ࡱ> ;=:%` &bjbjNN .,,,& ,L 2"l l l l l l l l !!!!!!!$"hP%J!gl l gg!l l !gl l !g!l ` =W e.!"02"%<%% l , nMl l l !!l l l 2"gggg The Book of Irish Writers, Chapter 2 Cchulainn and the Tin B Cuailnge The Ulster Cycle contains many tales which relate to an Iron Age society in Ireland in the centuries before Christ. One of these tales the Tin B Cuailnge, or the Cattle Raid of Cooley - is centrally important as the closest that this ancient literature comes to an epic. The Tin begins with an argument between Medb, the Queen of Connaught, and her husband, Ailill, about which of them has most wealth. Ailill wins the argument because - though they are equal in terms of family history, goods and livestock - he possesses a great white bull for which Medb has no equivalent. She determines that she will be Ailills equal at whatever cost. That cost is ultimately war - for the only match Medb can find to Ailills bull is the brown bull of Cuailnge in Ulster. Despite generous offers to the brown bulls owner - including her friendly thighs - he refuses to lend her the bull. So, she assembles an army and sets out for Ulster. We know, from another story within the Ulster Cycle, that the fighting men of Ulster are paralysed with labour pains by a curse from which only the warrior Cchulainn is exempt. He harries Medbs army from an anonymous distance - but hes recognised and identified by his foster-father, Fergus Mac Rich. Fergus, as an Ulster warrior and a commander in Medbs Connaught army, has a foot in both camps. He recounts Cchulainns boyhood feats to Medb and arranges a series of single combats between her warriors and Cchulainn Cchulainn wins them all. In the meantime, the brown bull (so coveted by Medb) has escaped and is also attacking her army. Cchulainn is in turn conducting a private battle with the shape-shifting goddess of war, the Mrrigan. Respite comes to the overstretched Cchulainn when he sleeps for three days and nights - guarded by his otherworldly father, Lug Lmfhota, in a passage which echoes Christs death and resurrection. While Cchulainn sleeps a troop of boy-warriors from Emain Macha or Navan Fort as we know it - attack the Connaught army and are mercilessly slaughtered. This sends Cchulainn into a magical rage and he kills hundreds of Connaught warriors. All of these events are preparatory to the climactic combat of the tale: the fight between Cchulainn and Ferdiad, his foster-brother and best friend. Ferdiad has been tricked into the combat - and cajoled (another offer of Medbs friendly thighs as well as of marriage to her daughter). Having been trained together in childhood, Ferdiad and Cchulainn are equally matched and their combat lasts several days. Cchulainn is seriously wounded by Ferdiad, but uses his magical spear, the Gae Bolga, to kill his foster-brother. Afterwards Cchulainn is prostrate with wounds and grief. At this point the men of Ulster finally join the battle. Both armies are incited by the Mrrigan (the goddess of war), and, though the Ulstermen are triumphant, a balance is maintained: in separate stories Fergus Mac Rich as one of Medbs Connaught army commanders - spares Conchobar, the Ulster king, and Cchulainn similarly spares Medb. In a final battle between the white bull of Connaught and the brown bull of Ulster the brown bull wins - but dies on returning to Ulster. Cchulainn is a puzzle: he is brave, but he can be barbarous, as when he kills his foster brother Ferdiad. But, even when hes breaking the rules that we might think he should follow he is also subject to taboos and obligations (geis) which we find strange. Over the past century or so Cchulainn - and the tales associated with him - have often been retold. He had dropped from view until nineteenth-century scholars began to study old Irish and made him available for later writers and artists. They then adapted early tales, heroes and other characters to suit their own purposes. For the late nineteenth century Irish antiquarian, Standish OGrady, Cchulainns leadership and bravery made him a model for how Protestant Ascendancy landlords should behave. Yet Patrick Pearse would invoke him as a symbol of militant nationalism - which was prepared to endure anything in the cause of Irish freedom. At the same time, W.B. Yeats used Cchulainn as an archetype of the hero driven by destiny but divided against himself. By the late twentieth century, the band Horslips would make a concept album based on the Tin, or rather the poet Thomas Kinsellas 1969 translation - the Belfast poet Ciaran Carson made a new translation in 2007. 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