Táin Bó Cualnge c. Seventh Century

Irish prose epic.

Often called the "Iliad of Ireland," the Táin Bó Cúalnge (Cattle-Raid of Cualnge) is considered the national epic of ancient Ireland. The longest heroic tale of the Ulster cycle, perhaps the oldest existing literature of any people north of the Alps, the Táin has an oral tradition that may date back to the second century B.C. The tale provides unique insight into the cultural and religious mores of a pre-Christian Ireland, and is now valued as much for its historical significance as its literary merit.

Plot and Major Characters

The Tain begins one night at the palace of Cruachan in Connacht, where Queen Medb, the wife of Conchobar, king of Ulster, disagrees with her consort Ailill about which of them has the greater possessions. To settle the dispute, they send messengers to assemble their cattle holdings, which are then found to be equal, except for a bull owned by Ailill called Finnbennach, "the whitehomed," which is unmatched in Medb's herd. Medb's herald, macRoth, informs her that, in Cualnge, the land of Medb's former husband, a landowner named Darè macFiachna owns a bull named Donn Cualnge, "the Brown Bull of Cualnge," which is superior to Finnbennach. Medb sends her messengers to ask to borrow the bull, to which Darè agrees. However, during the course of the festivities, an intoxicated messenger speaks against him and Daré's offer is withdrawn.

Enraged, Medb organizes an army composed of Connachtmen, allies from throughout Ireland, and Ulster chieftains who had been exiled by King Con-chobar of Ulster. Chief among these men is Fergus, who, in order to win the widow Ness, had abdicated the throne to her son Conchobar for one year, only to have his attempts later to regain his kingship thwarted by the youth. Fergus now leads the company-including the King, Queen, and the Princess Finnabair-toward Cualnge. During this time, the Ulsterman are debilitated by cess, or "pains," due to an ancient curse on them. As a result, the seventeen-year-old Cú Chulainn, who has in his charge Murthemne, near Cualnge, and who, along with his father, Sualtaim, is exempt from the curse, becomes responsible for defending Cualnge against the invaders.

Cú Chulainn, whose heroic deeds are recounted by the Ulster exiles, deflects the army's advance; he allows the Connacht host to continue only on the condition that every day they send one of their finest warriors to meet him in single combat, and that when Cú Chulainn has defeated him, the army will halt until the next morning. In each of these contests, Cú Chulainn defeats the dispatched warrior, so finally an impatient Medb ignores the laws of chivalry and orders the army into Ulster, where they overrun the province-even to the walls of Emain Macha, the home of Conchobar-and take the Brown Bull. Conchobar then summons the Ulster noblemen, who drive Medb's army out of Ulster and back to Connacht. During this time, the Brown Bull cries out so loudly that Finnbennach bursts his stall in Cruachan and meets the Brown Bull in battle; after a long struggle, the Brown Bull scatters Finnbennach over all Ireland, then returns to Ulster, where he, still in a rage, dashes his head against a rock and dies.

Major Themes

Written in a mixture of prose and verse, the Táin is traditionally considered an epic or heroic saga; its main theme is commonly said to be the celebration of the courage, martial artistry, and chivalry of Cú Chulainn, to whom the bulk of the Táin is devoted. But recent historical and exegetical work on the Táin has led many recent critics to a different view. According to them, the mixture of pagan oral tradition and the Christian attitudes of the tale's redactors results in thematic ironies: for example, Cú Chulainn, a character who may originally have been a symbol of ancient Irish heroism, becomes in the written version a figure who satirically emobodies warrior values. Joan N. Radner has claimed the the Ulster cycle itself depicts the "tragic breakdown" of the societal virtues upon which ancient Irish society is based: "behind the immense vitality, humor and imagination of the Ulster stories is a picture of society moving to dysfunction and self-destruction." The lack of extended descriptions of large-scale battles, the bloodlessness of the final confrontations, and Cú Chulainn's exclamation on hearing the clamor of the Connachtmen's final charge-conscar bara bith, "anger destroys the world"-contribute to the popular view that the Tain is a pagan story interlaced with Christian pacifism.

Textual History

The Táin survives in several manuscripts-ranging in date from the twelfth to the nineteenth century-most of which were produced much later than its first written appearance, but all of which are descended from versions dating to the seventh century. Of the surviving manuscripts of the Táin, three serve as the primary source materials. The Lebor na hUidre (LU)-"The Book of the Dun Cow"-dates from about 1100; this manuscript is the conflation of two ninth-century versions, with some late additions, and is incomplete. A different manuscript, called the Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL), from the late fourteenth century, also is missing the tale's beginning, but does not include some of the later additions made to the LU, thus providing a Táin thought to be more faithful to the poem's original written version. Finally, the Book of Leinster (LL), dated before 1160, provides a longer and more complete version, but is more modern in style and language, indicating that the manuscript was an attempt to flesh out the much earlier narrative. A version of the Táin preserved in the YBL, evidenced by the archaic language forms it preserves, dates back to the seventh century; this is consistent with the tradition that ascribes the compilation of the Táin to a bard named Senchan Torpeist. According to many philologists, the YBL continued to be copied down, but in slightly different forms as the language developed. Different accounts of some of the episodes eventually appeared, however, which generated a new redaction, which is represented in LL; many of these episodes appear in an earlier form in LU. So, while YBL was composed later than both LU and LL, it is thought to contain a version of the Táin truest to the seventh-century original.

Critical Reception

Along with James Macpherson's Ossian, the Táin considerably influenced the narrative styles and historical opinions of the nineteenth century; but, when literary fashions changed, interest in the saga waned. While it continued to hold a central place in the literary identity of Ireland-serving as the source for five of W. B. Yeats's plays, for example-only recently has critical interest outside of Ireland began to steadily increase, as interest in the Táin as an early Gaelic permutation of the epic has grown. Many scholars have suggested that the Tain depicts a country attempting to delineate its emerging national culture; comparisons between other national epics-such as Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid-have become more widely accepted. As both a self-contained literary achievement and a historical document revealing the Ireland of both the pre-Christian era and the Táin's Christian redactors, the epic has captured the attention of many critics. Joseph Dunn has called the Táin "one of the most precious monuments of the world's literature, both because of the poetic worth it evidences at an early stage of civilization, and for the light it throws on the life of the people among whom it originated and that of their ancestors centuries earlier."