Cycle characters and stories and places that should also be included in a more detailed catalog of Ulster Cycle materials.
7. Some stories are much more fun to read than others. Others have really interesting and important details that provide a lot of background information and sometimes crucial context to the storyline of the Ulster Cycle, but are not at all fun to read (Cath Leitrech Ruide springs to mind).
8. The attention that stories have received, both from scholars and more general readers, does tend to correlate to availability of translations.  Most people start out reading these stories in translation. Many never read them in the original language.  Having more widely available translations of lesser-known stories would no doubt bring much needed attention to them.
9. The question of the internal chronology of the Ulster Cycle is a very interesting one.  It’s important for understanding how the storyline of the Ulster Cycle was understood as it was being developed, along with the competing timelines that were circulating.  I think chronology is also important in terms of how we approach the stories as modern readers. The original audiences likely would have heard the stories throughout their lives, in no particular order, and assembled some ordering of the sequence of events in their own minds. Modern audiences are much more accustomed to reading stories in a linear fashion. Being able to read these stories in something closer to a chronological order might help to make them more accessible to modern readers.
10. The interconnectedness of the stories is sometimes very obvious, but at other times it is clear that the audience is just supposed to know certain things and to bring their pre-existing knowledge to bear on individual stories.  Stories sometimes explicitly name other stories, for example when Echtra Nerai “The Adventures of Nera” says that a particular event is also described in Táin Bó Regamna “The Cattle Raid of Regamna.” In other cases, although a story is not named, its events are clearly referenced. Aided Cheltchair maic Uthechair “The Violent Death of Celtchar mac Uthechar,” Brisclech Mór Maige Muirthemne, and Goire Conaill Chernaig “The Maintenance of Conall Cernach” all involve characters seeking revenge for the death of Cú Roí, although Aided Chon Roí is never named. Even if we didn’t have the texts of Aided Chon Roí though, we could still clearly understand what was happening. Elsewhere, however, the references are harder to make sense of in isolation. Ferchuitred Medbe/Cath Boinde “The Husband Portion of Medb/The Battle of the Boyne,” for example, lists the children of Eochaid Feidlech, including Medb, with brief descriptions.  Of Medb’s sister Derbriu, we are told only that the pigs of Derblinne are named after her.  There are times when explanations for such references can be found in other independent Ulster Cycle texts, but in other cases the answers, if they can be found at all, are in the more complex corpora of the dindshenchas (as in the case of the pigs of Derblinne – there will be a post about this!) or Cóir Anmann.  Any reading of the Ulster Cycle must go beyond the independent texts of the Ulidia list and include these other materials.

What struck me most though is how much fun it is to just read these stories for themselves and together and to start really noticing all of their connections and contradictions and to wonder about all the strangeness without trying to solve or discover anything.  I decided to try writing about all of this in a blog because I wanted to be able to share and develop ideas about these stories and the Ulster Cycle as a whole outside of the constraints of academic conferences and publishing.  I also want to be able to share these wonderful stories with a wider audience. The Ulster Cycle is an incredibly important corpus for the study of Irish literature, but also for medieval European literature. Sadly, many of the stories remain relatively unknown outside of specialists because so many translations and discussions of these stories are confined to academic journals or books and aren’t available or accessible for others to enjoy.  There is so much fascinating material related to the Ulster Cycle, and the stories are strange and funny and sad and scary and beautiful.  I hope that by sharing thoughts about these stories in a public space more people might become interested in reading them. Whenever I do talk about a particular story, I’ll be sure to provide a link to its dedicated page in CODECS for anyone who wants to read the story or learn more about it.

I’m planning to post about some of my favourite stories and characters and passages of text, and also about the questions I have, the things that confuse me, the interesting connections between different stories and characters, and the problems of conflicting information found in in different sources. I’ll sometimes post about the books and articles I’m reading, and the conferences that I am able to participate in. I’m also planning to share some of my translations of the texts that currently don’t have English translations available, or only very archaic ones.  I hope there will also be some guest posts along the way from people who love the Ulster Cycle as much as I do.

I’m planing to post once a week during the academic year, but I’ll take breaks as needed. Next week’s post will be about the poet Athirne (a strong candidate for Worst Person in the Ulster Cycle) and his deliberate and malicious hoarding and squandering of resources during a siege in the text Talland Étair “The Siege of Étar.”