A few weeks ago I posted a translation of the Egerton 88 version of Aided Chon Roí “The Violent Death of Cú Roí.” As I pointed out in the introduction to the translation, there are three different versions of this text. The Egerton 88 text is considered to be the oldest and Rudolf Thurneysen dated it to the 8th or 9th century, and so this is called “Version 1.” This version of the text had only previously been translated into German, and so I wanted to make an English translation of the text available. The third version of the text is the longest version, and the one most people are familiar with. It has been translated into English by R.I. Best (1905) and by Maria Tymoczko (1981) in Two Death Tales from the Ulster Cycle. A translation of this version can also be found in T. P. Cross and C.H. Slover’s Ancient Irish Tales (1936). As far as I can tell though, Version 2 of the text, preserved only in MS Laud Misc. 610 and edited by Kuno Meyer in the 1883-5 volume of Revue Celtique, has never been translated at all. (Although as CODECS notes certain passages were translated into German in Thurneysen’s edition and translation of the Version 1 Egerton 88 text.)
The second version is sometimes described as a “fragment” of the third version because it seems to contain a subset of that text. I would not consider it a fragment, however, as it does contain a coherent narrative. It begins by explaining why the Ulstermen had to kill Cú Roí and then goes on to explain how they did it. It offers far fewer details than Version 3, but nonetheless offers the full plot of the story. What the second version mainly does is serve as an introduction to the poem Brinna Ferchertne, which immediately follows it in the manuscript. Brinna Ferchertne itself has been translated several times, and I will link to a translation of it at the end of this post so that readers can go on to read everything that Laud Misc. 610 has to offer about the death of Cú Roí.
What brought the Ulaid to kill Cú Roí? It is not hard to explain. It was in revenge for violating Cú Chulainn regarding Bláthnait, daughter of Mend or Poll1 mac Fidaig, who was taken at the siege of the men of Falga, and regarding the three red-eared cows of Iuchna or Echde, and regarding the three men of Ochain, that is, three birds that were on the ears of the cows, the red-eared cows, when they used to yield (milk) into the cauldron. For they did not yield without it, that is, the cauldron was before them and until the birds were on their ears singing to them. For it is the cauldron that used to take the duty of a calf to them. Thirty oxen was the content of that cauldron, and its fullness every time is what was milked from them. From which Cú Chulainn sang:
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 pleasant find.
I took that cauldron
with the daughter of the king.
Cú Roí said to the woman, when he saw the Ulaid in the morning coming towards his fortress to him through the mist of the morning: “Isn’t that a host?”
“It is not a host,” said the woman, “but herds of cattle.”
From which Cú Roí sang:
If they are herds, and so that they are herds,
they are not herds of thin cows.
There is a little man who carries a sharp blade
on the back of every single cow.
Then she urged sleep upon him, so that at that time she poured the milk of the red-eared cows into the stream, for that was the signal that she made to Cú Chulainn. That is, when the fortress was open and the man slept, she would pour the milk of the red-eared cows into the stream. It was done thus. From this is Findglais named.
The Ulaid went and they killed Cú Roí in his bonds after he was bound by her, and they burned the fortress. From which a certain seer said:
Who is the youth who kindles
at the side of the fortress of Cú Roí?
If the son of Dáre were alive,
he would not burn together along with it.
From Samain until the middle of Spring, the slaughtering of the Ulaid increased, and a third on each side of the host was lost.
(The poem Brinna Ferchertne follows here. I link directly to the translation of Kuno Meyer on the CELT (Corpus of Electronic Texts) website.)
When I started this blog a few months ago, I hadn’t really intended to spend so much time on Aided Chon Roí, but I found there was so much to say that I didn’t want to move on. There is still so much more to say, but I am now going to move on to some other things. One of the things I love about the Ulster Cycle is that we do have these alternate versions of stories or specific events, and sometimes they contradict each other in very interesting ways. In my next post, I’ll be looking at some stories involving Medb and her extended family (her siblings and nephews) and how there are some alternate narrative timelines in play that are entirely incompatible.
- In Version 1, Bláithine is Conchobar’s daughter, and in Version 3 and in the Dinnshenchas of Finnglais, Bláthnait is the daughter of Mend, whose patronymic is not provided. In a note on his edition and translation of Version 3, Best points out that in the Book of Lecan version of the Dinnshenchas of Finnglais, Bláthnait’s father is named as Midir. It is not clear who Poll is or where the confusion about Bláthnait’s paternity comes from. [↩]