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

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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.

  1. 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. [↩]
  2. 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). [↩]
  3. 2015. “The Greek Mythic Story World.” Arethusa 48 no. 3 (Fall), 293. [↩]

Reading the Ulster Cycle: A Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. Mallory, J. P. and Ruairí Ó hUiginn. 1994. “The Ulster Cycle: A Check List of Translations”. In J. P. Mallory and Gerard Stockman (eds) Ulidia: Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales. Belfast: December Publications. 291-303. [↩]
  2. The “lore of places.” The are several large collections of dindshenchas in both poetic and prose form. [↩]