The greatest of the heroic sagas and the longest is that which is called the Táin Bo Chuailgne,[1] or "Cattle-Raid of Cooley," a district of Ulster contained in the present county of Louth, into which Oilioll and Méadhbh [Mève], the king and queen of Connacht, led an enormous army composed of men from the four other provinces, to carry off the celebrated Dun Bull of Cooley.

Although there is a great deal of verbiage and piling-up of rather barren names in this piece, nevertheless there are also several finely conceived and well-executed incidents. The saga which, according to Zimmer, was probably first committed to writing in the seventh or eighth century, is partially preserved in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, a manuscript made about the year 1100, and there is a complete copy of it in the Book of Leinster made about fifty years later. I have chiefly translated from a more modern text in my own possession, which differs very slightly from the ancient ones.

The story opens with a conversation between Mève, queen of Connacht, and Oilioll her husband, which ends in a dispute as to which of them is the richest. There was no modern Married Women's Property Act in force, but Irish ladies[Pg 320] seem to have been at all times much more sympathetically treated by the Celtic tribes than by the harder and more stern races of Teutonic and Northern blood, and Irish damsels seem to have been free to enjoy their own property and dowries.[2] The story, then, begins with this dispute as to which, husband or wife, is the richer in this world's goods, and the argument at last becomes so heated that the pair decide to have all their possessions brought together to compare them one with another and judge by actual observation which is the most valuable. They collected accordingly jewels, bracelets, metal, gold, silver, flocks, herds, ornaments, etc., and found that in point of wealth they were much the same, but that there was one great bull called Finn-bheannach or White-horned, who was really calved by one of Mève's cows, but being endowed with a certain amount of intelligence considered it disgraceful to be under a woman, and so had gone over to Oilioll's herds. With him Mève had nothing that could compare. She made inquiry, however, and found out from her chief courier that there was in the district of Cuailgne in Louth (Mève lived at Rathcroghan in Roscommon) a most celebrated bull called the Dun Bull of Cuailgne belonging to a chieftain of the name of Darè. To him accordingly she sends an embassy requesting the loan of the bull for one year, and promising fifty heifers in return. Darè was quite willing, and promised to lend the animal. He was in fact pleased, and treated the embassy generously, giving them good lodgings with plenty of food and drink—too much drink in fact. The fate of nations is said to often hang upon a thread. On this occasion that of Ulster and Connacht depended upon a drop more or less, absorbed by one of the ten men who constituted Mève's embassy. This man unfortunately passed the just limit, and Darè's steward coming in at the moment heard him say that it was small thanks to his[Pg 321] master to give his bull "for if he hadn't given it we'd have taken it." That word decided the fate of provinces. The steward, indignant at such an outrage, ran and told his master, and Darè swore that now he would lend no bull, and what was more, but that the ten men were envoys he swore he would hang them. With indignity they were dismissed, and returned empty-handed to Mève's boundless indignation. She in her turn swore she would have the bull in spite of Darè. She immediately sent out to collect her armies, and invited Leinster and Munster to join her. She was in fact able to muster most of the three provinces to march against Ulster to take the bull from Darè, and in addition she had Fergus mac Roy and about fifteen hundred Ulster warriors who had never returned to their homes nor forgiven Conor for the murder of the sons of Usnach. She crossed the Shannon at Athlone, and marched on to Kells, within a few miles of Ulster, and there she pitched her standing camp. She was accompanied by her husband and her daughter who was the fairest among women. Her mother had secretly promised her hand to every leader in her army in order to nerve them to do their utmost.

At the very beginning Mève is forewarned by a mysterious female of the slaughter which is to come. She had driven round in her chariot to visit her druid and to inquire of him what would come of her expedition, and is returning somewhat reassured in her mind by the druid's promise which was—

    "'Whosoever returneth or returneth not, thou shalt return,' and," says the saga, "as Mève returned again upon her track she beheld a thing which caused her to wonder, a single woman (riding) beside her, upon the pole of her chariot. And this is how that maiden was. She was weaving a border with a sword of bright bronze[3] in her right hand with its seven rings of red gold, and, about her, a spotted speckled mantle of green, and a fastening brooch in the[Pg 322] mantle over her bosom. A bright red gentle generous countenance, a grey eye visible in her head, a thin red mouth, young pearly teeth she had. You would think that her teeth were a shower of white pearls flung into her head. Her mouth was like fresh coral? [partaing]. The melodious address of her voice and her speaking tones were sweeter than the strings of curved harp being played. Brighter than the snow of one night was the splendour of her skin showing through her garments, her feet long, fairy-like, with (well) turned nails. Fair yellow hair very golden on her. Three tresses of her hair round her head, one tress behind falling after her to the extremities of her ankles.

    "Mève looks at her. 'What makest thou there, O maiden?' said Mève.

    "'Foreseeing thy future for thee, and thy grief, thou who art gathering the four great provinces of Ireland with thee to the land of Ulster, to carry out the Táin Bo Chuailgne.'

    "'And wherefore doest thou me this?" said Mève.

    "'Great reason have I for it,' said the maiden. 'A handmaid of thy people (am I),' said she.

    "'Who of my people art thou?' said Mève.

    "'Féithlinn, fairy-prophetess of Rathcroghan, am I,' said she.

    "'It is well, O Féithlinn, prophetess,' said Mève, 'and how seest thou our hosts?'

    "'I see crimson over them, I see red,' said she.

    "'Conor is in his sickness[4] in Emania,' said Mève, 'and messengers have reached me from him, and there is nothing that I dread from the Ultonians, but speak thou the truth, O Féithlinn, prophetess,' said Mève.

    "'I see crimson, I see red,' said she.

    "'Comhsgraidh Meann ... is in Innis Comhsgraidh in his sickness, and my messengers have reached me, and there is nothing that I fear from the Ultonians, but speak me truth, O Féithlinn, prophetess, how seest thou our host?'

    "'I see crimson, I see red.'

    "'Celtchar, son of Uitheachar, is in his sickness,' said Mève, 'and there is nothing I dread from the Ultonians, but speak truth, O Féithlinn, prophetess.'

    "'I see crimson, I see red,' said she.

    "' ...?' said Mève, 'for since the men of Erin will be in one place there will be disputes and fightings and irruptions amongst them,[Pg 323] about reaching the beginnings or endings of fords or rivers, and about the first woundings of boars and stags, of venison, or matter of venery, speak true, O Féithlinn, prophetess, how seest thou our host? said Mève.

    "'I see crimson I see red,' said she."

After this follows a long poem, wherein "she foretold Cuchulain to the men of Erin."

The march of Mève's army is told with much apparent exactness. The names of fifty-nine places through which it passed are given; and many incidents are recorded, one of which shows the furious, jealous, and vindictive disposition of the amazon queen herself. She, who seems to have taken upon herself the entire charge of the hosting, had made in her chariot the full round of the army at their encamping for the night, to see that everything was in order. After that she returned to her own tent and sat beside her husband Olioill at their meal, and he asks her how fared the troops. Mève then said something laudatory about the Gaileóin,[5] or ancient Leinstermen, who were not of Gaelic race, but appear to have belonged to some early non-Gaelic tribe, cognate with the Firbolg.

    "'What excellence perform they beyond all others that they be thus praised?' said Oilioll.

    "'They give cause for praise,' said Mève, 'for while others were choosing their camping-ground, they had made their booths and shelters; and while others were making their booths and shelters, they had their feast of meat and ale laid out; and while others were laying out their feasts of bread and ale, these had finished their food and fare; and while others were finishing their food and fare, these were asleep. Even as their slaves and servants have excelled the slaves and servants of the men of Erin, so will their good heroes and youths excel the good heroes and youths of the men of Erin in this hosting.'

    "'I am the better pleased at that,' said Oilioll, 'because it was with me they came, and they are my helpers.'[6]

    [Pg 324]

    "'They shall not march with thee, then,' said Mève, 'and it is not before me, nor to me, they shall be boasted of.'

    "'Then let them remain in camp,' said Oilioll.

    "'They shall not do that either,' said Mève.

    "'What shall they do, then?' said Findabar, daughter of Oilioll and Mève, 'if they shall neither march nor yet remain in camp.'

    "'My will is to inflict death and fate and destruction on them,' said Mève."

It is with the greatest difficulty that Fergus is enabled to calm the furious queen, and she is only satisfied when the three thousand Gaileóins have been broken up and scattered throughout the other battalions, so that no five men of them remained together.

Thereafter the army came to plains so thickly wooded, in the neighbourhood of the present Kells, that they were obliged to cut down the wood with their swords to make a way for their chariots, and the next night they suffered intolerably from a fall of snow.

    "The snow that fell that night reached to men's legs and to the wheels of chariots, so that the snow made one plain of the five provinces of Erin, and the men of Ireland never suffered so much before in camp, none knew throughout the whole night whether it was his friend or his enemy who was next him, until the rise early on the morrow of the clear-shining sun, glancing on the snow that covered the country."

They are now on the borders of Ulster, and Cuchulain is hovering on their flank, but no one has yet seen him. He lops a gnarled tree, writes an Ogam on it, sticks upon it the heads of three warriors he had slain, and sets it up on the brink of a ford. That night Oilioll and Mève inquire from the Ultonians who were in her army more particulars about this new enemy, and nearly a sixth part of the whole Táin is taken up by the stories which are then and there related about Cuchulain's earliest history and exploits, first by Fergus, and, when he is done relating, by Cormac Conlingeas,[Pg 325] and when he has finished, by Fiacha, another Ultonian. This long digression, which is one of the most interesting parts of the whole saga, being over, we return to the direct story.

Cuchulain, who knows every tree and every bush of the country, still hangs upon Mève's flank, and without showing himself during the day, he slays a hundred men with his sling[7] every night.

Mève, through an envoy, asks for a meeting with him, and is astonished to find him, as she thinks, a mere boy. She offers him great rewards in the hope of buying him off, but he will have none of her gold. The only conditions upon which he will cease his night-slaying is if Mève will promise to let him fight with some warrior every day at the ford, and will promise to keep her army in its camp while these single combats last, and this Mève consents to, since she says it is better to lose one warrior every day than one hundred every night.

A great number of single combats then take place, each of which is described at length. One curious incident is that of the war-goddess, whom he had previously offended, the Mór-rígu,[8] or "great queen," attacking him while fighting with the warrior Loich. She came against him, not in her own figure, but as a great black eel in the water, who wound itself around his legs, and as he stooped to disengage himself Loich wounded him severely in the breast. Again she came against him in the form of a great grey wolf-bitch, and as Cuchulain turned to drive her off he was again wounded. A third time she came against him as a heifer with fifty other heifers round her, but Cuchulain struck her and broke one of her eyes, just as Diomede in the Iliad wounds the goddess[Pg 326] Cypris when she appears against him.[9] Cuchulain, thus embarrassed, only rids himself of Loich by having recourse to the mysterious feat of the Gae-Bolg, about which we shall hear more later on. His opponent, feeling himself mortally hurt, cries out—

    "'By thy love of generosity I crave a boon.'

    "'What boon is that?' said Cuchulain.

    "'It is not to spare me I ask,' said Loich, 'but let me fall forwards to the east, and not backward to the west, that none of the men of Erin may say that I fell in panic or in flight before thee.'

    "'I grant it,' said Cuchulain, 'for surely it is a warrior's request.'"

After this encounter Cuchulain grew terribly despondent, and urged his charioteer Laeg again to hasten the men of Ulster to his assistance, but their pains were still upon them, and he is left alone to bear the brunt of the attack as best he may. Mève also breaks her compact by sending six men against him, but them he overcomes, and in revenge begins again to slay at night.

Thereafter follows the episode known in Irish saga as the Great Breach of Moy Muirtheimhne. Cuchulain, driven to despair and enfeebled by wounds, fatigue, and watching, was in the act of ascending his chariot to advance alone against the men of the four provinces, moving to certain death, when the[Pg 327] eye of his charioteer is arrested by the figure of a tall stranger moving through the camp of the enemy, saluting none as he moved, and by none saluted.

"That man," said Cuchulain, "must be one of my supernatural friends of the shee[10] folk, and they salute him not because he is not seen."

The stranger approaches, and, addressing Cuchulain, desires him to sleep for three days and three nights, and instantly Cuchulain fell asleep, for he had been from before the feast of Samhain till after Féil Bhrighde[11] without sleep, "unless it were that he might sleep a little while beside his spear, in the middle of the day, his head on his hand, and his hand on his spear, and his spear on his knee, but all the while slaughtering, slaying, preying on, and destroying, the four great provinces."

It was after this long sleep of Cuchulain's that, awaking fresh and strong, the Berserk rage fell upon him. He hurled himself against the men of Erin, he drove round their flank, he "gave his chariot the heavy turn, so that the iron wheels of the chariot sank into the earth, so that the track of the iron wheels was (in itself) a sufficient fortification, for like a fortification the stones and pillars and flags and sands of the earth rose back high on every side round the wheels." All that day, refreshed by his three days' sleep, he slaughtered the men of Erin.

Other single combats take place after this, in one of which the druid Cailitin and his twenty sons would have slain him had he not been rescued by his countryman Fiacha, one of those Ultonians who with Fergus had turned against their king and country when the children of Usnach were slain.

It was only at the last that his own friend Ferdiad was despatched against him, through the wiles of Mève. Ferdiad[Pg 328] was not a Gael, but of the Firbolg or Firdomhnan race,[12] yet he proved very nearly a match for Cuchulain. Knowing what Mève wanted with him, he positively refused to come to her tent when sent for, and in the end he is only persuaded by her sending her druids and ollavs against him, who threatened "to criticise, satirise, and blemish him, so that they would raise three blisters[13] on his face unless he came with them." At last he went with them in despair, "because he thought it easier to fall by valour and championship and weapons than to fall by [druids'] wisdom and by reproach."

The fight with Ferdiad is perhaps the finest episode in the Táin. The following is a description of the conduct of the warriors after the first day's conflict.

    THE FIGHT AT THE FORD.[14]

    "They ceased fighting and threw their weapons away from them into the hands of their charioteers. Each of them approached the other forthwith and each put his hand round the other's neck and gave him three kisses. Their horses were in the same paddock that night, and their charioteers at the same fire; and their charioteers spread beds of green rushes for them with wounded men's pillows[Pg 329] to them. The professors of healing and curing came to heal and cure them, and they applied herbs and plants of healing and curing to their stabs, and their cuts, and their gashes, and to all their wounds. Of every herb and of every healing and curing plant that was put to the stabs and cuts and gashes, and to all the wounds of Cuchulain, he would send an equal portion from him, westward over the ford to Ferdiad, so that the men of Erin might not be able to say, should Ferdiad fall by him, that it was by better means of cure that he was enabled to kill him.

    "Of each kind of food and of palatable pleasant intoxicating drink that was sent by the men of Erin to Ferdiad, he would send a fair moiety over the ford northwards to Cuchulain, because the purveyors of Ferdiad were more numerous than the purveyors of Cuchulain. All the men of Erin were purveyors to Ferdiad for beating off Cuchulain from them, but the Bregians only were purveyors to Cuchulain, and they used to come to converse with him at dusk every night. They rested there that night."

The narrator goes on to describe the next day's fighting, which was carried on from their chariots "with their great broad spears," and which left them both in such evil plight that the professors of healing and curing "could do nothing more for them, because of the dangerous severity of their stabs and their cuts and their gashes and their numerous wounds, than to apply witchcraft and incantations and charms to them to staunch their blood and their bleeding and their gory wounds."

Their meeting on the next day follows thus:—

    "They arose early the next morning and came forward to the ford of battle, and Cuchulain perceived an ill-visaged and a greatly lowering cloud on Ferdiad that day.

    "'Badly dost thou appear to-day, O Ferdiad,' said Cuchulain, 'thy hair has become dark this day and thine eye has become drowsy, and thine own form and features and appearance have departed from thee.'

    "'It is not from fear or terror of thee that I am so this day,' said Ferdiad, 'for there is not in Erin this day a champion that I could not subdue.'

    "And Cuchulain was complaining and bemoaning and he spake these words, and Ferdiad answered:

    [Pg 330]

    CUCHULAIN.
    "Oh, Ferdiad, is it thou?
    Wretched man thou art I trow,
    By a guileful woman won
    To hurt thine old companion.

    FERDIAD.
    "O Cuchulain, fierce of fight,
    Man of wounds and man of might,
    Fate compelleth each to stir
    Moving towards his sepulchre."[15]

The lay is then given, each of the heroes reciting a verse in turn, and it is very possibly upon these lays that the prose narrative is built up. The third day's fighting is then described in which the warriors use their "heavy hand-smiting swords," or rather swords that gave "blows of size. "[16] The story then continues—

    "They cast away their weapons from them into the hands of their charioteers, and though it had been the meeting pleasant and happy, griefless and spirited of two men that morning, it was the separation, mournful, sorrowful, dispirited, of the two men that night.

    "Their horses were not in the same enclosure that night. Their charioteers were not at the same fire. They rested that night there.

    "Then Ferdiad arose early next morning and went forwards alone to the ford of battle, for he knew that that day would decide the battle and the fight, and he knew that one of them would fall on that day there or that they both would fall.

    "Ferdiad displayed many noble, wonderful, varied feats on high that day, which he never learned with any other person, neither with Scathach, nor with Uathach, nor with Aife, but which were invented by himself that day against Cuchulain.

    "Cuchulain came to the ford and he saw the noble, varied, wonderful, numerous feats which Ferdiad displays on high.

    [Pg 331]

    "'I perceive these, my friend, Laeg' [said Cuchulain to his charioteer], 'the noble, varied, wonderful, numerous feats which Ferdiad displays on high, and all these feats will be tried on me in succession, and, therefore, it is that if it be I who shall begin to yield this day thou art to excite, reproach, and speak evil to me, so that the ire of my rage and anger shall grow the more on me. If it be I who prevail, then thou shalt laud me, and praise me, and speak good words to me that my courage may be greater.'[17]

    "'It shall so be done indeed, O Cuchulain,' said Laeg.

    "And it was then Cuchulain put his battle-suit of conflict and of combat and of fight on him, and he displayed noble, varied, wonderful, numerous feats on high on that day, that he never learned from anybody else, neither with Scathach, nor with Uathach, nor with Aife. Ferdiad saw those feats and he knew they would be plied against him in succession.

    "'What weapons shall we resort to, O Ferdiad?' said Cuchulain.

    "'To thee belongs thy choice of weapons till night,' said Ferdiad.

    "'Let us try the Ford Feat then,' said Cuchulain.

    "'Let us indeed,' said Ferdiad. Although Ferdiad thus spoke his consent it was a cause of grief to him to speak so, because he knew that Cuchulain was used to destroy every hero and every champion who contended with him in the Feat of the Ford.

    "Great was the deed, now, that was performed on that day at the ford—the two heroes, the two warriors, the two champions of Western Europe, the two gift and present and stipend bestowing hands of the north-west of the world; the two beloved pillars of the valour of the Gaels, and the two keys of the bravery of the Gaels to be brought to fight from afar through the instigation and intermeddling of Oilioll and Mève.

    "Each of them began to shoot at other with their missive weapons from the dawn of early morning till the middle of midday. And when midday came the ire of the men waxed more furious, and each of them drew nearer to the other. And then it was that Cuchulain on one occasion sprang from the brink of the ford and came on the boss of the shield of Ferdiad, son of Daman, for the purpose of striking his head over the rim of his shield from above. And it was then that Ferdiad gave the shield a blow of his left elbow and cast[Pg 332] Cuchulain from him like a bird on the brink of the ford. Cuchulain sprang from the brin............