The Women of The Táin Bó Cúailnge

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18 The Women of The Táin Bó Cúailnge

“Probably the greatest achievement of the Táin and the Ulster cycle is the series of women, some in full scale and some in miniature, on whose strong and diverse personalities the action continually turns: Medb, Derdriu, Macha, Nes, Aife. It may be as goddess-figures, ultimately, that these women have their power; it is certainly they, under all the violence, who remain most real in the memory” (Kinsella’s “Introduction” to The Táin Bó Cúailnge).

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Heinrich Zimmer saw the pillow-talk which gives rise to the Táin as a conflict between Celtic-Aryan father-dominance and the mother-dominance of the pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles.

Scáthach

Cuchulainn trained in battlecraft by three women, each more extraordinary than the one before. The god of war, mentioned briefly in the Tain, is put in the shade by the three goddesses of war, who regularly make the scene and stir things up. (One of these, Badb, is mentioned in the description of Cuchulainn’s warp-spasm.)

“They went down into the sea to drown each other, and the boy submerged him twice. Then Cúchulainn turned and played the boy foul in the water with the gae bolga, that Scáthach had taught to no one but him. He sent it speeding over the water at him and brought his bowels down around his feet. ‘There is something Scáthach didn’t teach me,’ the boy said. ‘You have wounded me woefully.’ ‘I have,’ Cúchulainn said.

Aife and Cuchulainn

‘Look! Oh, look!’ Cúchulainn said. ‘Aife’s charioteer and her two horses and the chariot have fallen into the valley! They are all dead!’ Aife looked round and Cúchulainn leaped at her and seized her by the two breasts.

He took her on his back like a sack, and brought her back to his own army.

He threw her heavily to the ground and held a naked sword over her.

‘A life for a life, Cúchulainn!’ Aife said.

‘Grant me three desires,’ he said.

‘What you can ask in one breath you may have,’ she said.

‘My three desires,’ he said, ‘are: hostages for Scáthach, and never attack her again; your company tonight at your own fort; and bear me a son.’

‘I grant all you ask,’ she said.

Cúchulainn went and slept the night with Aife.

Soon Aife said she was with child and would bear a boy.

‘This day seven years I will send him to Ireland,’ she said. ‘But leave a name for him.’

Cúchulainn left him a gold thumb-ring and told her the boy was to come to Ireland to find him when his finger had grown to fit the ring. The name he gave him was Connla. He said Connla was to reveal this name to no man, that he must make way for no man, and refuse no man combat. . . .

Long story, short: When Cúchulainn’s son returns, Cúchulainn does not recognize him. They engage in battle, initiated by Connla, and Cúchulainn ends up killing his son.

Emer and Cuchulainn

Excerpt from Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization:

There is recorded in another story of the Tain cycle this conversation between the boy Cuchulainn, the Irish Achilles, and Emer, the girl he comes to woo:

[Emer] “May your road be blessed!” cries Emer on his approach.

[Cuchulainn] “May the apple of your eye see only good,” returns Cuchulainn. Then, peering down her dress:

“I see a sweet country. I could rest my weapon there.”

[Narrator] The tasks the hero must perform before this sweet country is open to him are laid out by Emer herself-not by her father, as would be the case in a continental fairy tale:

[Emer] “No man will travel this country until he has killed a hundred men at every ford from Scenmenn ford on the river Ailbine, to Banchuing where the frothy Brea makes Fedelm leap.”

[Cuchulainn] “In that sweet country I’ll rest my weapon.”

[Emer] “No man will travel this country until he has done the feat of the salmon-leap carrying twice his weight in gold, and struck down three groups of nine men with a single stroke, leaving the middle man of each nine unharmed.”

[Cuchulainn] “In that sweet country I’ll rest my weapon.”

[Emer] “No man will travel this country who hasn’t gone sleepless from Samain [Hallowe’en], when summer goes to its rest, until Imbolc [Candlemas or Groundhog Day], when the ewes are milked at spring’s beginning; from Imbolc to Beltaine [May Day] at the summer’s beginning and from Beltaine to Bron Trogain, earth’s sorrowing autumn.”

[Cuchulainn] “It is said and done.”

“Exile of the Sons of Uisliu /Ishlu/”: The story of Deirdriu and Noisu

Deirdriu of the Sorrows Barbie Doll — Deirdriu of the Sorrows

Excerpt from Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization:

Deirdriu of the Sorrows passes Noisiu on the rampart of Emain Macha [see photo at bottom of page], the chief seat of the Ulster kings. They have never seen each other before. Of Derdriu, the king’s druid, Cathbad, had prophesied that High queens will ache with envy to see those lips of Parthian-red opening on her pearly teeth, and see her pure perfect body. Though Noisiu knows that she is pledged to the old king and that there is a curse on her, he cannot help himself:

[Noisu] “That is a fine heifer going by.”

[Deirdriu] “As well it might,” Derdriu shoots back. “The heifers grow big where there are no bulls.”

[Noisiu] “You have the bull of this province all to yourself-the king of Ulster.”

[Deirdriu] “Of the two, I’d pick a game young bull like you.”

Guess what happens next.

Derdriu, pledged to Conchobor [/Con-r/], the Ulster king, runs off with Noisiu and his brothers–the sons of Uisliu–only to be tracked down and recaptured, as Noisiu is slain. Though she submits to Conchobor, Derdriu never smiles again.

Here is part of Derdriu’s lament for Noisiu, spoken to the royal musicians who had come to cheer her up:

Sweet in your sight the fiery stride

of raiding men returned to Emain.

More nobly strode the three proud

sons of Uisliu toward their home:

Noisiu bearing the best mead

–I would wash him by the fire—

Ardan, with a stag or a boar,

Anle, shouldering his load.

The son of Nes [i.e., King Conchobor], battle-proud,

drinks, you say, the choicest mead.

Choicer still–a brimming sea—

I have taken frequently.

Modest Noisiu would prepare

a cooking-pit in the forest floor.

Sweeter then than any meat

the son of Uisliu’s, honey sweet.

Though for you the times are sweet

with pipers and with trumpeters,

I swear today I can’t forget

that I have known far sweeter airs.

. . . .

Noisiu: his grave-mound is made

and mournfully accompanied.

The highest hero–and I poured

the deadly drink when he died.

His cropped gold fleece I loved,

and fine form–a tall tree.

Alas, I needn’t watch today,

nor wait for the son of Uisliu.

I loved the modest, mighty warrior,

loved his fitting, firm desire,

loved him at daybreak as he dressed

by the margin of the forest.

Those blue eyes that melted women,

and menaced enemies, I loved:

then, with our forest journey done,

his chanting through the dark woods.

I don’t sleep now,

nor redden my fingernails.

What have I to do with welcomes?

The son of Indel will not come.

Conchobor, out of spite, decides to share Derdriu with Eogan mac Durthacht, the king of Fernmag, who to win favor with Conchobor had killed Noisiu–not in a fair fight but through trickery.

“They set out the next day for the fair of Macha. She was behind Eogan in the chariot. She had sworn that two men alive in the world together would never have her. ‘This is good, Derdriu,’ Conchobor said. ‘Between me and Eogan you are a sheep eyeing two rams.’

A big block of stone was in front of her. She let her head be driven against the stone, and made a mass of fragments of it, and she was dead.”

Queen Medb

No character in the Tain is drawn as perceptively as Medb. She is so full of life and color that even Cuchulainn seems pale beside her. When Fingin the Healer comes to the sorely wounded Cethern, he points to Cethern’s largest wound: “A vain, arrogant woman gave you that wound.” “I believe you are right,” replies Cethern. “A tall, fair, long-faced woman with soft features came at me. She had a head of yellow hair, and two gold birds on her shoulders. She wore a purple cloak folded about her, with five hands’ breadth of gold on her back. She carried a light, stinging, sharp-edged lance in her hand, and she held an iron sword with a woman’s grip over her head–a massive figure.” The “massive figure” of Medb dominates the Tain as does no other woman in any epic we have left to us. In the Iliad Helen makes her cameo appearance; in the Aeneid Dido has an interesting supporting role. But the only women in classical literature who impel the story forward are to be found in Greek drama: Clytemnestra, Antigone, Medea. (There are ways in which the Tain seems closer to drama than to Homeric epic: it is full of dialogue and short on poetry–which appears only occasionally and, for the most part, in archaic incantations not unlike the choruses of Greek plays.) (Cahill How the Irish Saved Civilization 87).

T. F. O’Rahilly believed that the Ulster stories describe the historical circumstances of the invasion of Ulster by Uí Néill invaders from Leinster (not Connacht), the idea of Medb as queen of Connacht—‘Medb’ was in fact the tutelary goddess of Temair, or Tara, in Leinster—being a mistake on the part of writers who were unaware that Irish tribes did not have queens.

Financial Power

“Then the lowliest of their possessions were brought out, to see who had more property and jewels and precious things: their buckets and tubs and iron pots, jugs and wash-pails and vessels with handles. Then their fingerrings, bracelets, thumb-rings and gold treasures were brought out, and their cloth of purple, blue, black, green and yellow, plain grey and many-coloured, yellow-brown, checked and striped. Their herds of sheep were taken in off the fields and meadows and plains. They were measured and matched, and found to be the same in numbers and size. Even the great ram leading Medb’s sheep, the worth of one bondmaid by himself, had a ram to match him leading Ailill’s sheep.”

Magical Power

“half-historic human ruler of Connacht and half-sidhe (fairy), [she] looks both forward and backward. She is, in fact, a direct descendant of the oldest earth goddesses to whom Ireland first gave reverence” (Kerrigan 81).

Sexual Power

•Her name is a cognate of the English word “mead” and may be found as a root in many Indo-European languages, meaning something like “she who intoxicates.”

•“Medb’s friendly thighs”

•“Daire was delighted, and jumped for joy till the seams of his cushion burst under him.”

Military Power / Hubris

‘We needn’t polish the knobs and knots in this, Mac Roth,’ Medb said. ‘It was well known it would be taken by force if it wasn’t given freely. And taken it will be.’

The Morrigan

Cúchulainn beheld at this time a young woman of noble figure coming toward him, wrapped in garments of many colours.

[Cúchulainn] “Who are you?” he said.

[The Morrigan] “I am King Buan’s daughter,” she said, “and I have brought you my treasure and cattle. I love you because of the great tales I have heard.”

[Cúchulainn]”You come at a bad time. We no longer flourish here, but famish. I can’t attend to a woman during a struggle like this.”

[The Morrigan] “But I might be a help.”

[Cúchulainn]”It wasn’t for a woman’s backside I took on this ordeal!”

[The Morrigan] “Then I’ll hinder,” she said. “When you are busiest in the fight I’ll come against you. I’ll get under your feet in the shape of an eel and trip you in the ford.”

[Cúchulainn] “That is easier to believe. You are no king’s daughter. But I’ll catch and crack your eel’s ribs with my toes and you’ll carry that mark forever unless I lift it from you with a blessing.”

[The Morrigan] “I’ll come in the shape of a grey she-wolf, to stampede the beasts into the ford against you.”

[Cúchulainn] “Then I’ll hurl a sling-stone at you and burst the eye in your head, and you’ll carry that mark forever unless I lift it from you with a blessing.”

[The Morrigan] “I’ll come before you in the shape of a hornless red heifer and lead the cattle-herd to trample you in the waters, by ford and pool, and you won’t know me.”

[Cúchulainn] “Then I’ll hurl a stone at you,” he said, “and shatter your leg, and you’ll carry that mark forever unless I lift it from you with a blessing.”

Then she left him.

Now it was that the Morrígan settled in bird shape on a standing stone in Temair Chuailnge, and said to the Brown Bull:

[The Morrigan] “Dark one are you restless

do you guess they gather

to certain slaughter

the wise raven

groans aloud

that enemies infest

the fair fields

ravaging in packs

learn I discern

rich plains

softly wavelike

baring their necks

greenness of grass

beauty of blossoms

on the plains war

grinding heroic

hosts to dust

cattle groans the Badb

the raven ravenous

among corpses of men

affliction and outcry

and war everlasting

raging over Cuailnge

death of sons

death of kinsmen

death death!”

Ten years after the Táin, Cúchulainn was defeated by magic at the age of 27. When he received his fatal wound, he tied himself to a pillar so he would die standing and facing his enemies. Though mortally wounded, the Grey of Macha, one of his two chariot horses foaled on the night he was born, fought by his side. The Mórrígan, a battle-goddess, perched on his shoulder in the shape of a raven when he was dead.

Macha

See Chapter Sixteen: Táin Bó Cúailnge

“Macha” is the root of “Armagh” in Northern Ireland.

Emain Macha: “Navan Fort (Old Irish: Emain Macha [ˈeβ̃ənʲ ˈβ̃axa]; Modern Irish: Eamhain Mhacha [ˌəunʲ ˈwaxə]) is an ancient ceremonial monument near Armagh, Northern Ireland. According to tradition it was one of the great royal sites of pre-Christian Gaelic Ireland and the capital of the Ulaidh. It is a large circular hilltop enclosure—marked by a bank and ditch—inside which is a circular mound and the remains of a ring barrow.” (Wikipedia)

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