Medb’s Family and Problems in the Timeline of the Ulster Cycle

Posted on December 20, 2024 by Anna June Pagé

I think that Medb’s death might be the last major event in the narrative timeline of the Ulster Cycle. Her death is the subject of its own story Aided Meidbe “The Violent Death of Medb.” One of the interesting features of this story is that it seems to cover most of the timespan during which the main events of the Ulster Cycle occur. It begins with the introduction of Find and his three sons: Conall Anglonnach, Eochaid Airem, and Eochaid Feidlech, who is Medb’s father. Eochaid Airem is a central figure in the text Tochmarc Étaíne “The Wooing of Étaín,” where he is the mortal husband of Étaín before she is reclaimed by her previous husband, Midir of the Túatha Dé Danann. Within the chronology of the Ulster Cycle, the earliest period of narrative deals with the enmity between Eochaid Feidlech and Fachtna Fathach, sometimes known as the father of Conchobar mac Nessa, king of Ulster. The conflict between these two is described most fully in the text Cath Leitrech Ruidhe “The Battle of Leitrech Ruidhe,” during which Fachtna Fathach is killed and Eochaid Feidlech takes his place as high king of Ireland. In a later battle, the Ulstermen attack Eochaid Feidlech and defeat his forces. He is required to pay éric or compensation to Conchobar for the death of his father.

Part of this compensation involves four of Eochaid Feidlech’s daughters being given to Conchobar: Medb, then Clothra, then Eithne, and finally Mugain, who is Conchobar’s main wife in the Ulster Cycle. These four marriages are also mentioned in Ferchuitred Medba “Medb’s Selection of Husbands,” which tells us that Mugain was the mother of Conchobar’s son Glasne, Eithne was the mother of his son Furbaide, and Clothra was the mother of his son Cormac Conn Longes, although it is also suggested that Cormac’s mother might actually have been Conchobar’s own mother Ness. Ferchuitred Medba also describes the sequence of events by which Medb became queen of Connacht and took Ailill as her husband.

Most of the Ulster Cycle tales concern the period during which Conchobar is king of Ulster and Medb and Ailill rule Connacht, and several stories deal with the period after Conchobar’s death. Medb’s death is one of the last, if not the last, event within the internal chronological sequence of the Ulster Cycle. Aided Meidbe also describes some of the complex history between Conchobar and Medb’s family as well as some of the details of the lives of Medb’s siblings. It describes how Clothra bore her son Lugaid Ríab nDerg to her three brothers, the Find Emna, who conceived him with her the night before they went to war against their own father and were killed. According to this text, Clothra had a second son, Furbaide Fer Benn, who was born by caesarean after Medb killed her. In most other sources, however, Furbaide is named as the son of Eithne rather than Clothra.

My suggestion that Medb’s death is the last event of the Ulster Cycle is mainly based on the relative chronology. The story of Medb’s death includes the story of the birth of two of her nephews: Lugaid Ríab nDerg and Furbaide Fer Benn. Lugaid’s death is not mentioned in this text, but by following the stories of a series of deaths, beginning with his, and the resulting acts of vengeance that follow these deaths, we can determine a rough chronology for several stories.

Lugaid’s death is described in Aided Derbforgaill “The Violent Death of Derbforgaill,” in which he dies of grief upon seeing the mutilated body of his wife Derbforgaill, who had been tortured by the women of Ulster out of jealousy. The deaths of Derbforgaill and Lugaid are avenged by Cú Chulainn, who traps 150 queens of Ulster in a house and burns it down around them. Cú Chulainn’s own death takes place in the text Brislech Mór Maige Muirthemne and he is avenged by Conall Cernach, with whom, we are told, he had sworn a pact of mutual vengeance. Although Conchobar is not present for the action in this text, Ulster is referred to as “Conchobar’s province,” and so I take it that he is still alive and his death takes place after Cú Chulainn’s.

Conall Cernach, we know, outlives most of the other Ulstermen, as does Fergus mac Róich. Both are involved in the conflicts over succession that follow Conchobar’s death and which are described in Bruiden Da Choca “Da Coca’s Hostel” and Cath Airtig “The Battle of Airtech.” Both were in exile in Connacht following Conchobar’s betrayal of the sons of Uisliu in Longes mac nUislenn “The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu,” and both return to their exiles in Connacht before their deaths. Fergus’ return takes place in Cath Airtig, and his death is described in Aided Fergusa meic Róich “The Violent Death of Fergus mac Róich.” Ailill’s jealousy over Medb’s ongoing affair with Fergus causes his brother Lugaid Dalléces, who also declares himself to be Fergus’ foster-brother, to kill Fergus while swimming with Medb. Ailill’s own death and that of Conall Cernach are described in Goire Conaill Chernaig i Crúachain ocus Aided Ailella ocus Conaill Chernaig “The Maintenance of Conall Cernach in Crúachan and the Violent Deaths of Ailill and Conall Cernach.”¹ Following the deaths of Conchobar and Cú Chulainn, Conall Cernach finds himself old and infirm and alone, and so decides to go to Ailill and Medb because he thinks they alone have the resources to support him. They welcome him, and Medb takes him into her household. Ailill, meanwhile, is carrying on an affair behind Medb’s back and she instructs Conall Cernach to kill him, which he is happy to do as vengeance for Fergus. Ailill survives long enough to identify Conall Cernach as his killer, and Conall himself is then also killed. Medb is present for all of these events.

Based on these stories of death and vengeance, we can identify the following order of deaths:

Lugaid Ríab nDerg < Cú Chulainn < Conchobar < Fergus < Ailill < Conall Cernach < Medb

Medb’s death comes about when Furbaide Fer Benn sees her bathing and asks who she is. When he learns her identity, he uses a piece of cheese as a sling-stone to kill her in vengeance for his mother, who, according to Aided Meidbe, was Clothra and had been killed by Medb.

Since he outlives Medb, we can add Furbaide to the above chronology of deaths:

Lugaid Ríab nDerg < Cú Chulainn < Conchobar < Fergus < Ailill < Conall Cernach < Medb < Furbaide Fer Benn

The problem comes when we take the story of Furbaide’s own death into account. Furbaide’s birth and death are both related in the Dinnshenchas of Carn Furbaide. Here, his mother is Eithne, described as daughter of Eochaid Feidlech and wife of Conchobar mac Nessa. Clothra’s druid tells her that she will be killed by the son of her sister. At this time, Eithne is traveling to Crúachan from the east (presumably from Emain Macha) in order to give birth. Clothra sends her son Lugaid Ríab nDerg to kill her. He drowns her and cuts Furbaide from her body. When he is older, Furbaide kills Clothra in order to avenge his mother Eithne, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Clothra’s druid. This stands in contrast to Aided Meidbe, in which he killed Medb in order to avenge his mother Clothra. Lugaid then kills Furbaide in order to avenge Clothra. This puts Furbaide’s death before Lugaid’s and makes Furbaide both the first and final death in the chronology above, which is clearly impossible.

Discrepancies such as which of Eochaid Feidlech’s daughters is Furbaide’s mother and which of his aunts he kills to avenge her death are not uncommon in the Ulster Cycle. Conchobar is said to be the son of the druid Cathbad in some texts and the son of Fachtna Fathach in others. Some texts give the name of Cú Chulainn’s mother as Deichtine and others Deichtire, and she is sometimes Conchobar’s own daughter, but elsewhere the daughter of Cathbad and sister of Conchobar. Conall Anglonnach is sometimes named as a son of Eochaid Feidlech and elsewhere as his brother. In Serglige Con Culainn “The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulainn,” Cú Chulainn’s wife is named sometimes Emer, as is common, but sometimes Eithne Ingubai. The extent to which any of these discrepancies actually affect the overall storyline of the Ulster Cycle varies. The question of Conchobar’s paternity has more far-reaching implications than, for example, his exact relationship to Deichtine/Deichtire. If Cathbad is his father, then among his half-sisters is Findchóem, mother of Conall Cernach, and in Findchóem Conchobar shares a half-sister with his own eventual killer Cet mac Mágach. If, on the other hand, Conchobar is the son of Fachtna Fathach, then we have an explanation for his marriages to four of the daughters of Eochaid Feidlech. There is no one explanation for these variations and discrepancies. Some have come about due to the complex histories of the texts as we have them. Some may be simply mistakes or come about as a result of scribes trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. Some are likely due to experimentation in the reworkings of familiar materials. The result is an Ulster Cycle corpus that is rich, complex, and quite far from presenting a unified account of its storyline.

It’s probably fair to say that most modern audiences are familiar with the idea of alternate timelines thanks to major movie franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Trek. This is hardly a new feature of storytelling though, and medieval and ancient narrative systems offer many examples of alternate timelines. In a 2023 article called “Deirdre and the Story-World of the Ulster Cycle,” I explored some of the alternate versions of the story of Deirdre in the Ulster Cycle and compared this with some of the alternate versions of the story of Helen of Troy. Everyone who is at all familiar with Helen’s story knows the version that involves her being taken to Troy by Paris, which launches the Trojan War. There is another version of the story though, found in sources like Euripedes’ Helen, in which Helen never actually went to Troy. Instead, an εἴδωλον (eidōlon) or image of Helen was created by Hera and sent in her place. Even in the versions of the story in which Helen truly does go to Troy, the portrayals of her actions and motivations vary considerably, with her sometimes working with the Trojans against the Greeks and sometimes helping the Greeks against the Trojans.

There is certainly dialogue between these different versions. According to Plato,² the poet Stesichorus was blinded for having said that Helen went to Troy, and his sight was restored when he recanted. Plato states that Stesichorus, unlike Homer, was able to reclaim his sight because he knew the cause of his blinding, whereas Homer did not. Here we find the two versions of Helen’s story contrasted, with Homer’s version, in which she went to Troy, condemned. Similarly, some of the accounts of Conchobar’s birth in which Fachtna Fathach is his father make reference to claims that Cathbad was his father and declare them false. Far from posing a problem for storytellers and audiences, these variations seem instead to offer them opportunities. As I wrote in my article: “these variations can strengthen the audience’s attachment to the characters as well as increase their engagement with the story-world.” Plurality or multiformity or variation are common properties of complex narrative story-worlds, and thinking about these kinds of issues maintains the audience’s interest in the stories and allows them to engage with the different aspects of the stories and versions of the characters in ways that are personal and unique to them.

These kinds of variations are just one of the things that a modern reader of the Ulster Cycle corpus might find challenging and disorienting. It’s not just about conflicting information in different versions of stories, but also the absence of information. There is no clear starting point for reading the Ulster Cycle because each text makes reference to and depends on information given in other stories, even if it’s just about who the characters are and how they are related to one another. Writing about Greek myth, Sarah Iles Johnston has said that “There is no such thing as a Greek mythic character who stands completely on his or her own; he or she is always related to characters from other myths, and the narrators take some pains to tell us that (and, one assumes, to invent such relationships when they need to).”³

There is no text that can “introduce” the Ulster Cycle and its characters, because no text operates independently or is intended as a “beginning.” It is also true that no story or text is intended to be experienced only once. It is by reading the stories repeatedly in a cyclic fashion rather than once in a linear one that a reader gains the knowledge needed to appreciate and understand the nuances of each individual story. You still have to start somewhere, of course, and for at least some modern readers I do think that starting with a reasonably linear approach guided by the internal chronology of the main storyline of the Ulster Cycle might work. If Medb’s death is the end of the narrative timeline of the Ulster Cycle, then Conchobar’s birth is probably the beginning. These two events, Conchobar’s birth and Medb’s death, seem to bookend the storyline of the Ulster Cycle. While we have one version of Medb’s death, there are several different stories about Conchobar’s birth. When my next series of blog posts starts in the new year, I will start by discussing some ideas about a reading order for the Ulster Cycle and I will publish a translation of the story of Conchobar’s birth as preserved in the Yellow Book of Lecan and the Book of Ballymote, since I think this makes an excellent starting point for reading the Ulster Cycle and it is not currently available in English.

This will be my last post for this year. My next series of posts will start some time in February or March, and I’ll begin with a return to the question of the chronology of the Ulster Cycle, especially from the perspective of how to approach developing a reading order.

For anyone who can’t get enough of the Ulster Cycle stories and other wonderful medieval Irish stories, I really recommend the podcast Guth: Reading Irish Myths and Legends with Dr. Emmet Taylor, which is available on Spotify. This podcast is a chance to hear translations direct from the medieval Irish texts themselves rather than modern retellings of the stories, along with some discussion of current scholarship about the stories. It is an absolute must for anyone interested in medieval Ireland and Irish myth and literature.

Goire in this title is sometimes translated as “Cherishing,” but the meanings provided by eDIL “attending, caring for, maintaining,” or in a legal sense “care, attendance, maintenance of parents, foster-parents, etc. by a son, etc.” seems more appropriate. [↩]
Phaedrus 243a. I cite the translation of C. Emlyn-Jones and W. Preddy in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato’s Lysis, Symposium, Phaedrus (2022). [↩]
2015. “The Greek Mythic Story World.” Arethusa 48 no. 3 (Fall), 293. [↩]

Cú Roí Tricked into Revealing the Secret of His External Soul

Posted on December 5, 2024 by Anna June Pagé

Cú Roí appears throughout the Ulster Cycle as a fearsome warrior with supernatural powers. He is one of the few who is a match for Cú Chulainn, and in Version 3 of Aided Chon Roí he not only defeats him but humiliates him by driving him into the ground up to his armpits, cutting off his hair, and rubbing dung on his head. In Version 1 of Aided Chon Roí, we are told that he is also essentially invincible because his soul is hidden in a golden apple that is itself hidden in a salmon that only appears every seven years. To kill Cú Roí, the apple must be cut with Cú Roí’s own sword. Cú Roí has even further protection because this knowledge is a secret known only to him – at least until he reveals it to his wife Bláithine.

Cú Roí is not the only nearly invincible warrior in medieval Irish literature. Cú Chulainn himself is normally almost impossible to defeat due to his semi-divine and supernatural nature. When he is finally killed, it is after he is weakened by being tricked into breaking his gessi, and killing him requires a special spear that is made over the course of seven years by working on it only one day each year. In fact, Cú Roí is one of only a few warriors to ever present Cú Chulainn with a real challenge. Among the others are Loch mac Mo Femis, whom the Morrígan herself identifies as the warrior who is Cú Chulainn’s equal in every way, and Cú Chulainn’s own beloved foster-brother Fer Diad. Against these two, Cú Chulainn is forced to resort to his special weapon the gae bolga. Fer Diad and Loch gain their near invulnerability as a result of having a horn-skin, a skin that cannot be penetrated by any weapon. They are not the only warriors to have this particular defense.

In Aided Cheltchair maic Uthechair “The Violent Death of Celtchar son of Uthechar” we meet Conganchnes son of Dedad, whose name is a compound of congna “horn, antler” and cnes “skin.” Conganchnes is identified as Cú Roí’s brother, although based on his name he might also be Cú Roí’s uncle, since Cú Roí is named in this text as Cú Roí son of Daire son of Dedad. Conganchnes is laying waste to Ulster in order to avenge Cú Roí, and we are told that “Spears and swords did not affect him but glanced off him as from horn.” Celtchar is given the task of getting rid of Conganchnes, and he employs his daughter Níab to find out how this can be accomplished. Níab is given to Conganchnes so that she can trick him into revealing how he can be killed. Conganchnes tells her: “Put spits of red-hot iron in my soles and through my shin-bones.” Níab passes this information along to Celtchar and tells him also to put a sleep-spell on Conganchnes and to bring a great host with him. This is done and Conganchnes is killed.

Níab’s role here is essential in defeating Conganchnes, and it is significant that she didn’t just learn his secret, she tricked him into revealing it himself. Bláithine plays the same role in Cú Roí’s story. In a previous post on Cú Roí’s hidden soul, I talked about the Motif-Indexes as useful tools to help find parallels for particular stories, and I pointed out that we have here an example of motif K975 “Secret of Strength Treacherously Discovered.” There are a few other related motifs that could be considered here, including K778 “Capture Through the Wiles of a Woman” and K2213.4.1 “Secret of Vulnerability Disclosed by Hero’s Wife,” but in Cross’ Motif-Index of Medieval Irish Literature there are only references to the stories of Cú Roí and Conganchnes. Although not an Irish story, Cross’ Motif-Index does also contain a reference to a discussion of the story of Lleu Llaw Gyffes in the medieval Welsh Mabinogi.

In Math uab Mathonwy “Math son of Mathonwy,” the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi,Lleu is cursed by his mother Aranrhod to never receive a name or weapons unless she is the one to give them to him, and finally to “never have a wife from the race that is on this earth at present.”¹ Lleu’s uncle Gwydion tricks his sister into naming and arming her son, but the problem of the wife is slightly more complex. Gwydion and his own uncle Math are both powerful sorcerers, and together they make Blodeuedd out of plants. As a woman not of any race on earth, she can be Lleu’s wife. Lleu is then given land to rule. When Lleu leaves Blodeuedd alone for a time, she encounters Gronw Pebr and falls in love with him. The two conspire to kill Lleu, but first must determine how he can be killed. Blodeuedd pretends that she is concerned that Lleu will be killed, and to reassure her Lleu tells her that he is very difficult to kill indeed. We find here a parallel for the statement in Version 1 of Aided Chon Roí that Cú Roí told Bláithine the secret of his external soul “through his sincerity in order to comfort her distress.” Blodeuedd eventually persuades Lleu to tell her the full details of what would be involved in killing him. Lleu, “gladly,” tells her the following:

“It is not easy to kill me with a blow. You would have to spend a year making the spear that would strike me, working on it only when people were at Mass on Sunday. … I cannot be killed indoors,’” he said, “nor out of doors; I cannot be killed on horseback, nor on foot.” (60)

Blodeuedd is still not satisfied and asks Lleu how exactly he can be killed, given these conditions. Lleu explains how it can be done.

“By making a bath for me on a riverbank, and constructing an arched roof above the tub, and then thatching that well and watertight. And bringing a billy-goat,” he said, “and standing it beside the tub; and I place one foot on the back of the billy-goat and the other on the edge of the tub. Whoever should strike me in that position would bring about my death.” (60)

Blodeuedd, quite rightly, points out that this would be an extremely easy position to avoid, but once the special spear has been prepared, she asks Lleu to demonstrate this position to her, and he agrees. Once the appropriate staging has been set up, Lleu gets himself into this very difficult position and Gronw launches the spear at him. In spite of all this preparation, Lleu manages to escape by transforming himself into an eagle and, with the help of his uncle Gwydion, he is eventually able to take vengeance against Gronw and Blodeuedd.

The most famous story of this type is certainly the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah. Samson has extraordinary strength and is in love with Delilah. His enemies, the Philistines, pay Delilah to discover the source of his strength so that he can be weakened, subdued, and captured. She asks him to tell her the secret to his strength three times. First, he tells her that he should be tied up with fresh bowstrings that have not dried, then he says that he should be tied up with new, unused ropes, and finally he tells her that his hair should be braided into a loom. Each of these things is done, but when he is attacked, he is clearly unweakened and he is able to defeat his attackers and escape any harm. Delilah confronts him each time, calling him a liar. After the third time, she accuses him of lying about loving her and continues to demand the truth. Finally, he tells her that if his head is shaved, then he will lose his strength. This is done and Samson is weakened and captured. Delilah receives her payment, and no further mention is made of her. Samson’s hair begins to grow back while he is imprisoned and, having regained some of his strength, he is able to pull down a temple, killing himself along with everyone else inside it. Unlike Cú Roí, Conganchnes, and Lleu, Samson clearly knew that Delilah was revealing his secrets to his enemies and can hardly have been surprised when she did it for the fourth time when he had finally told her the truth about the source of his strength.

These stories are often framed as the betrayal of a secret, but is there really any betrayal involved? Delilah was paid to learn Samson’s secret and he gave it to her freely, knowing the consequence. Níab was sent by her father to learn the weakness of a man who was slaughtering her people. She certainly owed no loyalty to Conganchnes. Blodeuedd, as Lleu’s wife, can certainly be said to have owed him her loyalty, but I can only feel sorry for her. Created for the sole purpose of being Lleu’s wife, she had no experience at all of the world or of other people or even of herself as a living person before being given to him. She was likely only minutes old! It is not hard to imagine her learning of human experiences by watching the other people in Lleu’s court, witnessing the lives and loves of the servants and others around her, wondering what her own life might have been like had she been born a human woman instead of created out of plants only to belong to Lleu, who may have seemed more like her jailer than her husband. And then one day, while Lleu is gone, Gronw Pebr arrives and for the first time she experiences all the excitement of first love and sees a chance to live for herself, if only for a time. Unable to put herself back in her prison once she has had a taste of freedom, she makes the terrible decision to kill her husband. Clearly, she should have just run off with Gronw and not plotted her husband’s murder, but this is a story about Lleu, not Blodeuedd, and so the focus must remain fully on him. For a medieval audience, Blodeuedd’s betrayal is probably quite clear and unforgivable, but for modern readers I suspect it is far less so.

What of Bláithine? What loyalty did she owe to Cú Roí? It is only in this account of Cú Roí’s death that Bláithine learns and reveals the hidden secret of his invincibility, but in every version of the story, Bláithine, elsewhere called Bláthnait, helps Cú Chulainn and the Ulstermen to kill Cú Roí. In the longest version of Aided Chon Roí (Version 3), Bláthnait, along with the cows, three birds, and the cauldron, is taken by Cú Roí after the siege of the Men of Fálga² because he did not receive his fair share of the prizes taken during that raid. In this text, Cú Chulainn is said to have loved Bláthnait even before she was taken during the siege. It is not clear whether Bláthnait returned Cú Chulainn’s affections, but once he contacted her at Cú Roí’s fort, she willingly conspired with him. In Brinna Ferchertne “Ferchertne’s Dream-Vision,” however, Cú Roí is said to have taken Bláthnait from Cú Chulainn, who then spent a year in silence searching for her until he finally discovered her whereabouts and realized that it was Cú Roí who had taken her. In this version of the story, it seems fair to say that Bláthnait’s loyalty was to Cú Chulainn, from whom she was taken against her will. In all the other accounts of Cú Roí’s death, Bláthnait participates in her own rescue by binding Cú Roí to a bed with his own hair and then pouring milk into the river so that it runs white as a signal to Cú Chulainn that it is safe to attack. She also steals Cú Roí’s sword and throws it out the window to Cú Chulainn so that it can be used against him.

Version 1 of the story offers a different view of these relationships, however, and a different motivation for Bláithine to act against Cú Roí. In Version 1 of the story, Bláithine is taken by Echde Echbél but declares that she loves Cú Roí.³ Cú Roí retrieves her from Echde, but when the Ulstermen refuse to give her to him as promised, he is forced to take her for himself. There is no suggestion of a love triangle with Cú Chulainn here, and Bláithine’s loyalty should be with her husband, whom she seems to have chosen for herself. What persuades her to act against him is Cú Chulainn telling her about “his doings for the sake of the Ulstermen and her father, in order that she would betray the man.” Cú Roí frequently opposes the Ulstermen, and Cú Chulainn appeals to Bláithine’s loyalty to her father and to her people, persuading her to work against their enemy, although he is also her husband. Bláithine’s conflicting loyalties and the tension between her love for her husband and her duty to her father give her story far more depth than motifs about treachery, unfaithful wives, and the wiles of women might suggest.

My next post will be the last in this series about Aided Chon Roí. Since, as far as I can tell, no translation of Version 2 of Aided Chon Roí has ever been published, I will provide one with minimal commentary.

Davies, Sioned, trans. 2007. The Mabinogion. 58. [↩]
The story of this siege appears in the short text Forfess Fer Fálgae “The siege of the men of Fálga,” an old and difficult text. I am not aware of any published translation of it. [↩]
In my translation of this text, which follows Thurneysen’s edition of the text, it is instead Cú Roí who declares his love for Bláithine. I discuss the question of the correct reading of this passage in an addendum to my translation. Ultimately, I believe that the correct reading is that Bláithine declares her love for Cú Roí, and not the other way around. [↩]

An Addendum to My Translation of Version 1 of Aided Chon Roí

Posted on December 4, 2024 by Anna June Pagé

While reading P.L. Henry’s 1995 edition and translation of Amrae Chon Roí, I noticed that in a footnote (180 n. 7) he suggests a different reading of a passage from Version 1 of Aided Chon Roí. The passage in question is close to the beginning of the text and it has a significant impact on our understanding of the relationship between Bláithine and Cú Roí.

Thurneysen gives the following reading of the passage:

Con·diacht (?) Bláithine ingin Conchobuir, conda·bert dia daim. Nos·car si ind ammait ⁊ in corrguinech Cú Roí mac Dáire.

He translated this passage into German as follows:

Er verlangte Blathine, Conchobar’s Tochter, und führte sie mit ihrem Willen weg. (Doch?) liebte sie der Hexenmeister und Zauberer Cú Roí, Dare’s Sohn.

I translated this passage into English as:

He asked for Bláithine daughter of Conchobar, and he brought her away by her consent. The witch and sorcerer Cú Roí son of Dáre loved her.

(The “he” in question here is Echde Echbél, who came to Emain Macha and asked that Bláithine be given to him.)

Henry, however, offers the following reading of these lines:

Con[d]ieth Blaithini, ingen Conchobuir. Con·epert dia daim: “Noch carus-[s]a in [n-] ammait ocus in corrguine[ch] Con Roi…”

He gives the following as a translation:

He brought away B., C.’s daughter. She said of her own accord: “But I have loved the wizard and sorcerer Cú Roí…”

The sense of the first few words remains the same – that Echde Echbél took Bláithine, Conchobar’s daughter, away from Emain Macha. In the next sentence, however, Bláithine either goes with Echde of her own free will, although Cú Roí loved her, OR Bláithine declares of her own free will her love for Cú Roí. This offers two very different perspectives on Bláithine’s relationships with Echde Echbél and with Cú Roí. So which is the correct reading?

R.I. Best produced the following transcription of the passage, in which he attempted to reproduce the text as it occurs in the manuscript without editorial interference:

conieth blaithine .ī. ɔcħ ɔdept̅ diadhaimh nō̇ carusa inamuψ ⁊ in corrguine ɔruio m̅ daire.

We are very fortunate that so many medieval Irish manuscripts are now digitized and freely available to view online. This text is found only in one manuscript, Egerton 88, where this passage occurs starting at the end of the second line in the first column of folio 10r. Looking at the manuscript, I have very little to add to Best’s transcription. He has used <h> in conieth, blaithine, and dhaimh where the manuscript uses the punctum delens (a dot above a letter), but that is an unambiguous symbol – an <ṁ> indicates a lenited m, pronounced something like English v, and the standard transcription for this is <mh>.

The first verb form in the manuscript is conieth. Thurneysen and Henry both insert a <d>. Thurneysen emends this to con·diacht and reads it as a form of con-dïeig “asks, seeks, demands.” Henry instead reads it as con·dieth and translates it as “brought away.” I am not certain which verb he had in mind here.

There are certainly forms of con·dïeig that show assimilation of the d to the preceding n, so things like condaigi and connaigi both exist, and the nn can be also simplified to a single n in forms like conatig and conaitech. Thurneysen’s reading here seems reasonable, although I do wonder if conieth could be a form of the verb con·éitet “goes with, accompanies, yields to.”

Regardless of the exact verb, the sense of the passage is clear. Bláithine is given to Echde and goes with him.

The next sentence or clause begins with a verb that Thurneysen takes as conda·bert and Henry as con·epert. Both start with co “so that, until” with following nasalization. Thurneysen gives the feminine infixed pronoun da next, and this is the object of the following verb, which is a form of the verb beirid “brings, carries, takes, etc.” Thus: “he brought her.” Given this reading, the following words dia daim “by her consent/assent/will” suggest that Echde took Bláithine and Bláithine was willing and agreed to this.

Henry instead reads the verb as epert, a form of the verb as·beir “speaks, says,” thus “she said of her own accord.” He takes the remainder of the sentence as direct speech, and it consists of Bláithine’s freely given declaration of her love for Cú Roí.

The manuscript here has ɔdept̅. The use of ɔ for con is standard, and the line over the t indicates the need to expand the word. Both Thurneysen and Henry expand –er– here. The question then is the –dep-. The use of p for b in Thurneysen’s reading is not a problem here, as this is not unusual and occurs again just a few lines after this, where the form as·mberar appears as amp̅ar, with the line over the p expanded as -er- again. For Thurneysen’s reading to be correct, we must take the e as an a. For Henry’s reading to be correct, we must explain the d. Henry ignores it, but one possibility is that it is a third singular neuter infixed pronoun. We might then translate cond·epert as “so that she said it.” Neuter infixed pronouns are often “fossilized,” however, meaning that they are present but no longer have any force or meaning and are best simply ignored in translation.

The following words can help with the determination of which of these two options is best. First the manuscript has nō̇, which Henry expands as noch “but, however, and yet” and Thurneysen as nos: the preverb no, used with imperfect verbs, and the feminine infixed pronoun s, indicating that “her,” Bláithine, is the object of the following verb. That verb is presented in the manuscript as carusa. Taken as is, we have caru, the first singular present indicative active of the verb caraid “to love,” with -sa the first singular emphasizing pronoun agreeing with the subject of the verb. This is how Henry reads this verb, and since a first person verb indicates direct speech, epert is a good reading for the preceding verb. Thurneysen instead emends carusa to car si, with car the preterite and perfect (or past tense) third singular of the verb and si the third singular feminine form of the emphasizing pronoun, here agreeing with the object of the verb. My inclination is to take the manuscript at face value, especially where the reading is so clear.

The crucial question, of course, is who is the subject of the verb “to love” and who is the object? Thurneysen takes Cú Roí as the subject and Bláithine as the object: Cú Roí loves Bláithine. Henry instead takes Bláithine as the subject (and speaker) and Cú Roí as the object: Bláithine loves Cú Roí. On this point, the manuscript is entirely clear: ɔruio must be read conruio, or Con Ruí, not Cú Roí. Cú is the nominative form, used to indicate subject, and Con is the accusative, used to indicate object. Con Roí cannot be the subject of the verb, and therefore this passage is telling us that Bláithine loved Cú Roí, and not the other way around. Of course, given that he twice pursued her, first to reclaim her from Echde Echbél and then to claim her from the Ulaid when they reneged on their promise to give her to him, it is safe to say that the feeling was mutual.

We could therefore translate the passage as follows:

He asked for Bláithine, daughter of Conchobar, and she said it of her own accord: “However, I love the sorcerer and magician Cú Roí.”

I do find it slightly strange that Bláithine is described as speaking with her own assent though. Here the manuscript again offers an alternative. Both Thurneysen and Henry emended the manuscript reading from dia dhaimh to dia daim. The difference between mh and m is merely a spelling variation. The difference between dh and d, however, is a grammatical one. In dia we have a form of the preposition de, di “from, etc.” with a possessive pronoun. If that pronoun is feminine, then we have “from her, by her” and dia daim is the correct reading. If, however, that pronoun is masculine, then we have “from his” and we would expect lenition on the following consonant: dia dhaim. Given that this is what the manuscript has, we might be better off reading this as “from his assent” or “according to his will.” We might then translate this passage as:

He asked for Bláithine, daughter of Conchobar, and she said (it): “According to his will. However, however I love the sorcerer and magician Cú Roí.”

That is, she will follow Echde’s will, but she loves Cú Roí. In the manuscript there are no quotation marks, and so it is for the editor to determine where the direct speech begins here. I do also think that if conieth is a form of con-éitet, then the following is also possible:

Bláithine, daughter of Conchobar, yielded (to him), and she said (it): “According to his will. However, I love the sorcerer and magician Cú Roí.”

In other versions of the text, Bláithine, elsewhere called Bláthnait, loves Cú Chulainn rather than Cú Roí, and he loves her in return – this is what drives her to help Cú Chulainn to kill Cú Roí. In this version, however, she does love Cú Roí, and Cú Chulainn gains her assistance by appealing to her loyalty to her father and to her people. This is only one sentence, but it is crucial to the plot and offers another significant difference between this story and other versions of Aided Chon Roí.

Cú Roí’s Soul in a Golden Apple

Posted on November 18, 2024 by Anna June Pagé

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.

“Aided Cheltchair maic Uthechair: hounds, heroes and hospitallers in early Irish myth and story,” Ériu 35 (1984): 8. [↩]
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”?

Posted on November 12, 2024 by Anna June Pagé

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.

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.
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.
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.
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 sí is used for these witches.
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. 120^a 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.

Borsje, Jacqueline. 2002. “The meaning of túathcháech in early Irish texts.” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 43 (Summer): 1-24. [↩]
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. [↩]

Derbriu and the Pigs of Derblinne

Posted on October 28, 2024 by Anna June Pagé

(In this post, I continue to link directly to the CODECS page for the texts that I discuss. Full bibliographical information for different editions and translations as well as other sources mentioned can be found there, along with direct links to online editions and translations, where available. Discussions of any particular Old/Middle Irish words will link directly to eDIL, the online edition of the Dictionary of the Irish Language.)

Medb, Queen of Connacht, is one of the most famous and important characters in the Ulster Cycle. Her extended family is also very important, although not quite so famous. Her father is Eochaid Feidlech, brother of the Eochaid Airem who marries Étaíne in Tochmarc Étaíne “The Wooing of Étaine.” She also has numerous siblings, although some are mentioned more often than others. The three Find Emna, Eithne, and Clothra are fairly well-known because they and their children play important roles in other stories, but additional siblings are sometimes mentioned, including in the text known both as Ferchuitred Medba “The Husband Portion of Medb”¹ and Cath Boinde “The Battle of the Boyne.” Cath Boinde was edited and translated in 1906 by Joseph O’Neill. Ferchuitred Medba was edited in 1913 by Kuno Meyer, but not translated.

The story starts with Eochaid Feidlech taking the kingship of Ireland. There is some discussion of his ancestry, and then his children are listed. First, we are told that he has four sons. The three Find Emna (who seem to be triplets) are named first, and we are given a brief summary of how they conceived Lugaid Ríab nDerg (Lugaid of the Red Stripes) with their sister the night before they attacked their father in the battle of Druim Criaid, during which they were killed by him. Which sister is not specified, but Clothra is named in other accounts of Lugaid’s conception. The fourth brother is Conall Anglonnach, and we are told that he is the ancestor of the Uí Conaill in the land of Fer Brega. The text then says that Eochaid Feidlech had many children and goes on to list six daughters. First is Ele, after whom Bríg Ele in Leinster is named. We are told of her marriages and her son Máta mac Sraibgend and grandson Ailill mac Máta. Mugain is listed next as wife of Conchobar and mother of Glasne mac Conchobar. Next Eithne is described as wife of Conchobar and mother of Furbaide mac Conchobar. The story of Furbaide’s birth is told, including how Eithne drowned and Glas Berramain was renamed for her. Clothra is next, and we are told that she is mother of Cormac Conn Longes, unless Ness, mother of Conchobar is. Conchobar is not mentioned here, but we know that Cormac is his son. The fifth sister is Derbriu “after whom are named the pigs of Derblinne.” Finally, Medb is named and identified as another wife of Conchobar, and we are told how she left him because of pride and went to Tara to join the king, her father.

Each of the siblings is associated with their husbands, children, and/or descendants, except for Derbriu. The main point of this passage is to point out that four of Eochaid Feidlech’s six daughters were given to Conchobar in marriage, and the story goes on to explain why: Eochaid Feidlech killed Conchobar’s father Fachtna Fathach in battle and gave his daughters to Conchobar as restitution. Ele and Derbriu alone are not given to Conchobar, but Ele was married twice, and her story is still important for this text because she is the grandmother of Ailill, who is Medb’s final husband. Derbriu alone is introduced in a way that is disconnected from concerns about family and genealogy and from the main narrative of the text.

Also, what is the story behind the pigs of Derblinne being named after Derbriu?

I didn’t know anything about it when I first came across this reference, and finding the answer was quite interesting, so I thought I would share what I learned. Of course I went straight to Google to find out about these pigs, and once I had convinced Google that I was indeed searching for “pigs of Derblinne” and NOT “pigs of Dublin,” as it seemed convinced I intended, I didn’t find much at all. I was reading Kuno Meyer’s edition of Ferchuitred Medba at the time, but had I instead been reading Joseph O’Neill’s edition and translation of the Cath Boinde version of the text, I might have done a bit better. For one thing, that text refers to the “pigs of Deirbriu” rather than the “pigs of Derblinne,” which gets more hits on Google, but more importantly O’Neill provides the following explanatory note about these pigs and Deirbriu herself:

“For these pigs, see LL. 165 a 35, 167 a 30, Rennes Dind., p. 47 (Stokes’ Ed.). They were the sons of Oengus mac Ind Óc, and the foster-children of Deirbriu. They seem to be connected with the fairy pigs (of the Firbolg?) which came out of Croghan, and which no one could count. The Manners and Customs of Hy Fiachra, p. 26, contain verses ascribed to Torna Eigeas, and addressed to the great red pillar-stone at Roilig-na-riog, stating that under it lie the three sons of Eochaid, and their sister ‘Derbriu Dreac-maith’.” (177nf)

By “The Manners and Customs of Hy Fiachra,” O’Neill seems to mean the text from the
Book of Lecan edited and translated by John O’Donovan in The Genealogies, Tribes, and Customs of Hy-Fiachrach, Commonly Called O’Dowda’s Country (1844).² There, on p. 27 and 29 (Irish text p. 26 and 28) can be found the following verses, as translated by O’Donovan:

The three sons of Eochaidh Feidhleach, the fair,
Are in thy mound, as I boast,
As also is Eochaidh Aireamh feeble,
Having been slain by the great Maol.

The prince Eochaidh Feidhleach is
Beneath thee, and Derbhre of goodly aspect,
And Clothra, no small honour to thee,
And Meadhbh, and Muireasg.

O’Donovan identifies this Muireasg as “daughter of Hugony Mor, monarch of Ireland. A.M. 3619,”³ but given the placement of this name at the end two quatrains about the family of Eochaid Feidlech, I do wonder if this might instead be connected to Ailill or his mother Máta Muiresc. While Ferchuitred Medba says that Ailill has a patronym and his father is Máta mac Sraibgend, other texts disagree. Goire Conaill Chernaig i Crúachain ocus Aided Ailella ocus Conaill Chernaig states that Ailill has a matronym and his mother was Máta Muiresc. Interesting as these verses are though, they say nothing of Derbriu’s pigs.

To answer the question of “what (or who) are the pigs of Derblinne?” we must turn to the dindshenchas. The Dindshenchas Érenn “Dindshenchas of Ireland” is a very large and complex corpus consisting of different collections of both prose and verse (or metrical) items. Each item or “article” is a story explaining how a different place received its name and is called the Dindshenchas of that place, i.e. the Dindshenchas of Emain Macha explains how Emain Macha got its name. Some articles also contain information about what the place was named before, and some offer different stories about the current place name. The relationship between the different collections is complex, to say the least. Charles Bowen’s article “A historical inventory of the Dindshenchas” has been a significant and very helpful piece of scholarship since its publication in 1975/6, but we now have the wonderful new book Dindshenchas Érenn (2023) by Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, which I cannot recommend enough. A full study of all the references to the pigs of Derblinne in all the different versions of the dindshenchas would be fascinating, because there are certainly some differences between the prose and metrical passages that refer to them. For the moment though, I will mostly refer to the prose Rennes dindshenchas, which was edited and translated by Whitley Stokes in 1895 and 1896. This collection is called the Rennes dindshenchas because the manuscript in which it is found is in a library in Rennes.

The main story is found in the Dindshenchas of Duma Selga (#71 p. 471 in Stokes’ edition). It tells us that Derbrenn (a different form of the name Derbriu) was the first love of Óengus, of Aislinge Óenguso “The Dream of Óengus” fame. Óengus is a prominent member of the Túatha Dé Danann, the son of the Dagda and Boand, and in Aislinge Óenguso he requires Medb’s help in winning another woman, Cáer Iboromeith. There is no mention of Derbriu in that text. The Dindshenchas of Duma Selga says that the pigs were Derbrenn’s foster children. Their mother was Dalb Garb “Dalb the Rough” and she put a spell on her three sons and their wives to transform them into pigs. Her motivation for doing this is not stated. The sons were called Conn, Find, and Fland when they were human, and their wives were called Mel, Tregh, and Tréis. When they were transformed into pigs, the men were called Froechán, Banbán, and Brogarbán and the women were called Cráinchrín, Coelchéis, and Treilech. Óengus arranged for the pigs to be put into the care of Buchet, the hospitaller of Leinster, who is the subject of the story Esnada Tige Buchet “The Songs of Buchet’s House.” The pigs remained with Buchet for a year, but then Buchet’s wife decided that she wanted to eat Brogarbán. She gathered dogs and warriors and went to hunt him, but the pigs escaped and fled to Óengus at the Brugh (na Bóinne), known to be his home in other stories, including Tochmarc Étaine and Aislinge Óenguso.

Óengus tells the pigs that he cannot help them until they have “shaken the Tree of Tarbga and eaten the salmon of Inver Umaill,” and so they go on to Derbrenn in Glascarn and hide with her for a year. They shake the Tree of Tarbga, but when they go to Inver Umail they are hunted again. This time it is not Buchet’s wife who comes after them though, it is Medb. During the hunt all the pigs are killed except for Brogarbán. It’s not clear what happens to him. It’s possible that Medb hunting these pigs is why O’Neill suggested the connection with the pigs of the Cave of Crúachan (Croghan), which she also hunts. In the account of that hunt in Cath Maige Mucrama “The Battle of Mag Mucrama” though, there is no suggestion that these are the same pigs and they are very specifically uncountable, whereas there are definitely six of the pigs of Derblinne. The Dindshenchas of Mag Mucrama (#71, p. 470), which tells the same story also does not connect the pigs at Mag Mucrama to the pigs of Derblinne.

There are a few other references to these pigs in the dindshenchas. The Dindshenchas of Loch Néill (#73, p. 473) is about Niall son of Enna Aignech who was the leader of brigands in the time of Conall Cromderg. He went hunting the pigs of Drebrenn (yet another spelling!), which are said to have come out of the síd of Collomair. He eventually found them in the forest of Tarbga (trying to shake a tree, no doubt). The pigs were then hunted until they came to a lake where Niall and his dogs drowned, thus the lake received the name Loch Néill. The version given in the metrical dindshenchas is a bit more exciting and makes more direct reference to Drebrenn’s involvement here. In Gwynn’s translation:

Drebrenn out of her evil heart sent
a baneful drove in the shapes of red swine:
from Collomair — a noisy strife —
the hoary-bristled drove held its way.

The pigs later go on to eat the mast of the oakwood of Tarbga before moving on to drink from the lake. Here it seems that Drebrenn deliberately sent the pigs out to destroy Niall (Nel, in this version).

The Dindshenchas of Mag Corainn (# 77, p. 477) says that Corann was the harper of Dían Cecht, son of the Dagda, and that Corann or Mag Corainn was named for him, but it also says that the place was named Céis Coroinn after Coelchéis, the fifth of Drebrenn’s swine, who reached that place when they were being hunted and died there. The Edinburgh dindshenchas, which combines prose with poetry, links the two stories though, saying again that Corann was Dían Cecht’s harper, but also that “out of his harp he summoned Caelcheis, one of the swine of Drebrenn. Northwards it ran with (all) their strength of running, their hounds following them as far as Céis Coraind.”

Finally, there is the interesting case of the Dindshenchas of Belach Conglais (# 35, p. 421), in which Glas, master of the hounds to Eterscél and his son, Conaire Mór, hunts a wild pig. Glas, his hounds, and the pig are all killed at a certain pass (belach) which is then named after them. There is no mention here of the pigs of Derblinne, but as Stokes points out in his note on this article, the metrical version of the Dindshenchas of Belach Conglais is different. In the metrical version, according to Stokes “it appears that there were more pigs than one, that they were fashioned by magic (mucca delbda druidechta), and that, in fact they were the Red Swine of Drebrenn (mucca derga Drebrinne).” Just as the independent narrative texts don’t have all the answers, neither does any particular version of the dindshenchas. Only by consulting all versions of all of these different stories can we begin to approach a sense of Derbriu’s story, and the same can be said of the Ulster Cycle as a whole.

One of the things I find fascinating about all of this is that from a single reference to the pigs of Derblinne in Ferchuitred Medba/Cath Boinde, we find a whole complex of related texts by simply following the narrative thread from the Dindshenchas of Duma Selga to Aislinge Óenguso and Esnada Tige Buchet, and other dindshenchas including those of Belach Conglais, Loch Néill, and Mag Coroinn, and maybe even Cath Maige Mucrama, if we accept O’Neill’s suggestion that these are the pigs that came out of the Cave of Crúachan (although I don’t think I would at this stage). Of course, if one’s starting point is the dindshenchas instead of Ferchuitred Medba, then that very elliptical reference to this narrative complex no doubt seems perfectly clear. In Dindshenchas Érenn, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf provides an appendix linking independent narrative texts to Dindshenchas tales. She says that “It is not to be viewed with any claim to completeness, but rather as a call to arms to investigate these literary connections further” (122). In the story of the pigs of Derblinne (or Deirbriu or Derbrenn or Drebrenn) we get just a hint of the richness and complexity of these connections, and of just how much more there is for us to discover.

Next week I will be starting a series of posts about the earliest version of Aided Chon Roí “The Violent Death of Cú Roí.” There are a few English translations of the later and longer version of the story, but as far as I can tell no English translation of the earlier version has ever been made available. My first post will provide a translation of the text, and then I’ll have a few posts discussing certain aspects of it that I find particularly interesting.

This title is usually translated into English as “Medb’s Husband Allowance,” but I do not believe that the word allowance is correct here. An allowance is something that is permitted or given, but for the most part Medb chooses her own husbands. eDIL s.v. ferchuitred suggests that “proportion” and “complement” might be possible interpretations of this word. The word is a compound of fer “man, husband” and cuitred, which eDIL says is close in meaning to cuit “share, part, portion.” I think that Medb having a portion or share of husbands makes more sense than her having an allowance of husbands. [↩]
The translation can be found online here courtesy of CELT (the Corpus of Electronic Texts) at University College Cork. [↩]
A.M. = Anno Mundi, a system of time keeping that counts from the Creation rather than the birth of Christ. [↩]

Athirne and the Hoarding of Resources in Talland Étair

Posted on October 21, 2024 by Anna June Pagé

“They were in Étar for nine days then without food or drink, unless they drank the brine of the sea or ate the clay. But Athirne had seven hundred cows. That is, there were white, red‐eared cows in the middle of the fort, and neither a man nor a boy of the Ulstermen tasted a drop of their milk because it was poured over the cliff so that not one of them would experience the taste of Athirne’s food. And the severely wounded men were carried to him, and not a drop was allowed into their heads, so that they died alone from bloody sickness. And the nobles of the Ulstermen used to go to him to beg for a drink for Conchobar, but he refused.”

This is my translation of a passage from Talland Étair “The Siege of Étar” (or Howth, in English), a text that is, in my opinion, very underappreciated. This passage occurs when the men of Ulster are besieged in Étar by the Leinstermen because of Athirne’s actions during the earlier part of the story. If this is your first encounter with Athirne and you’re wondering if it’s ok to hate him already without learning more about him, it absolutely is. He does not get better upon further acquaintance. This is just one of the awful things he does, and a lot of the story of Talland Étair is about the suffering he causes. This passage is a brutally direct description of the devastating consequences of allowing one individual to control and restrict access to a resource that should be used for the benefit of all, and it resonates as much today as I’m sure it did a thousand years ago.

Talland Étair is one of my favourite texts, but it has been generally neglected and was also quite ill-served by most of its editors and translators until recently. The first edition and translation was produced by Whitley Stokes and published in 1887. Unfortunately, Stokes chose to leave out several passages which he felt were not originally part of the text, one of which is a long poetic passage in which the woman satirist Leborcham reports the events of the siege to the women of Ulster. Eleanor Hull later reworked Stokes’ translation in 1889. It wasn’t until 1949 that Margaret Dobbs edited and translated the missing passage about Leborcham, although as the text’s most recent editor, Caoimhín Ó Dónaill, says, the value of Dobbs’ edition is undermined by misreadings of the manuscript and a translation that “is barely related to the text in places.” Frank O’Connor produced a translation of part of the text in 1967, but only part, because he felt that the rest of the text wasn’t worthwhile. (This is putting it mildly. He seems to have hated the first part of the text and thought its author entirely incompetent.) Patrick K. Ford included a translation of the text in his 1999 book The Celtic Poets, which incorporated the Leborcham material, and so a full translation was finally available over a century after Stokes’ original work. In 2005, Ó Dónaill’s new edition and translation of the text was published and offered a much better representation of the full text and a more useful and balanced discussion of its content. This edition was published by the Department of Old and Middle Irish of the National University of Ireland Maynooth and is still available for purchase from curach bhán. Unfortunately, like other publications in this series, the book is of somewhat poor physical quality with small print on slightly shiny paper, which reduces legibility, and some of the volumes also suffer from insecure bindings. Of course, no digital version is available, and so the full text remains inaccessible to anyone who uses a screen reader or simply can’t get a physical copy of the book. This is a shame, because it really is a wonderful text to read in its entirety and the passage with Leborcham’s report on the siege only serves to reinforce and enhance the description of the horrors of the siege expressed in the passage above.

Before I discuss that passage and Athirne’s behaviour, I should give a summary of the story.

There is an Ulster poet called Athirne who is a genuinely awful human being. He is so awful that Conchobar, king of Ulster, convinces him to leave Ulster and go on a tour of Ireland and bother everyone else for a while. Athirne goes off and makes an absolute pest of himself in Connacht, Munster, and Leinster. In the south of Connacht he meets the king Echu son of Luchta and demands that he give Athirne his eye, which Echu does after plucking it out of his own head. In Munster he demands to be allowed to sleep with the wife of the king Tigernach Tétbuillech in spite of the fact that she is not only pregnant but in active labour! Athirne is a truly nasty piece of work and next he decides to deliberately instigate war between Ulster and Leinster by insulting the Leinstermen so much that they kill will him and the Ulstermen will be forced to avenge him. He demands a treasure from the king Fergus Fairrce son of Nuadu Necht, and when he receives that he goes on to torment another Leinster king, Mess Gegra. He demands to sleep with Mess Gegra’s wife, threatening the vengeance of the Ulstermen if Mess Gegra does not comply. Mess Gegra allows this but makes it clear that this is for the sake of his own honour and not out of fear of the Ulstermen. Athirne then spends a year in Leinster before leaving for Ulster with 150 of the wives of Leinster noblemen. Athirne knows that as soon as he leaves Leinster and forfeits the protections he has enjoyed (and abused) as a guest, the Leinstermen will come after him (and who could blame them?) and so he summons the Ulstermen to meet him at the border. I can’t imagine that they were happy about this.

The Ulstermen lose the battle that takes place then and they retreat to Étar, where they are besieged in the wretched conditions described above. During the siege, Leborcham comes each day to provide supplies for Conchobar. She also reports back to the women of Ulster to tell them what the men are suffering but also to reassure them that those who still live will soon return. After the nine days of the siege, reinforcements arrive from Ulster and the Leinstermen are routed. The survivors then return home, except for Conall Cernach who stays behind when the rest of the Ulstermen leave. He instead pursues Mess Gegra because he holds him responsible for the deaths of his brothers, Mess Dead and Lóegaire, during the battle. Before Conall catches up to him, Mess Gegra has a strange dispute about a nut with his charioteer which results in the charioteer cutting of Mess Gegra’s arm and then killing himself. Conall finds Mess Gegra and confronts him and they fight, with Conall tying one arm to his side so that, like Mess Gegra, he only has one working arm during their combat. Conall wins, but before dying Mess Gegra tells him that once Conall has beheaded him, he should place his head on top of his own to gain Mess Gegra’s honour. Conall Cernach realizes this is a trick and instead places the head on a nearby pillar stone, which is pierced by a drop of corrosive blood and then knocked over by the force of a blow from the head. Conall then encounters Mess Gegra’s wife, Búan, and demands that she come with him. She asks to first be allowed to lament her husband, and then drops dead on the spot. She is buried there, and Conall finds that Mess Gegra’s head can no longer be moved. The brain is removed and brought back to Ulster, where it is eventually used to kill Conchobar. The end!

My initial interest in this text was in the death of Mess Gegra. I was working on what eventually became two articles about his death and the further adventures of his head and brain. The first of these articles, “Dangerous Heads and Posthumous Revenge: Some Parallels for the Death of Mess Gegra in Talland Étair” was published in Celtica in 2022 and the second is forthcoming. I was really struck by the passage describing the siege and Athirne’s hoarding though because it is such a powerful and incisive depiction of the inequality and injustice that inevitably follow when control over essential resources is given to only a few individuals. There are a lot of ways of responding to and thinking about Athirne’s behaviour throughout the text, but especially in this passage, which so starkly contrasts his wealth and wastefulness with the suffering and deprivation of the Ulstermen .

This passage certainly elicits a strong emotional response of horror and sadness and anger. It’s upsetting to think of anyone in these terrible conditions, but these are familiar characters, including Cú Chulainn. It’s not clear exactly which of the Ulstermen are present during the siege and which come later to provide support and break the siege, but among those present are certainly characters that we like and care for and we are of course upset to imagine them suffering in this way. This is one of the reasons that I think the Leborcham passage that Stokes rejected works so well in the fuller context of the tale. It comes when the battle has ended and the Ulstermen have suffered heavy losses but ultimately defeated the Leinstermen. Leborcham goes to Ulster ahead of them and tells the story of the siege and battle to the women of Ulster, who are anxiously waiting to hear which of their husbands and sons and brothers and fathers have survived and which have not. Leborcham tells them who lives and who doesn’t, but also describes the terrible conditions that they have survived, saying: “I have seen it there. The Ulstermen found clay which they licked, as the honey-desirer licks honey.¹ It destroys us. The brine of the great sea satisfies us, it receded across fury (?).”² The thought of the women of Ulster hearing this as they learn of the loss of so many of their loved ones is terribly sad. And who is to blame for all of this? Athirne, of course.

Not only did Athirne deliberately instigate the conflict that led to the siege, he then sits in the middle of that siege with 700 cows and orders that their milk be poured out every day. How can we not be angry? This goes well beyond selfishness. It’s not like he’s just hoarding resources for his own use, which would be bad enough. Here he’s intentionally destroying resources (milk) in order to increase the suffering of the very men who came to save him. What kind of person does this? The exact kind of person who insists on having sex with a woman while she is giving birth and demands that a man rip out his own eye. And we can think “why is this allowed to happen?” and talk about rules of hospitality and the power of poets in medieval Ireland, but in the modern world grocery stores and restaurants regularly throw away or destroy food rather than giving it to those in need, artificial shortages of medications and other important goods cause suffering all over the world, and relentless and deliberate waste still co-exists with appalling levels of deprivation. “Why is this allowed to happen?” is very much the right question, but clearly not one that we have a good answer for. Not everyone sees the value of studying medieval literature, but just a few lines of this medieval Irish story have expressed in a crystal clear and viscerally impactful way a truth about the modern world, and exposed how long this kind of injustice has been recognized and yet not addressed.

How would the original audience have understood this passage? It’s clearly a condemnation of Athirne’s cruelty and his abuses of his power and privilege. Is it more than that? Is it more broadly a commentary on the unchecked power of the poet? That’s one reading, but I think we have to consider Leborcham’s role in this text again. Like Athirne, she is a poet who is close to the king. In fact, the passage immediately following the one that I began with describes how Leborcham brings supplies to Conchobar every day and her general service to him.

“This is how Conchobar was supplied: the girl would bring it on her back from Emain Macha regularly in the evening. It is she, Leborcham, who would bring it. There were a male and a female slave in the house of Conchobar, and she is the child that was born to them, the girl Leborcham. The form of the girl was misshapen, that is, her two feet and her two knees were behind her, and the backs of her two thighs and her two heels were in front of her. It is she who used to traverse Ireland in a single day. Everything of good and of evil that was done in Ireland, she would report it to Conchobar in the Cráebrúad at the end of the day. Her little loaf, which was the size of sixty loaves, would be placed before her at the head of the fire, alongside her portion with the host. It was she, then, who carried his portion to Conchobar on her back from Emain Macha.”

I could (and perhaps will) write a whole other post contrasting the figures of Athirne and Leborcham, but it is clear that although they come from very different positions, they have achieved a similar status. There are poems in Tochmarc Lúaine ocus Aided Athairne “The Wooing of Luaine and the Violent Death of Athirne” that have yet to be fully translated and which describe Leborcham (or two different Leborchams, to be accurate). They make it clear that she holds a high position in spite of being born to slaves, is physically distorted in various ways, and consumes what might be considered more than her fair share of food, as we see also in this passage from Talland Étair. Athirne isn’t actually consuming what he takes though, he merely prevents others from having it. His is basically a protection racket. If he is paid off, he will leave people in peace. Until the next time, of course. Or unless he just feels like enjoying the suffering of others. Leborcham, in contrast, provides an actual service. Never think that she is a tame poet though. It is always made clear that she comes and goes as she pleases, even against Conchobar’s wishes in Longes mac nUislenn “The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu,” and the fact that she is able to come and go during the siege at Étar demonstrates this again.

There’s another important aspect of Athirne’s actions to consider here, and that is his stated motivation for pouring the milk of his cows away. He very specifically does not want to share what he has. He does not want others to have the experience of tasting his food. That belongs to him and him alone. There are other stories about Athirne and his hoarding behaviour. A short text called Athirne Ailgessach has been translated by John Carey in The Celtic Heroic Age under the title “Athirne’s Greediness” and by Ford in The Celtic Poets as “Athirne the Insistent.” There we learn that Athirne refused to eat where others could see him but instead would take his food elsewhere. A kind of jealous hoarding, sometimes at the expense of others, is not atypical of poets, but usually what they are hoarding is their skill and knowledge. (Do I have thoughts about the hoarding of knowledge and the state of academic publishing? Yes, yes I do.) In a story known as “Athirne and Amairgen,” also translated in both The Celtic Heroic Age and The Celtic Poets, when Athirne learns of the boy Amairgen who appears to have great wisdom, he feels threatened and tries to kill him. He is then forced by the Ulstermen to pay reparations for this, and he also takes the boy into fosterage to teach him. Amairgen then supplants Athirne as chief poet of Ulster. In one of the poems in Tochmarc Lúaine, Leborcham herself is said to give birth to nine children each year, but she kills them immediately so that they cannot usurp her position.

“A birthing of nine children was what she bore
each ever-bright year
to the son of Errgind Illdathach,
to the steward of Conchobar.
From the womb they roared,
from her speckled, pus-filled womb.
She crushed them under her thighs,
she beat them with her hand-striking,
her horrible, baneful children,
so that they did not gain the authority
of the function of messenger,
from the fully-active Leborcham,
messenger of the province of Conchobar.”³

If we look just a bit to the east, we can consider the Welsh story of Gwion Bach and Taliesin, also translated by Ford in both The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales and The Celtic Poets. As the boy Gwion Bach, he steals the gift of knowledge that the witch Ceridwen had intended for her son. Reborn as the poet Taliesin, he taunts the court poets of Maelgwn Gwynedd, depriving them of their ability to speak and mocking them for not knowing the things that he does. It is not enough to simply know. These poets want to know what others don’t know, to be known to possess this secret knowledge, and to prevent others from gaining it whenever possible. Knowledge is not diminished when shared, but they behave as if it is a finite resource and guard it jealously. It isn’t about the knowledge. It’s about the power (and profit) gained by the exclusive ownership of knowledge. (Again, the state of academic publishing is a disgrace.)

A final thought on reading Athirne’s actions here, in the tiny microcosm of society that exists during the siege of Étar: for a society to function, resources must flow and remain in circulation. This applies to knowledge, but also to actual physical resources. Here, Athirne stops that flow. He holds back or redirects the flow of milk, a liquid needed to sustain life in this situation. In his 1963 article “Structural Typology in North American Indian Folktales,”⁴ Alan Dundes pointed out that many of these folktales are centred on the movement from a state of disequilibrium to a state of equilibrium. Disequilibrium usually consists of a lack or surplus of something, and often takes the form of hoarded resources. Dundes describes “hoarded object tales” in which resources such as “game, fish, flood-plants, water, tides, seasons, sun, light, fire, and so forth are not available to the majority of mankind or to most members of a tribe” (122). He also comments on a type of story called “The Release of Impounded Water,” in which a monster “keeps back all the water in the world” and must be slain in order for the waters to be released (123). This is a type of story known in many cultures. In the Into-European world the most famous example is no doubt that of the Vedic story of the serpent Vr̥tra, who holds back the waters and must be killed by the god Indra in order to allow the waters to flow again and thus restore equilibrium. What we find during the siege of Étar is an extreme state of disequilibrium. Rather than killing Athirne to allow resources to flow correctly again, instead it is the Ulstermen themselves who must be released from their containment in order to restore equilibrium. Killing Athirne wouldn’t have ended the siege, of course, that required collective activity from both the Ulstermen at Étar and those who came to help them, but it certainly would have alleviated the suffering experienced during those nine days of drinking brine and eating clay. The thematic similarities between stories of poets hoarding knowledge and other resources and the dragons and serpents and monsters who hold back water from the world are certainly worth further thought.

Don’t worry about Athirne, by the way. He comes to a very sticky end, although not before doing more irreparable harm. When Conchobar decides to marry a woman called Luaine, Athirne and his sons insist that she sleep with them. When she refuses, they satirize her, causing physical blemishes and her death of shame. This, finally, is enough for the Ulstermen to decide that Athirne’s continued existence no longer has any value. When Conchobar asks how Athirne should be punished, the Ulstermen make it clear that they have not forgotten their past troubles. “The nobles of the Ulstermen said that this is the vengeance that would be fitting: to kill Athirne along with his children and his people. ‘Many times’, they said, ‘the Ulstermen have found shame in battle because of him’.” Collectively, the Ulstermen decide that Athirne must die, and this as at least in part motivated by his actions in Talland Étair. They pursue him and wall him up inside his home with his children and household, then they burn his fortress down around him. His daughters and household did not deserve this, but the blame is entirely Athirne’s, and he certainly had it coming.

Next week’s post will consider the crucial interconnectedness of independent narrative prose texts and materials like the dindshenchas by exploring the story of Medb’s little-known sister Derbriu and the pigs of Derblinne.

Milchobar, a compound of mil “honey” and cobar “desirer, one who desires” is a poetic expression meaning “bear.” [↩]
Ó Dónaill doesn’t translate the last part of this line and Dobbs’ translation is spotty and unclear. The end of the line is tethrag tar cutig. I take tethrag to be a form of traigid “ebbs, recedes; causes to ebb; retreats, diminishes, exhausts” and cutig to be a form of cuthach “rage, fury, madness.” Tar is quite flexible, but across or past or beyond could make some sense here, perhaps conveying the sense that the need to drink the brine of the sea has robbed them of their war-fury? I would be very happy to hear anyone else’s thoughts on this! [↩]
My translation based on the 1980 edition of Liam Breatnach [↩]
Dundes, Alan. 1963. “Structural Typology in North American Indian Folktales,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 19/1: 121-130. [↩]

Reading the Ulster Cycle

(And Other Interesting Things)

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