Tag Archives: Bláithine

Cú Roí Tricked into Revealing the Secret of His External Soul

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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.

  1. Davies, Sioned, trans. 2007. The Mabinogion. 58. [↩]
  2. 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. [↩]
  3. 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

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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