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

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. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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