The central narrative of the Old Irish ULSTER CYCLE
(a heroic cycle of tales concerned with the deeds
of the great hero CUCHULAIN), the Táin bó Cuailnge
is the closest thing in Old Irish to a traditional national
epic. Though made up of alternating passages
of prose and verse, and though the textual
state of the tale does not give a complete and unified
early version of the narrative, nevertheless the
Táin holds in Irish literature status and influence
comparable to the Homeric epics in Greek.
The earliest extant text of the Táin dates from
an 11th-century manuscript called the Book of the
Dun Cow. This text seems to be based on an earlier,
ninth-century written version. Ultimately the story
probably had a long oral tradition, preserving features
from the Irish heroic age, including the use of
chariots and the practice of headhunting. Although
a late 12th-century manuscript (the Book
of Leinster) preserves a later,more coherent version
of the story, it is the earlier version, known as Recension
1, that has been the focus of scholarly attention.
The complex narrative begins when Mebd,
queen of Connacht, determines with her husband
Ailill to raid Ulster in order to win a marvelous,
magical, prized black bull. An army is assembled
from all over Ireland to make war on Conchobar,
king of Ulster. At its head rides Fergus, a great Ulster
hero who, along with Conchobar’s son Cormac,
wants revenge on the king for deceiving them
into luring the sons of Uisliu to death (see EXILE OF
THE SONS OF UISLIU). Fergus, feeling compassion for
his homeland, leads the army by a circuitous route
while sending a warning to Ulster. But Conchobar
and the men of Ulster are unable to respond. They
are all afflicted with an illness caused by the goddess
Macha, whom they had insulted. Only the
young warrior Cuchulain is immune, and is left to
defend Ulster single-handedly against Mebd’s entire
army.
Cuchulain begins by leaving an OGHAM warning
on a twisted oak tree.When this is not heeded,
he kills four warriors and mounts their heads on
the fork of a tree. Fergus recognizes that this is the
work of Cuchulain, his foster son. As the army advances,
Cuchulain continues a kind of guerrilla
warfare, picking off warriors on a regular basis.
When the army reaches Cualnge, the river rises and
wipes out 100 chariots, and Cuchulain attacks and
kills another 100 warriors.
Cuchulain continues to kill 100 soldiers every
night and will accept no terms from Queen Mebd.
But Fergus proposes that Cuchulain agree to the
challenge of single combat: Every night a new
warrior will be sent to do battle with Cuchulain—
and the army will advance only so long as the
combat lasts. Cuchulain agrees, and this goes on
until Fer Diad, Cuchulain’s own foster brother, is
chosen to fight him. For three days the two heroes
do battle, until on the fourth day Cuchulain
chooses to fight in the ford of the river. Here
Cuchulain is most invulnerable, for here he can
use his mysterious weapon, the gae bolga—a kind
of spear that makes 30 wounds. He releases it in
the water and it destroys Fer Diad, and Cuchulain
laments his foster brother’s death in a moving
poem.
While Cuchulain recovers from his wounds, the
recovered Ulster army finally comes to face the
army of Queen Mebd, and Fergus does battle with
Conchobar himself. But now the wounded Cuchulain
rises and enters the battle. Fergus, who has
sworn never to do battle with his foster son, retires
from the field, and with him go all but the men of
Connacht.Cuchulain defeats this entire army himself,
and forces Mebd and Ailill to surrender. The
saga ends with a climactic battle between the great
black bull of Cualnge and the champion bull of
Connacht, in which both are killed, and a peace is
established for seven years.
Cuchulain is certainly a hero of epic status, his
strength holding up the kingdom of Ulster.His superhuman powers suggest that in pre-Christian
Ireland he had something of a divine status,
though that is played down in written versions of
the text, necessarily produced under the Christianity
that had brought Roman writing to Ireland.
Aside from its epic dimensions, and the fascinating
window it provides on ancient Irish heroic society,
the Táin is worth reading because of its intriguing
characters with complex motives—people like the
apparently amoral Queen Mebd and the conflicted
hero Fergus. For people like William Butler Yeats
and the founders of the Irish literary renaissance,
the Táin was a text of prime significance in the national
literature of Ireland.
Bibliography
Dillon, Myles. Early Irish Literature. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1948.
Kinsella, Thomas, trans. The Táin. London: Oxford
University Press, 1970.