Cú Roí’s Soul in a Golden Apple

Two weeks ago I posted a translation of Version 1 of Aided Chon Roí “The Violent Death of Cú Roí. In the introduction to my translation, I quoted R. I. Best’s statement that this version is “quite independent” of the other versions of Aided Chon Roí, and, indeed, the same is true for all other texts dealing with Cú Roí’s death. One of the most unique and distinctive features of this text is that Cú Roí’s soul or life (the Irish word ainimm can mean either or both) is hidden in a golden apple, which itself is hidden in the belly of a salmon that only appears every seven years.  Cú Roí can only be killed if the apple is cut with his own sword.  This means that Cú Roí is virtually invincible, at least until he makes the mistake of revealing this secret to Bláithine, his wife, who betrays him to Cú Chulainn.  No other version of Cú Roí’s death makes any reference to his soul being hidden, although it is always his wife (elsewhere Bláthnat) who betrays him to Cú Chulainn, and in some versions his sword is stolen. Interestingly, in this version there is no mention of his sword being taken to use to cut the apple.

There are two intertwined motifs here: first, that Cú Roí’s soul is hidden outside of his body, and second, that he is tricked into revealing the secret of his invincibility to his wife.  I can think of a few parallels for each of these motifs off the top of my head, but when I want to find parallels for particular stories, I turn to Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, T. P. Cross’ Motif-Index of Early Irish Literature, and of course the Aarne-Thompson and Aarne-Thompson-Uther index of Tale-Types.  The main motifs in question here are E710 “External Soul” and K975 “Secret of Strength Treacherously Discovered,” which can be found together in the tale type 302 “Ogre’s (Devil’s) Heart in the Egg” or “The Giant Whose Heart Was in an Egg.” I won’t go through every example of these motifs, of course, but they will be a great place to start for a longer study of this story at some point.  In this week’s post, I’m going to focus on Cú Roí’s “External Soul,” and next week I’ll take a closer look at how he is tricked into revealing its secret.

I always prefer to start with local examples, so if I’m looking for parallels to something in a medieval Irish text, I want to look for other Irish examples first.  Cross’ Motif-Index is very useful for this.  Each motif is listed with a description and a list of examples. For E710, Cross gives the following:

E710 External soul. A person (often a giant or ogre) keeps his soul or life separate from the rest of his body. E VII 202f.; IHM 321n.; MAR III 151; LMR 20; RAC 140, 162, 270; S XXIII 121; Beal IV 226f., VII 10, VIII 97f., 100.
     E765 Life dependent on external object. F408.2* Spirit in heart of man (fairy).

The structure here is: motif followed by description followed by references followed by related motifs.  The next step is to track down all those references using the Bibliography and Abbreviations section and then hope that you can actually get access to them and that they’re not all just the story that you started with.

E VII 202f. is an article called “Cúrói and Cúchulinn” by J. Baudiš from Ériu 7 (1914) which discusses our story but also a number of later folktales with the motif of the hidden soul and that the secret of the hero’s hidden soul is “drawn from him by the wiles of a woman” (201). This is a useful article for identifying later folktale parallels, but has nothing to offer in terms of medieval ones, and is very speculative about the “origins” of Cú Roí’s story in ways that I don’t think most people would agree with.

IHM 321n. is T. F. O’Rahilly’s Early Irish History and Mythology, where he notes the presence of this motif in the story of Cú Roí’s death.  He points to a parallel for the “Secret of Strength Treacherously Discovered” motif, but none for the “External Soul” motif.  He also comments that:

“Thurneysen’s view (borrowed from Henderson, ITS I, 197, and approved by Baudiš) that he [Cú Roí] was ‘in origin a sea-demon’ (ZCP ix, 233) is absurdly inadequate. Thurneysen was interested in many branches of learning, but Celtic religion was hardly one of them.”

O’Rahilly goes on to comment that Baudiš’ article is “devoid of value” and that in some of his interpretations he is “merely writing learned nonsense.”  He concludes his evaluation of Baudiš article by calling it “a useful illustration of the way in which folklorists grope in the dark when they come to discuss the ultimate origins of certain types of folk-tales.”  I cannot help but be reminded of Kim McCone’s statement that “O’Rahilly’s attempts to distil ‘pure’ myth from saga often involve reducing separate narratives to a single common prototype by what can only be termed uncontrolled intuition.”1 As much as I enjoy scholars sniping at each other, especially for things that they are very much guilty of themselves,  we still only have Cú Roí as a medieval Irish example of the “External Soul” motif.

In fact, after going through all of the sources listed above, I have found no other example of this motif in medieval Irish sources. Most of the sources either lead back to Cú Roí’s story or to modern folktales. Going through related motifs doesn’t provide much new information either, although E711 “Soul Kept in Object” leads to the story of Cano in Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin “The Story of Cano mac Gartnáin.” When he was born, Cano’s mother dreamed of two Otherworld women approaching and saw his life coming out of her mouth in the form of a stone. She snatched it away from the women and protected it until Cano was old enough to protect it himself. Later, Cano gave the stone to Créd, daughter of Guaire and wife of Marcán, and promised that he would return and marry her. He explained that his life was in the stone. They would meet once a year, until one year he was attacked before their meeting. Seeing his face – presumably covered with blood – and thinking he was dying, Créd killed herself by dashing her head against a rock. As she died, she dropped the stone holding Cano’s life, which shattered. Cano then died as well.  The other refences for this motif all point to Cú Roí again.  Likewise, E711.7 “Soul in Stone” only leads back to Cano again, while E711.8 “Soul in Golden Apple,” E711.9 “Soul in Golden Ball,” E713.1 “Soul hidden in apple (ball) in a salmon which appears every seven years in a certain fountain,” and E714.2 “Separable Soul in Fish” all lead only to Cú Roí. 

I think it is safe to say that the “External Soul” motif is, in fact, quite rare in medieval Irish literature, although seems to be somewhat more popular in later Irish folk tradition.  On this point, Reidar Th. Christiansen’s “Towards a Printed List of Irish Fairtytales: II” in Béaloideas 8.2: 97-105 may be of interest.  He discusses Tale Type 302 “The Ogre’s Heart in the Egg” and the “Hidden Life” motif and lists, among the usual motifs found in variants of this tale:

“The Life of the giant is hidden in: (a1) tree, (a2) block of wood, (a3) chest at the bottom of the sea, (a4) in a ram in a well – in which is: (b1) duck, (b2) ram, (b3) fox, (b4) mouse – in which is: (c) egg.  The egg is to be (G2) crushed, (G3) rubbed against a spot (mole) on giant’s body, (G4) thrown at his head – which is duly done, grateful animals assisting” (100).
(Christiansen goes on to list and describe the published versions of this story.)

This does point to several ways in which the Cú Roí story has more in common with these folktales than with the story of Cano. One difference is found in how the containment of the soul is treated. There is, in fact, another motif for that: E713 “Soul hidden in a series of coverings,” with references only Cú Roí and variants of tale type discussed by Christiansen.  Cú Roí’s soul is not only hidden in an apple – that apple is hidden in a salmon, which itself is hidden in a spring and which only appears every seven years, meaning that in a sense Cú Roí’s soul is hidden in time and only becomes vulnerable to attack at a specific moment.

The more important difference though is how the motif of the “External Soul” is actually used in the stories. Cano’s life is hidden in a stone that he keeps in his possession and protects until he gives that stone away as a token of love and commitment. His death comes about through what appears to be a tragic misunderstanding, with the stone holding Cano’s life breaking as Créd uses another stone to take her own life. Cú Roí’s soul is much more deeply hidden, as is that of the giant in the folktales. It is not even accessible to him, but he does know of its location. Cú Roí is then tricked into revealing how his “External Soul” can be reached. In the folktales there is some variation on how the hero locates the soul. Sometimes animals help him, sometimes it is his wife, who has been abducted by the giant, or the daughter of the giant who reveals the secret.  The idea of the “External Soul” as a secret that is revealed is not found in the story of Cano, but it is a crucial part of the story of Cú Roí and in the later folktales.

Looking at E710 in the Thompson Motif-Index shows over 20 different references cited, so there is a lot of potential here for further comparative work and to see how the motif is used in ways that are similar to or different from Cú Roí’s story.  These are again primarily secondary sources that then refer to or offer retellings of primary sources. One parallel that I am particularly interested in is that of the Greek hero Meleager, whose story is found in several sources, including Apollodorus’ The Library of Greek Mythology, which tells us that:2

When he was seven days old, it is said that the Fates appeared and announced that Meleager would die when the log burning on the hearth was fully consumed.  In response, Althaia snatched it from the fire and placed it in a chest (40).

Because of the continued existence of this hidden log, Meleager was essentially invincible.  Later in life, he participated in the Calydonian boar, which Atalanta also joined.  Because Atalanta struck the boar first, Meleager awarded her the skin.  His uncles were angered by this, and Meleager killed them.  His mother was so upset by the loss of her brothers that she relit the log containing Meleager’s life and let it burn so that he died.

Thinking about Meleager’s story raises some interesting points about Cú Roí’s. Firstly, how did the situation with his “External Soul” arise in the first place?  In the stories of Cano and Meleager, their life-force is placed into a secondary vessel at or soon after their birth.  As someone who has spent a LOT of time thinking about stories about extraordinary births, and especially those of medieval Irish heroes, I wish so much that we had some form of a Compert Chon Roí “The Birth of Cú Roí” out there somewhere!  I’m going to go ahead and speculate though that his soul was hidden at or soon after his birth, and that there was a prophecy about how he could be killed which was told to him when he was old enough to understand.  But why an apple inside of a salmon? 

In theory, an “External Soul” should offer some protection. It is a way of placing the life-force in a vessel stronger than the human body. We see that with Cano, whose life is in a stone.   A partially burned log seems far less secure than a stone, and it works only so long as it is protected, but it can be hidden and protected in a way that a living body cannot. Like Cano’s, Meleager’s “External Soul” is initially protected by his mother, but unlike Cano he is never given the responsibility of protecting it for himself. In the end, it is his mother who is his main vulnerability. If we look at Cú Roí’s story, we have his soul in a golden apple. It may also be a golden ball, but golden apples certainly have a strong position in medieval Irish literature as symbols of the Otherworld, with its endless fertility and its undying people. The golden apple is the symbol of a land with no death. The apple is then hidden inside of a salmon, a symbol of wisdom and supernatural knowledge.  That salmon then is hidden and can be found only every seven years. This does seem like a very secure hiding place for a soul.  Cú Roí is also the keeper of the secret knowledge of his hidden soul, giving him control over his invincibility. In the stories of Cano, Meleager, and Cú Roí, the destruction of the vessel is what causes the destruction of the soul and the death of the individual. Only in Cú Roí’s case does this involve killing another living being – the salmon.

I think it’s worth considering another motif here: E765.2 “Life bound up with that of an animal. Person to live as long as animal lives.”  A very striking example of this can be found in Toruigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne “The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne.”  A child called Cian is born with a caul, a kind of membrane that covers the face and head of the baby. Cauls are quite rare and there is a lot of folklore surrounding them in most cultures. In Cian’s case, the caul seems to contain a worm, a sort of “twin.”  It appears first as a bulge on his head that grows as he does. Cian keeps his head covered and refuses to allow anyone near him. When he is in adult, the bulge is finally cut open and the worm emerges. It continues to grow until it is the size of a house, develops 100 heads and eats people.  Cian’s mother will not allow it to be killed though, because she believes that the worm was conceived and carried in her womb alongside Cian and that if it is killed, Cian will also die.  The worm is eventually killed, but we are not told what happens to Cian.

There is an Irish word comáes that eDIL defines as “contemporary, coeval; of the same age as, coeval with.” It is used in Aided Conchobair to describe the relationship between Conchobar and Christ, who were born at the same time. Conchobar says that Christ is mo comalta-sa ⁊ mo comāis “my foster-brother and my coeval” because they were born on the same night.  The bond created by being born at the same moment is broken when Conchobar learns of Christ’s death and then dies himself.  Like Cian and the worm, their lives and life-spans are linked.  There is a suggestion of this concept also in the story of Cú Chulainn and his two horses.  Twin foals are born at the moment of his birth and later given to him. His two famous horses, the Líath Macha and the Dub Sainglend, have their own origin stories, but are in some ways at least conceptually equivalent to the horses that were born at the same time as Cú Chulainn, and the Líath Macha is wounded and killed along with him. So as a further piece of speculation, I wonder whether the salmon that protects Cú Roí’s soul is also, in some sense, connected to his own life-span?  Cú Roí tells Bláithine that his soul is in the apple and it can only be cut by his own sword. In this version of the story, at least, there is no mention of Cú Roí’s sword being stolen or the apple being cut. Instead, when Cú Chulainn kills the salmon, Cú Roí loses his strength and his valour and is then killed by Cú Chulainn.  Now this text certainly leaves things out and may have simply skipped over the cutting of the apple, but it is clear that the death of the salmon weakens Cú Roí, whether or not the apple is then also cut.

For all the stories about heroes or other beings whose lives are protected through devices like the “External Soul,” there are just as many, if not more, who receive their near-invincibility in other ways. The question then is how to weaken that near-invincible hero so that he can be killed, and in many stories this involves the discovery of the source of his strength and the revelation of that secret to his enemies.  Next week I’ll take a look at this second aspect of Cú Roí’s death: the revelation of the secret of his strength and the betrayal of that secret.

  1. Aided Cheltchair maic Uthechair: hounds, heroes and hospitallers in early Irish myth and story,” Ériu 35 (1984): 8. []
  2. I’m quoting the 1997 translation of Robin Hard, published by Oxford World’s Classics. But I have linked to the Loeb edition, translated by J. G. Frazer. []

Cú Roí as ammait “witch, hag”?

A big challenge to any translator is figuring out exactly what a word means and how to best represent that meaning in another language, and the realm of the supernatural can be particularly complex in this respect.  We don’t have a complete and clear taxonomy of different types of magical beings or practitioners of magic in the Old and Middle Irish used in the medieval texts. This is true of English too, of course.  What, for example, is the difference between a magician, a wizard, a sorcerer, and an enchanter? A thesaurus will list these as synonyms.  This is a problem I encountered while working on the translation of Version 1 of Aided Chon Roí “The Violent Death of Cú Roí” that I posted last week. Early in the text, Cú Roí is described as ind ammait ⁊ in corrguinech, which I translated as “the witch and sorcerer” based on the definitions of these words in eDIL, the online version of the Dictionary of the Irish Language. (As always, I provide links to eDIL when discussing specific words and to CODECS when discussing particular texts. I link directly to texts sometimes also, where I think it will be useful.)

The second word, corrguinech, is defined as “magician, sorcerer.”  We might not know exactly what kind of magic the corrguinech practices, but it is enough for us to know that Cú Roí has some form of magical power.  One of the examples cited for this word comes from the Corpus Iuris Hibernici, the collection of Irish Laws, and tells us about the penalties for the corrguinech who steals old milk on May Day.  This tells us at least one of the things that a corrguinech might get up to, but it is quite difficult to imagine Cú Roí stealing old milk!

The word ammait is more puzzling here, because according to eDIL it means “a woman with supernatural powers, witch, hag; spectre.”  While Cú Roí clearly has supernatural powers – shown most frequently in his ability to disguise himself – he is most definitely not a woman.  So why is the word ammait used here?  It does have the secondary meaning of “foolish woman,” but we can certainly rule that out. Before jumping to the conclusion that Cú Roí is practicing some sort of transgressive gendered magic, we should take a closer look at the word ammait and the history of our understanding of it. That is, how was it determined that the word ammait is specifically used of women?

Thurneysen made the following comment on this word in his edition and translation of Aided Chon Roí:

Ammait bezeichnet neben der weiblichen Hexe auch männliche Wesen (s. Meyer, Contrib.), aber vielleicht war das Wort seinem grammatischen Geschlecht nach weiblich; darum habe ich ind ammait geschrieben. (190n4)

Ammait refers not only to the female witch but also to male beings (see Meyer, Contrib.), but perhaps the word was feminine in its grammatical gender; therefore I have written ind ammait.

Like Latin, German, and many other languages, Old Irish had three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Thurneysen here provides the feminine article ind before ammait because the grammatical gender of the word is feminine – ammait is quite definitely an ī-stem feminine noun. That said, and citing Meyer, Thurneysen states that the word can apply to both men and women.  When Thurneysen made his edition and translation of the text, the Dictionary of the Irish Language did not yet exist. He therefore consulted Kuno Meyer’s Contributions to Irish Lexicography. Meyer’s entry for amm(a)it can be found on p. 86. He gives the following definitions:

amm(a)it m. and f. (1) a witch, wizard; a hag, crone. […] (2) an idiot […]

He provides several examples for the first meaning and one for the second. So why did Meyer decide that the word ammait could describe both male and female beings?  The best way to know is to examine the examples that he provides of uses of this word.  I’m not going to go through these quite in order because the first example Meyer uses involves the Morrígan and has some added complexity.

  1. ar amaid ná ar drochduine (SG. 107,8)
    This is a passage from the edition of Acallam na senórach “The Dialogue of the Ancients” found in Standish Hayes O’Grady’s Silva Gadelica (SG). O’Grady translates these words, in context, as “neither have anything at all to do with either a mad man or a wicked one” (SG II 115).  He takes amaid, an alternate spelling of ammait, in a meaning closer to “foolish woman” here with his translation “mad man,” but also clearly reads it as masculine rather than feminine. The more recent translation of Ann Dooley and Harry Roe instead renders this passage as “Keep well away from these two, the witch and the evil man” (19).  Both translations work in the context of the advice being given, so this example isn’t particularly helpful, as no specific individual, male or female, is being designated by the word ammait.
  2. amait chaillige (SG. 181,8)
    We’re still in Acallam na senórach here, and St. Patrick has asked Cáilte to explain the name of the place glenn na caillighe “Glen of the Caillech” or “Glen of the Hag.” Cáilte responds “It was a day that Finn and the Fianna were here, and we saw a daft thing of a crooked-shinned grimy-looking hag that made for us.” (SG II 204).   Again, the Dooley and Roe translation differs: “Once when Finn and the Fían were here we saw a bow-legged, jet-black hag of a witch coming towards us.”  The person being described here is definitely a woman, and amait is modified by chaillige, the genitive form of caillech “hag, witch, crone.”  There is certainly some significant overlap in the meanings of ammait and caillech.
  3. plural na hammiti (LL 145 a 37)
    This example comes from a poem in the Book of Leinster that has not yet been translated and the only edition is to be found in the diplomatic edition of the Book of Leinster. The poem in question is “Arí richid, réidig dam” by the 11th c. poet Gilla in Chomdid úa Chormaic.  It’s unfortunate that there’s no translation of this, because it looks like the following line of the poem also contains ammit, the singular form. Based on context though, this seems to be the story of Conall Corc, which involves several different witches, and which I will mention again below.  Hopefully we’ll get a translation of this poem at some point.
  4. plural na teora ammiti (LL 120 a 11)
    This one is easier!  It is also from the Book of Leinster, but now we’re in Brislech Mór Maige Muirethemni, a.k.a. “The Death of Cú Chulainn.” In fact, forms of ammait get used several times in this text. This is unsurprising because a key point in the narrative is Cú Chulainn’s encounter with three witches (na téora ammiti) who are described as túathcháecha, which is a compound of “left” and “blind” and usually translated as “blind in the left eye,” although Jacqueline Borsje has argued that it should instead be translated as “with a sinister eye,” and may be understood as a form of the evil eye.1 These witches trap Cú Chulainn by offering him the meat of a dog. His gessi or “magical prohibitions” mean that he can neither eat the meat of a dog nor refuse food that is offered to him.  By forcing Cú Chulainn to violate one of his gessi, they weaken him critically before his final battle.  When they are referred to individually, the feminine pronoun is used for these witches.
  5. plural na hamaidi nó na maidi (RC XVI, 145)
    This is from the Rennes dindshenchas, specifically the Dindshenchas of Slíab nGam. I include the full text as it is quite a short article.

Gam the Bright-cheeked, a servant of Eremon the Great, son of Míl of Spain, ‘tis he whom the crones outraged as to his head, and they struck it off him, and they cast the head into the lake or into the well. And from the disturbance which the head caused to the well it has at one time a bitter taste and at another it is pure spring-water. Wherefore from that Gam Sliab nGam is so called.

Stokes translates na hamaidi as “the crones” but leaves out the second part of the phrase nó na maidi “and the maidi,” whatever maidi might be.  Stokes’ note on the passage reads “maidi is obscure to me; but amaidi seems = ammiti of LL. 120a 11 … .” The latter is of course the passage from Brislech Mór Maige Muirthemni discussed above.  eDIL does have an entry for maidi but it is preceded by a question mark and this is the only example listed. They remark “prob. a scribal dittology,” meaning the scribe has simply repeated the word.  A similar phenomenon is the dittography, in which a scribe repeats a few letters.

In all the examples listed above, the ammait is either unambiguously female or of indeterminate gender. For the meaning “an idiot,” Meyer gives only the following example:

urlabhra amaidi “the language of an idiot” (MR. 294, 21)

In this meaning, the word ammait is usually seen as connected to the word ammatán “a fool, and idiot,” but that word has no connection to witches, wizards, or any other kind of magic, nor is it gender specific.  If you’re interested in learning more about the etymology of this word and the semantic link between “witch” and “fool,” you can take a look at Anders Richardt Jørgensen’s 2009 article “Irish báeth, báes, bés, ammait and Breton boaz, amoed.” A more detailed discussion of the etymology can be found in T.F. O’Rahilly’s “Notes, Mainly Etymological” in Ériu 13 (1942).

Let’s go back now to Meyer’s actual first example, which is the following:

in benammait = Morrígan, LL. 168 a 38
This passage is located in the Book of Leinster prose dindshenchas. There is no translation available of the LL prose dindshenchas, but this particular article is the Dindshenchas of Odras, which is also found in the metrical and Rennes dindshenchas, although in a clearly different version. These other texts do not refer to the Morrígan as benammait.

The form benammait is interesting because it is a compound of ben “woman” and ammait. Why would you prefix “woman” to a noun that is already explicitly female?  That could explain Meyer’s understanding of ammait alone to apply to both men and women. eDIL points to another use of this compound in Cóir Anmann and suggests that the function of the prefix is “merely intensive,” because like the Morrígan, the people described using forms of banammait in Cóir Anmann are unambiguously women.  In Cóir Anmann, the compound can be found in the item giving the origin of the name Conall Corc. He is the foster-son of one witch and his ear is burned and made red (“corc”) when other witches try to steal him away. In Whitley Stokes’ edition, cited by eDIL, this is number 54 and appears on p. 310-313.  In the more recent edition of Sharon Arbuthnot, this item can be found in both the earliest version of the text, which she calls CA2, and in the longest version of the text, which she calls CA3.  In CA2, which is in the first volume of Arbuthnot’s edition, the story of Conall Corc is item 61 (p. 93-94 and translation p. 132).   CA3 is in the second volume and this is item 57 (p. 16-17, translation p. 93-94).

There are a few other insights to be gained from considering some of the other uses of the word ammait listed in eDIL.

In the text In Cath Catharda, an adaptation of part of Lucan’s Pharsalia, ammait is given as a clarification or explanation of bandraí:

lines 3900-3901: ar ro sail a fhis cinnte d’fogbail o bandruidib in tire i m-boi .i. o ammaitib na Tesaili.
p. 254: for he thought he would obtain his certain knowledge from the druidesses of the land wherein he was, that is, from the witches of Thessaly.

In Togail na Tebe “The destruction of Thebes” the word is used to describe the Fury Tisiphone.  Interestingly, in Táin Bó Cúailnge Rec.1, the Morrígan is referred to as Alecto, another Fury and sister of Tisiphone (l. 995 of text, p. 152 of translation).

Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh “The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill” contains the phrase geliti glinni ⁊ amati adgaill “wild-men of the glens and injuring hags.”  Funnily enough, I actually wrote about this passage in an article published in 2013: “The Description of the Dond Cúalnge in the LL Táin Bó Cúalnge and Indo-European Catalogue Poetry.” I discussed this example in the context of a discussion of the phrase bánánach nó bocánach nó geniti glinni, which O’Rahilly translates as “spectre or sprite or spirit of the glen.” The grouping of these three beings, whose exact natures are far from clear, occurs in many places and I suggested that they are particularly associated with the sounds of battle.2 In some texts though, the list continues past the geniti glinni.  In the description of Cú Chulainn’s combat with Fer Diad, we get bánanach ⁊ bocánaig ⁊ geniti glinni ⁊ demna aeóir, adding “demons of the air” at the end of the set.  In Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh we have a much longer list: bananaig ocus boccanaig ocus geliti glinne ocus amati adgaill ocus siabra ocus seneoin ocus demna admílti aeoir ocus firmaminti ocus siabarsluag debil demnach. Based on various discussions of these types of creatures in eDIL and elsewhere, I translated this passage as “battle-spectres and goat-like battle spectres and wild-men of the glens and injuring hags and phantoms and ancient birds and destroying demons of the air and of the firmament and ominous phantom hosts of demons.” Here geniti is replaced by geliti “wild men.” 

James Henthorn Todd, the original editor and translator of the text instead translated this passage as: “the satyrs and the idiots and the maniacs of the valleys and the witches and the goblins and the ancient birds and the destroying demons of the air and of the firmament and the feeble demoniac phantom host.” Here we see that in trying to translate the names of supernatural beings, we have the same problem as in trying to translate the names of practitioners of magic.  We know that these are supernatural creatures, and so Todd tries to map them to the names of creatures that we know in English – like satyrs and goblins – without any real rhyme or reason. At the very least, I would have used “satyr” for boccanaig rather than bananaig, since boccanaig (eDIL s.v. bocánach) seems to be connected to words like boc and bocán “he-goat.” The point here, of course, is that the ammait belongs with various types of harmful and even malevolent supernatural creatures, including various types of demons, and so is not only a name for a type of practitioner of magic.

The association of the ammait with the demonic and supernatural is found also in the phrase na n-amaidead n-ifernaidi in “The banquet of Dun na n-Gedh and The battle of Magh Rath.”  O’Donovan translates the phrase “infernal agents,” but “infernal witches” might be more accurate.  These “infernal witches” are pressing destruction against the high king of Ulster, and the text goes on to identify them further.  They are na tri h-úire urbadacha ifernaidi … .i. Eleacto, ocus Megara, ocus Tisifone … “the three destructive infernal furies Electo, Megaera, and Tesiphone” (166-7).

In spite of Meyer’s assertion that the word ammait could be used for men and women, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence for that, and the use of the word to describe Cú Roí seems to be something of an aberration.  The beings referred to using forms of the word ammait are for the most part unambiguously female and although some do not have a specified gender, none, other than Cú Roí himself, are explicitly male.  Those described using ammait or benammait seem to fall into two main categories: 1) supernatural women, including Furies, the Morrígan, and other infernal beings, and 2) practitioners of magic.  Cú Roí clearly falls into the latter category.  But why the word ammait? There are many words that describe practitioners of magic that could have been used here, even if the storyteller was particularly avoiding the word druí “druid,” because Cú Roí does not seem to have been a druid.  In fact, although he is often shown to have magical abilities, I have not seen words for practitioners of magic used of Cú Roí elsewhere.

So, is it better to translate ind ammait ⁊ in corrguinech as “the witch and the sorcerer” or as “the wizard and the sorcerer”?  I think the question is really this: would the original audience of the story have found the use of ammait to describe Cú Roí jarring and disconcerting, or would they have understood it as a neutral way to describe him as practitioner of some form of magic, particularly in combination with in corrguinech?  If the use of ammait is meant to be jarring, then “witch” is best to produce the same effect on readers of the translation. If not, then “wizard” is likely a better choice. In translating the word as “mad man,” “wizard,” and “Hexenmeister,” O’Grady, Meyer, and Thurneysen made the common sense choice of using a male word to describe a being they knew or believed to be male.

Ultimately, dictionaries can only provide a theory about the meaning of a word based on the available evidence.  We do not have a complete collection of all uses of forms of ammait, nor any of the other words for practitioners of magic that might allow us to distinguish between them. Neither Meyer’s Contributions to Irish Lexicography nor the Dictionary of the Irish Language includes the example of ammait as used to describe Cú Roí. There may well be other similar examples of men described as ammait, but maybe this is just one of the ways in which Cú Roí is something of a strange and mysterious figure, perhaps even to the storytellers who crafted and transmitted his legend.  The use of ammait of Cú Roí in the earliest version of his death tale is just one of the many interesting features that this text has to offer us.


In my next post, I’ll be taking a closer look at one of the other distinctive features of Version 1 of Aided Chon Roí: that his soul is hidden in a golden apple and that he is tricked into revealing this secret, which make it possible for him to be killed.

  1. Borsje, Jacqueline. 2002. “The meaning of túathcháech in early Irish texts.” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 43 (Summer): 1-24. []
  2. Kristen Mills has made a similar argument in her 2018 article “Glossing the Glosses: The Right Marginal Notes on Glaídemain and Gúdemain in TCD MS 1337)” in Studia Celtica Fennica. []

Version 1 of Aided Chon Roí “The Violent Death of Cú Roí”: A Translation

I would like to take this opportunity to ask anyone who hasn’t already done so to sign this petition to save the Bachelor of Celtic at Utrecht University.  It is an outstanding program with a long history of producing excellent scholars and important scholarship. It is also one of the few remaining Celtic Studies degrees in mainland Europe.  It is crucial that our universities continue to support the study of smaller subjects to preserve diversity in our educational ecosystem. We can’t have every university offering the same handful of programs. That will only lead to stagnation and a greatly impoverished intellectual and cultural landscape.  Your help is greatly appreciated.


Like many of the other Ulster Cycle stories, there are different versions of Aided Chon Roí “The Violent Death of Cú Roí.” The list of translations of Ulster Cycle stories from Ulidia, the proceedings of the first conference on the Ulster Cycle,1 lists two prose versions and then lists two related poems as separate items: Amrae Con Roí “The Eulogy of Cú Roí” and Brinna Ferchertne “The Vision of Ferchertne.” CODECS instead lists three versions of Aided Chon Roí and combines the poems with the prose versions based on their being presented together in various manuscripts, although it also has separate listings for the two poems.

This is a bit complicated, so to simplify things I will refer to:

  1. Aided Chon Roí Version 1 (ACR1) – the Egerton 88 prose text.
  2. Aided Chon Roí Version 2 (ACR2) – the Laud Misc. 610 prose text
  3. Aided Chon Roí Version 3 (ACR3) – the longer prose text found in several manuscripts, including the Yellow Book of Lecan
  4. Amrae Chon Roí – poem
  5. Brinna Ferchertne – poem
  6. The Dindshenchas of Findglais – prose and metrical

There is also a version of the story found in Geoffrey Keating’s Foras Feasa ar Éirinn “History of Ireland.” Items 3-6 on this list have all been translated into English, in some cases more than once. As far as I can tell though, the Version 1 text has only ever been translated into German, and the Version 2 text has never been translated at all. (I’ll post a translation in a few weeks.) Broadly speaking, items 2-6 and the Keating version all seem to be based around the same core narrative, while Version 1 offers some significant differences.

In 1913, Rudolf Thurneysen’s edition and German translation of the Version 1 text was published. R. I. Best had previously included a transcription of this version of the text as an appendix to his 1905 edition and translation of the Yellow Book of Lecan copy of Version 3, saying that “I print it below, with its many and ambiguous contractions unextended, following the manuscript as closely as ordinary typography will permit. The whole text is very puzzling and obscure” (32).  Best also described this earlier version as “quite independent” of the later version. It is certainly different enough from the other versions of the story to deserve attention, and so I have decided to provide it with a publicly available translation into English.  This is a working translation, and certain passages remain unclear to me, but they seem to have given Thurneysen trouble as well, and that is greatly reassuring.  My goal here is not to resolve every issue of language and meaning, but simply to provide a readable translation that fairly accurately represents the content of the original.


The Ulstermen were in Emain Macha, and they saw one of the Fer Ecencaill coming toward them across the plain of Emain. He asked for Bláithine daughter of Conchobar, and he brought her away by her consent. The witch2 and sorcerer Cú Roí son of Dáre loved her.3 It was Echde Echbél who had done that, and no one of the Ulstermen knew except Cú Roí alone.

Echde, moreover, was in Ard Echdi, which was in Cenn Tire of the Fer Ecencaill. He had three special cows that were very speckled and pleasant.  It is because of this that “three spotted4 cows of Echde” is said. He had brought them from the big world, from the expedition from which he brought the belt of Úar Galmáir and the fidchell of the sons of Solomon. These three cows used to visit from Ard Echdi, into Semne and Láthairne. A copper cauldron was their calf. Sixty sesra5 was the fullness of the cauldron from each single day to another. It is of it that Cú Chulainn said in the Síaborcharpat:6

There was a cauldron in the fort,
calf of three cows.
Thirty oxen in its mouth
was not a burden to it.

They used to visit that cauldron,
it was a pleasant undertaking.
They did not leave him
until they left him full.

There was much of gold and silver in it,
it was a good find.
I took that cauldron,
with the daughter of the king.

The grazing of their land was a distress to the Ulstermen.  They were guarding their land. They gathered around the cows, but they escaped from them.  The Ulstermen went across the sea on the track of the cows until they were at the tower of Echde. They all went except Conall and Lóegaire. Cú Chulainn did not go.  It did not seem good to any of them.7

Cú Chulainn went after them. When he went into a boat, another young warrior of indifferent appearance overtook him. He had a dun tunic and a dun cloak and a copper muirnech8 in his cloak. They went across the sea as well.  They were granted three nights of hospitality.

The Ulstermen arose after Echde had fallen asleep.  They took the cauldron and the girl and much of the other treasures. When they had gone a great distance, Echde followed them across the sea. The cattle were given to Cú Roí in order to keep Echde away. The young warrior leapt from the ship so that he rose into (?) a great flood that was beside him to the south. That was the extinction of his life. Echde fell. He died.9

The Ulstermen and the young warrior came to the land of Ireland. They entreated him so that he would take all of the treasure and leave the cows and the girl with them until the end of a year. He was asked this again until the end of three years, and he did it. He came at the end of the year. In the end they were lying, and they did not allow him to take them. The meetings failed.

He himself took the cows and the cauldron and the girl from them. Cú Chulainn went after him. He placed his hand across the handle of the cauldron. The young warrior turned to him. He threw him from him into the ground, once to his knees, then to his hindquarters, then to his belt, then to his two armpits.10 Moreover, he then took the cows and the girl until he was at the fortress of Cú Roí, between it and the sea in the west. The cows produced [milk] then, after being driven without milking. An herb grew from it there. Its name is bo-eirne, for Cú Roí is of the Érna.

Then Ferchertne, poet of Cú Roí, came to the Ulstermen with a demand, and he took the Líath Macha.  Moreover, he took him for the sake of their honour. He came again after a month. The áes aisndisen “people of explaining” used to praise the banqueting hall of the Ulstermen and their king and their queen in the presence of Ferchertne. One time he arrived. He said…

[retoiric – There is a passage of retoiric here – a form of particularly obscure and difficult verse – that Thurneysen left out of both his edition and translation. I will also leave it aside for now. Best does include it in his transcription, but without any editing. Clearly though, Fercherne reveals the true identity of the “young warrior” who took the cauldron, the cows, and Bláithine and defeated Cú Chulainn.]

It is then indeed that they discovered that it was Cú Roí who had come and who had gotten the better of them.  The Ulstermen thought this a great distress.

Then Cú Chulainn went in the guise of a beggar so that he was in the fortress of Cú Roí. He recognized her, the daughter of Conchobar.  He told her of his doings for the sake of the Ulstermen and her father, in order that she would betray the man.

There was a copper ship from which he [Cú Roí] used to strike Alba and the islands of the sea besides, (and) he reached the big world. The woman betrayed him then. He told her through his sincerity in order to comfort her distress that there was a spring on the side of Slíab Mis in the west. A salmon used to appear there after seven years. A golden apple11 was in its stomach. This apple could only be cut with his own sword.  It is inside it that his soul was. The woman was in the west for seven years until Cú Chulainn came in the appearance of a leper, and it was another seven years from that until the salmon appeared.

She was waiting for that good fortune, moreover.  The Ulstermen went so that they were all in the plain to the north of the fortress. The man cast large stones at them so that they did not reach [him].  Cú Chulainn killed the salmon. That took Cú Roí’s strength from him, and his valour, and he said: “No secrets to women, no treasures to slaves.”12 Cú Chulainn killed him then and they took his victory.

Two from his household avenged him. Lúach Mór, Cú Roí’s charioteer, went into the chariot of Coirpre son of Conchobar and he carried him over the cliff so that they were killed. Moreover, Ferchertne, the poet, when he was brought to Bláithine, drove a dagger13 between her two breasts so that she died. He was killed at once. It is from this that the grave of Bláithine is at Luimnech, together with Ferchertne’s grave.


In my next post I will consider the description of Cú Roí as an ammait, which the Dictionary of the Irish Language defines as a “woman with supernatural powers, witch, hag; spectre.” The following post will turn to the fact that Cú Roí is apparently invincible due to his soul or life-force being hidden in an apple until he is tricked into revealing this to Bláithine. There are many, many interesting parallels for this, and I will discuss a few of them.

  1. Mallory, J. P. and Ruairí Ó hUiginn. 1994. “The Ulster Cycle: A Check List of Translations”. In J. P. Mallory and Gerard Stockman (eds) Ulidia: Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales. Belfast: December Publications. 291-303. []
  2. The Irish word used here is ammait, which Thurneysen translates into German as “Hexenmeister.” According to eDIL, the word is gendered and used exclusively of women.   Its use here to describe Cú Roí is therefore noteworthy and will be the subject of a future post. []
  3. Please see the Addendum to this post in which I discuss this passage and offer the following updated translation: He asked for Bláithine, daughter of Conchobar, and she said: “According to his will, however I love the sorcerer and magician Cú Roí.” []
  4. Or possibly “dark red” (eDIL s.v. 2 erc) or “red-eared” (eDIL s.v. 4 erc). []
  5. A sesra is a measure of capacity corresponding to Latin sextarius, roughly 540ml.  The capacity of the cauldron would therefore be something like 32 litres. []
  6. The reference here is to Síaburcharpat Con Culaind “The Phantom Chariot of Cú Chulainn.” These three quatrains occur in the middle of a longer poem. There is no reference to Cú Roí or Echde or his cows or cauldron in the Siaburcharpat, however. These three verses are also included in the later versions 2 and 3 of Aided Chon Roí.  There are only minor differences between the four copies of these verses. []
  7. Thurneysen translates this line as “keiner von ihnen hatten Lust” – “none of them wanted to.” []
  8. The meaning of muirnech is unclear in this context. Thurneysen suggests that it may mean some kind of clasp or pin. []
  9. This passage is quite unclear. Thurneysen declines to translate it in full, rendering it as: “Der junge Mann sprang (?) aus dem Schiff, so dass … in eine grosse Flut (starke Brandung?), die südlich in seiner Nähe war. Das war … seiner Seele. Echde fiel. Er starb.” “The young man leaped from the ship so that … into a large flood (strong surf?) that was near him to the south. That was …  of his soul. Echde fell. He died.” There is no clear corresponding passage in ACR2/3.  I have translated “rose into a large flood” based on the verbal form -raidh, which I take to be a form of at-reig. It could also be a form of ráidid “speaks, says, tells, calls,” so maybe something like “he calls a large flood”?  I’m not sure that ráided can be used in the sense of “summons” though. I have translated “that was the extinction of his life” based on églach / éclach, which eDIL doesn’t translate but suggests could be connected to Modern Irish éaglach “extinction, death.” []
  10. This encounter is described in more detail in Version 3 of the story, where it ends with Cú Roí cutting Cú Chulainn’s hair off with his sword and rubbing cow dung on his head. []
  11. The primary meaning of uball is “apple,” and Thurneysen translates “Apfel” here, but also notes that the secondary meaning “Kugel” or following eDIL “any globular object, a ball” is also possible. []
  12. This phrasing echoes that found in a passage of verse spoken by Mac Dathó in Scela mucce Meic Da Thó: “Cremthann nía Nair said / You should not give your secret to women. / The secret of a woman is not well hidden. / Treasure is not repaid by a slave.” (My translation.) []
  13. eDIL s.v. cleittíne “small light javelin, dart (usually one of Cú Chulainn’s weapons); dagger(?).” I think dagger works best in this context. []