Early Irish Myths and Sagas (16 page)

Fróech entered the fort after that; the hosts rose to meet him, and they welcomed him as if he had come from another world. Ailill and Medb rose also, and they expressed regret for what they had done to him, and peace was made. That night, a feast was held. Fróech called a lad of his people to him and said ‘Go out to where I entered the pool. I left a salmon there; take it to Findabair and leave it with her, and have her cook it well. The thumb ring is inside the salmon, and I expect that it may be demanded of her tonight.’

After that, everyone grew intoxicated, and the singers and musicians entertained them. ‘Bring all my treasures to me!’ said Ailill, and these were brought before him. ‘Wonderful! Wonderful!’ said everyone. ‘Call Findabair to me,’ said Ailill; Findabair came, with fifty girls about her. ‘Daughter,’ said Ailill, ‘the thumb ring I gave you last year, do you still have it? Give it to me that the warriors may see it – you will get it back.’ ‘I do not know what has happened to it,’ said Findabair. ‘Find out, then!’ said Ailill. ‘Otherwise, your soul
must leave your body.’ ‘It is not worth that,’ said the youths, ‘not with all the treasures that are here already.’ ‘There is no treasure I would not give for the girl,’ said Fróech, ‘for she brought the sword that saved my life.’ ‘You have no treasure that can save her if she does not restore the thumb ring,’ replied Ailill. ‘I have no power to restore it,’ said Findabair. ‘Do with me as you like.’ ‘I swear by the god my people swear by, you will die unless you restore it,’ said Ailill. ‘That is why I demand it of you – I know you cannot produce it. That ring will not come from where it has been put until the dead come to life.’ ‘Then neither wealth nor wishing will restore it. But since your need is urgent, let me go that I may bring it,’ said Findabair. Ailill replied ‘You will not go – let one of your people go for it.’ Findabair sent her maid to look for the ring, and she said to Ailill ‘I swear by the god my people swear by, if the ring is found, I will not remain under your protection so long as there is someone else to undertake it.’ ‘If the ring is found,’ said Ailill, ‘I would not refuse you that even if you went to the stableboy.’

The maid brought a platter into the royal house, then, and the salmon was on it; Findabair had cooked it well, and the gold thumb ring lay upon it. Ailill and Medb looked at the ring; Fróech said ‘Give it here that I may see it’, and he looked into his wallet. ‘I believe I was observed when I took off my belt,’ he said to Ailill. ‘By the truth of your sovereignty, tell us what you did with the ring.’ ‘That will not be concealed from you,’ said Ailill. ‘Mine the thumb ring that was in your wallet, and I knew that Findabair had given it to you. That is why I threw it into the dark water. By the truth of your honour and your soul, Fróech, tell how you managed to bring it out.’ ‘That will not be concealed from you,’ said Fróech. ‘I found the thumb ring at the entrance to the courtyard my first day here; I knew it was a fair treasure, and so I put it carefully into my wallet. The day I went into
the water I perceived the girl who had lost it looking for it, and I said to her “What reward will you give me for finding it?” She said that she would give me her love for a year. It happened that 1 did not have the ring with me, for I had left it behind in the house. We did not meet again until she put the sword in my hand in the river. After that, I saw you open my wallet and throw the thumb ring into the water, and I saw the salmon that leapt to catch the ring in its mouth. I caught the salmon, then, I took it to shore, and I gave it to Findabair. That is the salmon on the platter before you.’

There was great praise and wonder in the house over that story. ‘I will not set my mind on any young warrior in Ériu but this one,’ said Findabair. ‘Promise yourself to him, then,’ said Ailill and Medb, and they said to Fróech ‘Come with your cattle to drive the cattle from Cúailnge. The night you return from the east with your cattle is the night you will spend with Findabair.’ ‘I will do that,’ said Fróech. He and his people remained there that night, and the following day they prepared to go, and Fróech bade farewell to Ailill and Medb.

The company set out for their own land, then; it had happened, meanwhile, that Fróech’s cattle were stolen. His mother came to him, saying ‘Not prosperous your expedition – great sorrow has come of it, for your cattle and your three sons and your wife have been stolen and taken to the Alps. Three cows are in northern Albu with the Cruithnig.’ ‘What will I do?’ Fróech asked his mother. ‘You will not go in search of them,’ she said, ‘for you are not to give up your life for them. You will have my cattle, moreover.’ ‘Not at all,’ said Fróech. ‘I swore on my honour and my soul to go to Ailill and Medb with my cattle to drive the cattle from Cuailnge.’ ‘Their finding is not to be had,’ said his mother, and with that she left him.

Fróech set out, then, with thrice nine men and a falcon
and a hound on a leash, and when he reached the land of the Ulaid, he met Conall Cernach at Benda Bairchi. He told Conall his problem, and Conall replied ‘Unhappy that which lies before you. Great trouble lies before you, though it is there your mind would be.’ ‘Help me, then,’ said Fróech. ‘Come with me until we find them.’ ‘I will, indeed,’ said Conall.

They set out across the sea, across northern England and the Channel to northern Lombardy, until they reached the Alps; they saw before them there a small woman herding sheep. ‘Let the two of us go, Fróech, to speak with the woman,’ said Conall, ‘and let the warriors remain here.’ They went to speak with her, then, and she said ‘Whence do you come?’ ‘From the men of Ériu,’ said Conall. ‘Unhappy any men of Ériu who come to this land, indeed,’ she said. ‘My mother was of the people of Ériu.’ ‘Then help me out of kinship,’ said Fróech. ‘Tell us about our adventuring here – what sort of land have we come to?’ ‘A grim, frightful country with truculent warriors,’ she replied. ‘They seek to carry off cattle and women and booty on every side.’ ‘What have they brought back most recently?’ asked Fróech. ‘The cattle of Fróech son of Idath from the west of Ériu, along with his wife and his three sons. His wife is with the king; his cattle are before you,’ the woman said. ‘Give us your help,’ said Conall. ‘I have no power but what I know,’ she replied. ‘This is Fróech here,’ said Conall, ‘and they are his cattle that were taken.’ ‘Do you trust your wife?’ asked the woman. ‘We trusted her before she came, but perhaps we do not trust her now,’ they said. ‘Go to the woman who tends the cows and tell her your need. She is of the race of Ériu, of the Ulaid, in fact,’ said the woman.

Fróech and Conall went to her and stopped her and identified themselves, and she welcomed them, saying ‘What has brought you here?’ ‘Trouble has brought us,’ said Conall.
‘Ours the cattle, and the woman who is in the house.’ ‘Unhappy you,’ she said, ‘to have to face the woman’s host, and most difficult of all the serpent that guards the courtyard.’ ‘I will not go to my wife,’ said Fróech, ‘for I do not trust her. I trust you. We know that you will not betray us since you are of the Ulaid.’ ‘How are you of the Ulaid?’ she asked. ‘This is Conall Cernach, the best warrior in Ulaid,’ Fróech said. The woman threw her arms round Conall’s neck. ‘Now the destruction will take place,’ she said, ‘for Conall has come, and the destruction of the fort by him was foretold. Let me go, now – I will not be milking the cows, but I will leave the door open, for it is I who close it, and I will say that the calves have sucked. Go into the fort, provided that they are asleep. Most difficult the serpent that guards the fort – many people have been left to it.’ ‘All the same, we will go,’ said Conall.

They set upon the courtyard. The serpent leapt into Conall Cernach’s belt. They destroyed the fort at once; they freed the woman and the three sons, and they carried off the best treasures of the fort. Conall let the serpent out of his belt, and neither did the other any harm.

After that, they came to the land of the Cruithnig and bore off three cows from the cattle there. They went west past Dún Ollaich maicc Bríuin across the sea to Ard Úa nEchach. It is there that Conall’s servant, Bicne son of Lóegure, died while driving the cows, so that there is an Indber mBicne at Bendchor. They drove the cows across, and the cows threw their horns, so that the place is called Trácht mBendchoir.

Fróech returned to his own land, then, with his wife and his three sons and his cattle, and he went with Ailill and Medb to drive the cattle from Cúailnge.

Although ‘The Labour Pains of the Ulaid’ purports to be history, it has been erected upon a foundation of myth. Macha, like Rhiannon in the Welsh ‘Pwyll Lord of Dyved’, is a euhemerized horse goddess, another insular version of the continental deity Epona, whose name means ‘great horse’. Like Rhiannon, Macha appears seemingly out of nowhere; like Rhiannon, she selects a mortal husband and brings him great prosperity; like Rhiannon, she is associated with great equine speed. Rhiannon, however, is more thoroughly euhemerized, for she merely rides a horse that is faster (like those of the three Reds in ‘The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel’) than any other; Macha actually runs faster than any horse.

On the narrative level, this story answers the question ‘How did Emuin Machae get its name?’ According to this version, the word
emuin
means ‘twins’, so that the name means ‘The Twins of Macha’; according to another tradition, however, the word means ‘brooch’ and the name ‘The Brooch of Macha’, because Macha measures out the confines of Emuin Machae with her brooch.

The story also explains why it was necessary for Cú Chulaind to stand alone against the Connachta during the initial stages of ‘The Cattle Raid of Cúailnge’. To the storyteller, of course, the inaction of Conchubur and the Ulaid merely
afforded additional opportunities to elaborate on Cú Chulaind’s heroism; but some explanation had to be offered. Perhaps the idea of a general weakness originated in some kind of couvade ceremony.

Although ‘The Labour Pains of the Ulaid’ is grouped with the tales of the Ulster Cycle, the name Crunniuc does not appear elsewhere; and the king and his people are not named at all. It may be that the story’s association with the Ulster Cycle is not early – in any case, it has not been well integrated.

Crunniuc son of Agnoman of the Ulaid was a hospitaller with many lands. He lived in the wildernesses and the mountains, and his sons lived with him; his wife was dead. One day, when he was alone in his house, he saw a woman coming towards him, and she seemed beautiful to him. She settled in at once and went to her tasks, just as if she had always been there, and, when evening came, she set the household in order without being asked. That night, she slept with Crunniuc. She was with him a long time after that, and there was no prosperity that she did not bring him, no want of food or clothing or wealth.

Not long afterwards, the Ulaid held a fair, and they all went, men and women, sons and daughters. Crunniuc set out as well, with good clothes on him and a great bloom in his
face. ‘Take care to say nothing foolish,’ she said to him. ‘Not likely that,’ he replied. The fair was held, and at the end of the day the king’s chariot was brought on to the field, and his chariot and horses were victorious. The hosts said ‘Nothing is as fast as those horses are’; Crunniuc said ‘My wife is that fast.’ He was taken to the king at once, and the news was taken to his wife. ‘A great misfortune my having to go and free him now, when I am with child,’ she said. ‘Misfortune or no,’ said the messenger, ‘he will die if you do not come.’

She went to the fair, then, and her labour pains seized her. ‘Help me,’ she said to the hosts, ‘for a mother bore every one of you. Wait until my children are born.’ She failed to move them, however. ‘Well then,’ she continued, ‘the evil you suffer will be greater, and it will afflict Ulaid for a long time.’ ‘What is your name?’ asked the king. ‘My name and that of my children will mark this fairground for ever – I am Macha daughter of Sainrith son of Imbath,’ she said. She raced against the chariot, then, and, as the chariot reached the end of the field, she gave birth in front of it, and she bore a son and a daughter. That is why the place is called Emuin Machae. At her delivery, she screamed that any man who heard her would suffer the pains of birth for five days and four nights. All the Ulaid who were there were so afflicted, and their descendants suffered for nine generations afterwards. Five days and four nights, or five nights and four days – that was the extent of the labour pains of the Ulaid; and, for nine generations, the Ulaid were as weak as a woman in labour. Three classes of people, however, did not suffer this affliction: the women and the children of Cú Chu laind. This was the inheritance of Ulaid from the time of Crunniuc son of Agnoman son of Curir Ulad son of Fíatach son of Urmi until the time of Furcc son of Dalián son of Manech son of Lugaid.