THE CELTIC PARADIGM IN MODERN IRISH WRITING

8/19/2019 THE CELTIC PARADIGM IN MODERN IRISH WRITING

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Universitatea “Dunărea de Jos”din Galați

Facultatea de Litere

Specializarea:Limba și literatura română – Limba și literatura engleză

Curs opțional de

literatură englezăProf. univ. dr. Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Anul II, semestrul 1

D.I.D.F.R.


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“Dunarea de Jos” University of GalatiFaculty of Letters

THE CELTIC PARADIGM

IN MODERN IRISH

WRITING

Course tutor:

Professor Ioana Mohor-Ivan, PhD

DIDFR


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THE CELTIC PARADIGM

IN MODERN IRISH WRITING

COURSE TUTOR:

Dr. Ioana Mohor-Ivan


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The Celtic Paradigm in Modern Irish Writing 2

Obiective:

• familiarizarea studentilor cu particularitatile istorico-culturale ale spatiului irlandez;

• evidentierea specificului celtic al traditiei literare irlandeze;

• depistarea traiectului temelor si motivelor literare celtice in literatura irlandeza

moderna si contemporana;

• dezvoltarea deprinderilor cercetare individuala concretizata prin personalizarea

informatiei teoretice si modelelor de analiza de text oferite in eseu.

Tipuri si modalitati de activitate didactica:

• prelegere teoretica

• analiza de text

• discutie

• eseu.

Tematica:

• Beginnings in the Celtic world: Celtic society and culture.

• Early Irish Literature. The Mythological Cycle. Mythological masks in W.B. Yeatss

early poems.

• The Cycle of Ulster. Cuchulain and the Yeatsian theatre. The myth of Deirdre and

Naoise in Brian Friels plays.

• The Cycle of Munster. From Fion to Joyces Finnegans Wake. Oisin in Yeatss vs.

Paul Vincent Carrolls vision.

• The King Cycle of tales. The Madness of Sweeney. The Sweeney figure in Irish

literature, from Flann OBrien to Seamus Heaney.


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Chapter 1 - Beginnings in the Celtic World

1.1. Celtic Tribes

1.2. Celtic Society

1.3. Celtic Religion

1.4. Celtic Literature

Long, long ago, beyond the misty spaceOf twice a thousand years,In Éirinn old there dwelt a mighty race,Taller than Roman spears.Like oaks and towersThey had a giant grace,

With feet as fleet as deers’...With winds and waves they made their settling-place.

("The Celts", by Thomas d’Arcy McGee)

1.1. Celtic Tribes:

The Celts are a grouping of Indo-European peoples recognized as speakingone or another dialect of a common Celtic language. Correspondingly, theclassification of the Celtic peoples takes into consideration the linguisticfactor:

• Continental Celtic

• Gaullish (unknown number of dialects)

• Celto-Iberian

• Lepontic

• Insular Celtic

– P-Celtic(Brythonic)

• Welsh

• Cornish

• Breton

– Q-Celtic(Goidelic)

• Irish Gaelic

• Scottish Gaelic

• Manx


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Around 500 B.C., Ireland was settled by a Q-Celtic people, the Gaels, whospread through the whole island. In the course of the next centuries, anumber of historical provinces came into being:

a) Ulster (Ulaid), in the north of Ireland;

b) Munster (Mumu), in the south of Ireland;

c) Connacht (Connachta), in the west of Ireland;

d) Leinster (Laigin), in the east of Ireland;

e) Meath (Mide), the residence of Irelands High Kings, in the middle,with Tara as its capital.

The Hill of Tara, known as "Teamhair", was once the ancient seat of power inIreland – 142 kings are said to have reigned here in prehistoric and historic

times. In ancient Irish religion and mythology Tara was the sacred place of dwelling for the gods. Saint Patrick is said to have come to Tara to confrontthe ancient religion of the pagans at its most powerful site.


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1.2. Celtic Society:

The following attributes characteristic of the Celtic social organisation point tothe Celts as being an archetypal Indo-European people:

• Tribal: the greatest political unit is the tribe (tuath), led by a king (rí)

• Familiar: kinship groups form the basis of the tribe

• Hierarchical (Celtic society is divided into three main classes):

– Equites: warrior aristocracy

– Druides: the learned class (draoi, fílí, breitheamb,seanchadh)

– Plebs: the body of freemen, smiths, leeches and small

farmers• Pastoral: the Celts had no towns in the modern understanding of

the term, their hill-forts were of primarily military significance.Cattle-raising was regarded as a superior form of social activity,while farming was relegated to the plebs.

1.3. Celtic Religion:

The religion of the Celts exhibits the following characteristics:

• Pantheism: the Celts believed in the consciousness of all things.This explains their worship of trees, water, stones (Lía Fáil), or thevarious animal cults (boars, fish, bulls, birds etc.)

• Metempsychosis: the souls were immortal, they could migratefrom the human world to the Otherworld (e.g. Tír-na-n-og); theycould dwell within other creatures and objects (shape-changing)

• Polytheism: divine organisation mirrors that of the Celtic society;

Celtic gods and goddesses belong to a particular tribe, which isbased on kinship relations.


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1.4. Celtic Literature:

The learned class of the Celtic society are the creators of the early Irishliterary texts, which, until the coming of Christianity in the 5 th century, aretransmitted by means of an oral tradition.

This oral character of Irish literature is reflected in the division of the wholecorpus of early Irish literary texts according to the tale-type to which theybelong (as evidenced in their titles):

• Togla (destructions)

• Tána (cattle-raids)

• Tochmarca (wooings)

• Fessa (feasts)

• Aislinga (visions)

• Aitheda (elopments

• Serca (loves)

• Aided (violent deaths)

• Catha (battles)

• Immrama (voyages)

• Dinnseanchas (tales of place names)

After the arrival of Christianity and the adaptation of the Latin alphabet to theIrish language, the tales are collected and incorporated into four main cycles,namely:

• Mythological

• Ulster (The Red Branch)

• Finn (Fenian, Munster)

• King (historical)

Task:

Write a 4000-word essay on “Cultural Landmarks of the Celtic World”.


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Chapter 2 - The Mythological cycle and its modern

reworkings

2.1. The mythic invasions2.2. The Celtic pantheon

• Texts: The Tuatha Dé Danaan;

The Fate of the Children of Lir

The Song of Amhergin

2.3. The Sidh 2.4. Mythological masks and the Sidh in W.B. Yeatss

early poetry

• Texts: The Stolen Child

The Man Who Dreamed of Fairyland

To Ireland in the Coming Times

The Song of the Wandering Aengus

2.5. Feminine revisions of the Sidh

• Texts: Eavan Boland, The Woman Turns

Herself into a Fish

Nuala Ni Dhomnaill, Swept Away


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2.1. The Mythic Invasions

Though all the tales included in the existing corpus of early Irish literary textsdisplay a strong mythological component, by a process of exclusion themythological cycle includes only those stories that intend to provide a

mythical history of the occupation of Ireland, previous to the arrival of theGaels.

Most of these texts are preserved in a 12 th century manuscript known asLebor Gabála Érenn (Boo k of Invasions o f Ire land ).

According to this manuscript, the main settlers of Ireland are:

• Cesair (granddaughter of Noah) and Fintan Mac Bochra. Theywere the first to invade Ireland at the time of the Flood.

• The Partholanians (named after their leader Partholan, son of

Sera, who was the king of Greece) arrived 312 years after Cesair and her followers.

• They encountered the Fomorians (a race of ugly, misshapengiants, who lived on Tory Island), whom they managed todefeat.

• The Nemedians (followers of Nemed, a descendant of Japheth) arrived from Spain 30 years after the extinction of thePartholonians from pestilence. They were attacked by theFomorians, and the few survivors fled to Greece.

•

The Firbolgs (descendants of the Nemedians) returned toIreland 230 years later, but their power in Ireland only lasted for 37 years before the Tuatha Dé Danann arrived.

2.2. The Celtic Pantheon

The Tuatha Dé Danann is the tribe of the Irish gods who conquer and settleIreland.

Here follows an extract from Mary Heaneys Over Nine Waves , in which their arrival is described:


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THE TUATHA DE DANAAN

LONG AGO the Tuatha De Danaan came to Ireland in a great fleet of ships to take the land from the Fir Bolgs who lived there. Thesenewcomers were the People of the Goddess Danu and their men of learning possessed great powers and were revered as if they weregods. They were accomplished in the various arts of druidry, namelymagic, prophesy and occult lore. They had learnt their druidic skills inFalias, Gorias, Findias and Murias, the four cities of the northernislands.

When they reached Ireland and landed on the western shore, they setfire to their boats so that there would be no turning back. The smokefrom the burning boats darkened the sun and filled the land for threedays, and the Fir Bolgs thought the Tuatha De Danaan had arrived ina magic mist.

The invaders brought with them the four great treasures of their tribe.From Falias they brought Lia Fail, the Stone of Destiny. They broughtit to Tara and it screamed when a rightful king of Ireland sat on it.From Gorias they brought Lughs spear. Anyone who held it wasinvincible in battle. From Findias they brought Nuadas irresistiblesword. No one could escape it once it was unsheathed. From Muriasthey brought the Dagdas cauldron. No one ever left it hungry.

Nuada was the king of the Tuatha De Danaan and he led them againstthe Fir Bolgs. They fought a fierce battle on the Plain of Moytura, the

first one the Tuatha De Danaan fought in a pace of that name.Thousands of the Fir Bolgs were killed, a hundred thousand in all, andamong them their king, Eochai Mac Erc. Many of the Tuatha DeDanaan died too, and their king, Nuada, had his arm severed from hisbody in the fight.

In the end the Tuatha De Danaan overcame the Fir Bolgs and routedthem until only a handful of them survived. These survivors boardedtheir ships and set sail to the far-scattered islands around Ireland.

When the Fir Bolgs had fled, the Tuatha De Danaan took over the

country and went with their treasures to Tara to establish themselvesas masters of the island. But another struggle lay ahead. Though theyhad defeated the Fir Bolgs, a more powerful enemy awaited them.These were the Formorians, a demon-like race who lived in theislands to which the Fir Bolgs had fled.

(from Marie Heaney, Over Nine Waves, London, Faber and Faber,1994.)


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The Tuatha Dé Danann are the tribe of the Goddess Dana (or Danu), amother-goddess signifying fertility and plenty, married to the god Bile (or Belenos), a sky-centred deity.

The father to most of the gods of the tribe is the Dagda, the “good God” inthe Celtic sense of “good at anything”. A figure of immense power, he is often

pictured as a rustic old man, clothed in garb, and possessing three magicalobjects: a gigantic club (with which he can both kill enemies and curefriends), a cauldron that never gets exhausted, a harp that plays by itself.

The Dagda is the father of Ogma (the Irish god of eloquence), and Brigid (or the "Fiery Arrow or Power".) Brigid is a Celtic three-fold goddess. Her threeaspects are (1) Fire of Inspiration as patroness of poetry, (2) Fire of theHearth, as patroness of healing and fertility, and (3) Fire of the Forge, aspatroness of smithcraft and martial arts. She is mother to the craftsmen.

Through the goddess Boann (whose spirit lives within the Boyne river and isgoddess of poetic inspiration and powerful spiritual insight) the Dagda

fathered Aengus (Oengus) Og, the Celtic god of youth and love, describedin the following terms by the Irish poet A.E.:

". . . An energy or love or eternal desire has gone forth which seeksthrough a myriad forms of illusion for the infinite being it has left. It is Angus the Young, an eternal joy becoming love, a love changing intodesire, and leading on to earthly passion and forgetfulness of its owndivinity. The eternal joy becomes love when it has first merged itself inform and images of a divine beauty that dance before it and lure it fromafar. This is the first manifested world, the Tír nan Óg or World of Immortal Youth. The love is changed into desire as it is drawn deeper intonature, and this desire builds up the Mid-world or World of the Waters. And, lastly, as it lays hold of the earthly symbol of its desire it becomes onEarth that passion which is spiritual death . . .”

One of the most beautiful lyrical tales in the cycle, “Aislinge Oengusa” (TheVision of Aengus) recounts how Aengus, in a dream, has the vision of abeautiful girl, who prompts a quest that will take years until he will find her shape-changed in a bird.

Manannán MacLir is the god of the oceans, who lives in Tír-na-n-og (TheLand of Eternal Youth) and is married to the beautiful goddess Fand, whosename is translated as “The Pearl of Beauty”. Stories of rebirth and theOtherworld are associated with him, while his name is commemorated in thatof the Isle of Man.

Manannáns father, Lir , was an Irish god who dwelt on the cliffs of Antrim.One story in the cycle (“The Story of the Children of Lir”) recounts thetribulations of his other four children who were transformed into swans by anevil step-mother, and endured cruel hardship for many centuries untilrestored to their human shape. This story, among others, was translated intoEnglish by Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932) in a collection of Irish mythsentitled Gods and Fighting Men:


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The Fate of the Children of Lir

Then Lir came to the edge of the lake, and he took notice of the swanshaving the voice of living people, and he asked them why was it theyhad that voice.

“I will tell you that, Lir,” said Fionnuala. “We are your own four children, that are after being destroyed by your wife and by the sister of our own mother, through the dint of her jealousy.” “Is there any wayto put you into your own shapes again?” said Lir. “there is no way,”said Fionnuala, “for all the men of the world could not help us till wehave gone through our time, and that will not be,” she said, “till the endof nine hundred years.”

When Lir and his people heard that, they gave out three greatheavy shouts of grief and sorrow and crying.

“Is there a mind with you,” said Lir, “to come to us on the land, since

you have your own sense and your memory yet?” “We have not thepower,” said Fionnuala, “to live with any person at all from this time;but we have our language, the Irish, and we have the power to singsweet music, and it is enough to satisfy the whole race of men to belistening to that music. And let you stop here tonight,” she said, “andwe will be making music for you.”

So Lir and his people stopped there listening to the music of theswans, and they slept there quietly that night. And Lir rose up early onthe morning of the morrow and he made this complaint: —

“It is time to go from this place. I do not sleep though I am in mylying down. To be parted from my dear children, it is that is tormenting

my heart.“It is a bad net I put over you, bringing Aoife, daughter of Oilell of Aran, to the house. I would never have followed that advice if I hadknown what it would bring upon me.

“O Fionnuala, and comely Conn, O Aodh, O Fiachra of the beautifularms; it is not ready I am to go away from you, from the border of theharbour where you are.”

Then Lir went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was awelcome before him there; and he got a reproach from Bodb Dearg for not bringing his children along with him. “My grief!” said Lir. “It is not Ithat would not bring my children along with me; it was Aoife there

beyond, your own foster-child and the sister of their mother, that putthem in the shape of four swans on Loch Dairbhreach, in the sight of the whole of the men of Ireland; but they have their sense with themyet, and their reason, and their voice, and their Irish.”

Bodb Dearg gave a great start when he heard that, and he knewwhat Lir said was true, and he gave a very sharp reproach to Aoife,and he said: “This treachery will be worse for yourself in the end, Aoife, than to the children of Lir. And what shape would you yourself think worst of being in?” he said.

“I would think worst of being a witch of the air,” she said. “It is intothat shape I will put you now,” said Bodb. And with that he struck her

with a Druid wand, and she was turned into a witch of the air there and


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then, and she went away on the wind in that shape, and she is in ityet, and will be in it to the end of life and time.

“Cath Maige Tuired” (“The Battle of the Plain of Tuired”) is the best-knowntale of the cycle, dealing specifically with the climactic battle between the

Tuatha and the Fomori. The God Lugh assumes the leadership of the tuthaand leads them to victory after he himself kills Balor of the Evil Eye, the mostformidable of the fomori. Lugh becomes thus a divine archetype of kingship,while he is also the Samildánach (“the many-gifted one”), mastering all thearts and the crafts, moving between all the activities of society and be patronof each one.

The Irish female deities usually indicate sexuality and fertility, with powerfulmagical and warlike connotations. There are five goddesses identified withwar, and inspiring battle madness. The Morrígan ("terror" or "phantomqueen") is the greatest of them, being associated with war and death on thebattlefield, sometime appearing in the form of a carrion crow. Other goddesses of war are the Badb (fury), Dea (the hateful one) Nemain(frenzy), while Macha (who is also goddess of the horses) is also includedhere. Another triad is formed by the goddesses identified with the sovrantyand spirit of Ireland, represented as three sisters, Eire, Banba and Fotla.

Some of these deities attracted singular worship, associated with thefestivals that marked the Celtic year:

• Samhain: celebrated around 31 October, it began the Celtic year. Itwas a time when the veil between this world and the Otherworld wasthought to be so thin that the dead could return to warm themselves atthe hearths of the living, and some of the living - especially poets -were able to enter the Otherworld through the doorways of the sidhe,such as that at the Hill of Tara in Ireland.

• Imbolc (or Oimelc) celebrated at lambing time, around 31 January, itmarked the beginning of the end of winter. Women met to celebratethe return of the maiden aspect of the Goddess Brigid.

• Beltain, celebrated around 1 May, was a fire festival sacred to the godBelenos, the Shining One. Cattle were let out of winter quarters anddriven between two fires in a ritual cleansing ceremony that may havehad practical purposes too. It was a time for feasts and fairs and for

the mating of animals.• Lughnasadh was a summer festival lasting for two weeks that fell

around 31 July. It was said to have been introduced to Ireland by thegod Lugh, and so was sacred to this god. This festival was celebratedwith competitions of skill, including horse-racing (perhaps this is whythe festival was also linked to the goddess Macha)


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2.3. The Milesians

The last invaders of Ireland, who overthrew the power of the Celtic gods,were the Milesians, whom many view as the forefathers of the Gaels.

According to the “Book of Invasions”, the Milesians were the sons of MílEspáine (Miled), whose ancestors had originally come from Scythia, but had

then settled in Spain.Amergin (a warrior and a bard) was the leader of the invasion. His firstwords upon landing were the poem that is known today as the "Song of Amergin":

The Song of Amergin

I am a stag: of seven times,I am a flood: across a plain,I am a wind: on a deep lake,I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,I am a hawk: above the hill,I am a thorn: beneath the nail I am a wonder: among flowers,I am a wizard: who but I Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?

I am a spear: that rears for blood,I am a salmon: in a pool,I am a lure: from paradise,

I am a hill: where poets walk,I am a boar: ruthless and red,I am a breaker: threatening doom,I am a tide: that drags to death,I am an infant: who but I Peeps from the unhewn dolmen arch?

I am the womb: of every holt,I am the blaze: on every hill I am the queen: of every hiveI am the shield: for every head,

I am the grave: of every hope.

(Transl. by Robert Graves)

The three sister goddesses of the Dé Danann, Banba, Fodla and Eriu,asked the Milesians to name Ireland after one of them. It was Eriu who wonthe honour. Ireland became known as Erin or Erinn.

The Tuatha Dé Danann, though defeated, did not leave Erin, but continued tolive there, with their conquerors. Manannan (in other accounts, the Dagda)placed a powerful spell of invisibility over the many parts of Ireland; magical

palaces were hidden under the mound. The places were called Sidh or Sidhe. The Tuatha Dé Danann became spirit people, or fairies.


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2.4. The World of the Sídhe

After their being defeated by the Milesians, the Danaan were allotted spiritualIreland.

They became spirit people, inhabiting the sídhe (another name for theOtherworld), which was associated with barrows, tumuli, mounds, hills.

This new habitat led to another name for the Danaan, aes sídhe (people of the Sídh) or fairy people.

Some important figures emerging in Irish fairy lore are:

• The Bean Sídhe (“woman of the hills”): a female fairy attached to aparticular family. She had the function of keening like a mortal womanwhen a family member died.

• Leprechaun: a diminutive guardian of a hidden treasure (origin: Lugh-

chromain – little stooping Lugh)• Puca (Puck):a supernatural animal who took people for nightmarish

rides; a mischievous spirit who led travellers astray.

• Slua Sídhe: the fairy host who travel through the air at night, and areknown to ’take’ mortals with them on their journeys.

2.5. The Sidhe in W. B. Yeatss Early Poems

Poet, dramatist, mystic and public figure, W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) was bornto an Anglo-Irish Protestant family, but turned into a committed Irishnationalist, becoming thus the primary driving force behind the Irish LiteraryRevival – a movement which stimulated new appreciation of traditional Irishliterature, encouraging the creation of works written in the spirit of Irishculture, as distinct from English culture.

Yeats was also co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, another great symbol of theliterary revival, which served as the stage for many new Irish writers andplaywrights of the time.

After the establishment of the Irish Free State, Yeats was appointed to the

first Irish Senate Seanad Éireann in 1922 and re-appointed in 1925.He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 for what the NobelCommittee described as "his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artisticform gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation".

With regard to his poetic output, this corresponds to three main phases:

• The first phase is associated with the Irish Revival of the 1890s whichbrought about an upsurge of interest in Celtic myth and legend. Thisallowed Yeats, as well as other writers, to bring mythical motifs andfigures into their works as symbols and expressions of Irishness pastand present.

– Collections:

• The Wanderings of Oísin and Other Poems (1889)


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• The Countess Kathleen and Other Legends and Lyrics(1892)

• The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

• In the Seven Woods (1903)

• The poetry of Yeatss mid-career is dominated by his commitment toIrish nationalism. Hence the poems employ a simpler and moreaccessible style. They are more public and concerned with the politicsof the modern Irish state.

– Collections:

• The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

• Responsibilities (1914)

• The Wilde Swans at Coole (1919)

• Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921)

• Yeatss later poetry is less public and more personal. The poems arecharacterised by a mature lyricism, exploring contrasts between thephysical and spiritual dimensions of life, between sensuality andrationalism, between turbulence and calm, which inform Yeatsstheories of contraries and of the progression which can result fromreconciling them.

– Collections:

• The Tower (1928)

• The Winding Star (1933)

• Parnells Funeral and Other Poems (1935)

• Last Poems and Two Plays (1939)

It is the early poems that Yeats draws heavily on Irish myth, employingmythological figures and mythic motifs alongside with theories drawn fromoccult writings (in which he was also interested.) Though dissimilar at a firstglance, the two areas bear comparison in several aspects:

• The ‘natural (world in time, manifestation) as opposed to the‘supernatural (that which is beyond manifestation);

• Metaphysical content;

• The exile, the quest, the voyage: symbols of the spirits journey fromlife to death.

On the basis of these, Yeats constructs his own system of opposites, whichmay be seen to inform his poetry:


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The Sídhe The natural world

Spirit Matter

Imagination Reason

Eternal Ephemeral

Immortal Mortal

Id Ego

Water & air Earth

Night Day

Though opposed, points of contact may be established between the tworealms, which are associated with states that may be labelled as “in-between”:

• Shores, lakes, islands

• Twilight, dawn• Dreams, visions

In “The Stolen Child” (a poem based on Irish legend) the faeries beguile achild (presumably in a dream) to come away with them.

The Stolen Child

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,There lies a leafy islandWhere flappy herons wakeThe drowsy water-rats;There weve hid our faery vats,Full of berries And of reddest stolen cherries.Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand,For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glossesThe dim grey sands with light,


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Far off by furthest RossesWe foot it all the night,Weaving olden dances,Mingling hands and mingling glancesTill the moon has taken flight;To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles,While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep.Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand,For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.[. . .] Away with us hes going,The solemn-eyed:

Hell hear no more the lowingOf the calves on the warm hillsideOr the kettle on the hobSing peace into his breast,Or see the brown mice bobRound and round the oatmeal-chest.For he comes, the human child,To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand,For a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

Such points of contact between the two worlds allow for visionary states, ableto produce artistic creation. But, usually, this involves a great cost: thedreamers (like the one in “The Man Who Dreamed of Fairyland”) remaincaught in-between the two, never allowed to find comfort in this life, for their thoughts are constantly turned to the world of the imagination, or spirit.

The Man who Dreamed of Faeryland

He stood among a crowd at Drumahair;His heart hung all upon a silken dress,

And he had known at last some tenderness,Before earth took him to her stony care;But when a man poured fish into a pile,It seemed they raised their little silver heads, And sang what gold morning or evening shedsUpon a woven world-forgotten isleWhere people love beside the ravelled seas;That Time can never mar a lovers vowsUnder that woven changeless roof of boughs:The singing shook him out of his new ease.

He wandered by the sands of Lissadell;His mind ran all on money cares and fears, And he had known at last some prudent years


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Before they heaped his grave under the hill;But while he passed before a plashy place, A lug-worm with its grey and muddy mouthSang that somewhere to north or west or southThere dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle raceUnder the golden or the silver skies;That if a dancer stayed his hungry footIt seemed the sun and moon were in the fruit: And at that singing he was no more wise.

He mused beside the well of Scanavin,He mused upon his mockers: without failHis sudden vengeance were a country tale,When earthly night had drunk his body in;But one small knot-grass growing by the poolSang where - unnecessary cruel voice -

Old silence bids its chosen race rejoice,Whatever ravelled waters rise and fallOr stormy silver fret the gold of day, And midnight there enfold them like a fleece And lover there by lover be at peace.The tale drove his angry mood away.

He slept under the hill of Lugnagall; And might have known at last unhaunted sleepUnder that cold and vapour-turbaned steep,Now that the earth had taken man and all:

Did not the worms that spired about his bonesProclaim with that unwearied, reedy cryThat God has laid His fingers on the sky,That, from those fingers, glittering summer runsUpon the dancer by the dreamless wave.Why should those lovers that no lovers missDream, until God burn Nature with a kiss?

The man has found no comfort in the grave.

In “The Song of the Wandering Aengus” Yeats re-works “Aislinge Oengusa”.

Adopting the mythological mask of the Irish god of love and youth, the poetexpresses the same predicament of the dreamer, who has a vision of thesidhe in the form of a beautiful girl, a symbol of the perfection of theimaginative world.

The Song of the Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out,


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I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor I went to blow the fire aflame,But something rustled on the floor, And some one called me by my name:It had become a glimmering girlWith apple blossom in her hair Who called me by my name and ran And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wanderingThrough hollow lands and hilly lands,I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are doneThe silver apples of the moon,The golden apples of the sun.

2.6. The Sidhe with Contemporary Women Poets

If Irish ancestral culture allowed room for the exercise of an autonomousfemale creative potential, such as evidenced in

–

Myth: Dana, Brigid, Eire – Folklore: Cailleach Beare (the Hag of Beare)

– Society: bean fíle (woman poet)

through the medieval to modern periods women are gradually excluded fromthe social, political and cultural spheres, being relegated to the domesticsphere. Proof may be found in different areas, such as:

– Proverbs and formulaic expressions (e.g. the three worstcurses that can befall a village are: to have a wet thatcher, aheavy sower and a woman poet.)

– Religious constructs: the Virgin (Mother of God), Mother Ireland – Literary tradition (dominated by male poets, who employ

women simply as symbols or motifs in their texts, denying themtheir complexity.)

Contemporary women poets (Eavan Boland, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Eillen NiChuilleanain, Eithne Strong, Medb McGuckian) are committed to the 3 “R”sof Irish feminist writing:

– to resist and revise reductive images and perceptions of womenand

– to revive /re-posses energies related to creativity, fertility andself-sufficiency which some connect to the Celtic ideals of womanhood.


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Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill (1952-) is one of the most popular of contemporaryIrish poets. Writing in Irish her work draws upon themes of ancient Irishfolklore and mythology, combined with contemporary themes of femininity,sexuality, and culture. As she herself confesses:

“Irish is a language of enormous elasticity and emotional sensitivity; of quickand hilarious banter and a welter of references both historical andmythological; it is an instrument of imaginative depth and scope, which hasbeen tempered by the community for generations until it can pick up and singout every hint of emotional modulation that can occur between people.”

Her collections include An Dealg Droighin (1981); Féar Suaithinseach (1984);Rogha Dánta/Selected Poems (1986, 1988, 1990); Pharoh’s Daughter (1990), and Feis (1991).

In “Swept Away”, the fairy woman becomes the carrier of a powerful femaleenergy, able to subvert and transform the traditional representations of the

feminine:

SWEPT AWAY (FUADACH)

The fairy woman marchedright into my poem.

She didnt close the door.She didnt ask.I was too politeto throw her out

so I decidedto act all nice:

Stay, if youre in a hurry,and of course you are.

Sit up to the fire;eat; have a drink.

Mind you, if I were in your housethe way youre in mineId go home right away,

but never mind: stay.So she did. She got up and started

doing housework. She made the beds,washed the dishes. Put the dirty clothes

in the machine.When my husband came

home for his tea,he didnt notice she wasnt me.

But Im in the fairy field

in everlasting dark.I/m freezing, with onlythe mist to cover me.


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And if he wants me backheres what he must do:

get a fine big ploughshareand butter it well,

then make it red-hot in the fire.

Then go to the bedwhere that bitch is lying

and let her have it!“Push it into her face,

burn her and scorch her,and all the time shes going,

Ill be coming. All the time shes going,

Ill be coming.”

The daughter of an Irish diplomat Eavan Boland (1944-) spent much of her youth living in London and New York City.

One of Ireland’s few recognized women poets, Boland addresses broadissues of Irish national identity as well as the specific issues confrontingwomen and mothers in a culture that has traditionally ignored their experiences. As she herself has stated,

“As an Irish woman poet I have very little precedent. There were none in

the 19th century or early part of the 20th century. You didnt have athriving sense of the witness of the lived life of women poets, and whatyou did have was a very compelling and at time oppressive relationshipbetween Irish poetry and the national tradition.”

In Bolands view “… we all [women] exist in a mesh, web, labyrinth of associations … we ourselves are constructed by the construct … images arenot ornaments, they are truths.”

Her collections of poems include In Her Own Image (1980), Night Feed (1982), Outside History (1990), In a Time of Violence (1994).

She has also written a prose memoir, Object Lessons: The Life of theWoman and the Poet in Our Time (1995).

In “The Woman Turns herself Into A Fish”, Boland engages directly withYeatss “The Song of the Wondering Aengus”, re-writing the mermaid image:

The Woman Turns Herself into a Fish

its done:I turn,I flab upward

blub-lipped,hiplessand I am


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sexlessshedof ecstasy,

a paleswimmer sequin-skinned,

pealing eggsscreamlesslyin seaweed.

Its whatI set my heart on.Yet

rudderingand musclingin the sunless tons

of new freedomsstillI feel

a chill pull,a brightening,

a light, a light

and howin my loomy cold,my greens

stillshe moonsin me.

Task:

Choose one of the following topics to develop into a 4000-word essay of theargumentative type:

1. The Celtic Pantheon in its Indo-European Context.

2. The World of the Sidhe with W.B. Yeats and Nuala NiDhumnaill.

3. The Dreamers Mermaid or the Mermaids Dream? (The Song of the

Wandering Aengus vs. The Woman Turns Herself Into a Fish)


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Chapter 3 - The Ulster Cycle and the Celtic Hero

3.1. The Ulster (Red Branch ) Cycle

3.2. Emáin Macha

3.3. Main Characters of the Cycle

3.4. Main Tales of the Cycle

3.4.1. The Exile of the Sons of Uísneach

3.4.2. Táin Bó Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of

Cooley)

3.4.3. Táin Bó Fraoch (The Cattle Raid of

Fraoch)

3.5. Celtic myth in the theatre of Yeats:

3.5.1.The Cuchulain cycle:3.5.1.1. On Bailes Strand (1904)

3.5.1.2. The Green Helmet (1910)

3.5.1.3. At the Hawks Well (1916)

3.5.1.4. The Only Jealousy of

Emer (1916)

3.5.1.5. The Death of Cuchulain

3.6. De-constructing “heroism”: Nuala Ni

Dhumnaills “Cuchulain I”


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3.1. The Ulster (Red Branch ) Cycle

The cycle of Ulster contains a group of heroic tales relating to the Ulaid andtheir military order known as the House of the Red Branch.

The main part of the Ulaid Cycle is set during the reigns of Conchobar inUlaid (Ulster) and Queen Medb in Connacht (Connaught).

The cycle centers on the greatest hero in Celtic myths, Cú Chulainn (CuChulainn or Cuchulain).

The Ulaid Cycle is supposed to be contemporary to Christ (1st century BC)since Conchobar’s death coincides with the day of Christs crucifixion.

Thomas Kinsella, in the “Introduction” to his translation of “The Cattle Raid of Cooley”, asserts the following:

“The origins of the Tain are far more ancient than these manuscripts [8 th

–century manuscripts in which it was preserved]. The language of theearliest form of the story is dated to the eighth century, but some of theverse passages may be two centuries older and it is held by most Celticscholars that the Ulster cycle, with the rest of early Irish literature, musthave had a long oral existence before it received a literary shape, and afew traces of Christian colour, at the hands of the monastic scribes. As tothe background of the Tain the Ulster cycle was traditionally believed torefer to the time of Christ. This might seem to be supported by thesimilarity between the barbaric world of the stories, uninfluenced byGreece or Rome, and the La Tene Iron age civilisation of Gaul andBritain. The Tain and certain descriptions of Gaulish society by Classical

authors have many details in common: in warfare alone, the individualweapons, the boastfulness and courage of the warriors, the practices of cattle-raiding, chariot-fighting and beheading.

3. 2. Emain Macha is the seat of power in Ulaid (Ulster), situated near modern Armagh.

The dun (hill-fort) was named after the Red Queen Macha, said to be itsfounder. Macha had used her brooch to mark the boundary of her capital, sothe name Emain Macha could mean the "Brooch of Macha".

Macha was identified as the Irish goddess of fertility, war and of horses,being one of the aspects of Morrígan. She was portrayed as red goddess,either because she was dressed in red or that she had red hair.

She reappeared in the Ulaid Cycle as wife of Crunnchu and was associatedwith the curse placed upon the men of Ulster. In this version, Emain Machameans "The Twins of Macha", such as asserted in one tale of thedinnseachas type, entitled the “Pangs of Ulster”.


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THE PANGS OF ULSTER

There was a very rich landlord in Ulster, Crunniuc mac Agnomain. Helived in a lonely place in the mountains with all his sons. His wife wasdead. Once, as he was alone in the house, he saw a woman comingtoward him there, and she was a fine woman in his eyes. She settleddown and began working at once, as though she were well used to thehouse. When night came, she put everything in order without beingasked. Then she slept with Crunniuc.

She stayed with him for along while afterward, and there wasnever a lack of food or clothes or anything else under her care.

Soon a fair was held in Ulster. Everyone in Ulster, men andwomen, boys and girs, went to the fair. Crunniuc set out for the fair with the rest, in his best clothes and in great vigour.

‘It would be as well not to grow too boastful or careless inanything you say, the woman said to him.

‘/that isnt likely, he said.The fair was held. At the end of the days, the kings chariot wasbought onto the field. His chariot and horses won. The crowd said thatnothing could beat those horses.

‘My wife is faster, Crunniuc said.He was taken immediately before the king and the woman was

sent for. She said to the messenger:‘It would be a heavy burden for me to go and free him now. I

am full with child.‘Burden? the messenger said. ‘He will die unless you come.She went to the fair, and her pangs gripped her. She called out

to the crowd:‘A mother bore each one of you! Help me! Wait till my child isborn.

But she couldnt move them.‘Very well, she said. ‘A long lasting evil will come out of this on

the whole of Ulster.‘What is your name? the king asked.‘My name, and the name of my offspring, she said, ‘will be

given to this place. I am Macha, daughter of Sainrith mac Imbaith.Then she raced the chariot. As the chariot reached the end of

the field, she gave birth alongside it. She bore twins, a son a nd a

daughter. The name Emain Macha, the Twins of Macha, comes fromthis. As she gave birth she creamed out that all who heard that screamwould suffer from the same pangs for five days and four nights in their times of greatest difficulty. This affliction ever afterward, seized all themen of Ulster who were there that day, and nine generations after them. Five days and four nights, or five nights and four days the pangslasted. For nine generations any Ulsterman in those pangs had nomore strength than a woman on the bed of labour. Only three classesof people were free from the pangs of Ulster: the young boys of Ulster,the women, and Cuchulainn.


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3.3. Main characters of the Cycle

Conchobar MacNessa was the son of Ness, or Nessa and FachtnaFáthach, a giant and king of Ulster. Fachtna was either the brother or half-brother of Fergus Mac Roich.

In a more popular version, Conchobar’s father was Cathbad, the ard-druid (high druid) of Ulster, who later became Conchobar’s adviser.

During his reign, Ulster prospered. Conchobar established a military order of elite warriors called the Red Branch. His uncle, Fergus served as captain of the Red Branch, and with his teaching, he produced the greatest warriors of Ulster, Conall Cernach and Cu Chulainn.

Conchobar had many wives, including Medb (Maeve), who fled to Connachtto become his mortal enemy.

Medb (Maeve) had actually come from the province of Leinster. Her father was Eochaid Feidlech, king of Tara. Like her three sisters, she was at onetime married to Conchobar Mac Nessa, king of Ulster. She left Conchobar and became Conchobar’s chief enemy throughout the rest of her life.

In Connacht she had three different husbands, who each became king of theprovince. As such, Medb represents the Sovereignity of Connacht. The bestknown of her husbands was Ailill Mac Mata.

Medb had many children, most of them by Ailill. Apart from her Finnabair andseveral other daughters, she also had seven sons, all of them with the name

Maine.Medb had many lovers, but Fergus Mac Rioch was the best known and wasseen as her most frequent lover.

Cú Chulainn (Cuchulain) is the greatest hero of the Ulster Cycle.Cuchulain was the son of Deichtine and the sun god, Lugh Lamfada. ThoughLugh was his father, he called himself Cú Chulainn Mac Sualtam, after hisstepfather, who was the brother of Fergus Mac Roich. Cuchulain was alsograndson of the great druid Cathbad.

Cuchulain was called Sétanta at birth. His name was to change to CúChulainn ("Hound of Culann“) when, still a boy, he killed a great houndbelonging to Culann, Conchobars master-smith.

3. 4. Main tales of the cycle

3. 4. 1. The Exile of the Sons of Uìsneach

The tale of Deirdre and Naoísi, son of Uisnech, is the most famous Irishromance. This romance of a love triangle was to influence other tales, suchas The Pursuit of Diarmait and Grainne of the Fenian Cycle and the legend of Tristan.


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It also holds Conchobar responsible for the defection of Fergus and 3000other warriors, including his own son, Cormac, to Ulster’s traditional enemy –Connacht, when he had the sons of Uisnech put to death.

THE EXILE OF THE SONS OF USNACH

The Ulaid feasted one day in the house of Fedlimid, the chronicler of King Conchobar, and as the feast came to an end, a girl-child wasborn to the wife of Fedlimid; and a druid prophesied about her future.[Her name is to be Deirdre. The child will grow to be a woman of wonderful beauty and will cause enmity and trouble and will depart outof the kingdom. Many will die on account of her.]

The Ulaid proposed to kill the child at once and so avoid thecurse. But Conchobar ordered that she be spared and reared apart,hidden from mens eyes; and that he himself would take her for hiswife. So Deirdre was entrusted to foster-parents and was reared in a

dwelling apart. A wise woman, Leborcham, was the only other personallowed to see her.

Once the girls foster-father was flaying a calf outside in thesnow in winter to cook it for her, and she saw a raven drinking theblood in the snow. Then she said to Leborcham, “Fair would be manupon whom those three colours should be: his hair like the raven, andhis cheek like the blood, and his body like the snow.” “Grace andprosperity to you!” said leborcham. “He is not far from you, insideclose by: Naoisi the son of Usnach.” “I shall not be well,” said she,“until I see him.”

Once that same Naoisi was on the rampart of the fort sounding

his cry. And sweet was the cry of the sons of Usnach. Every cow andevery beast that would hear it used to give two-thirds excess of milk.For every man who heard it, it was enough of peace andentertainment. Good was their valour too. Though the whole provinceof the Ulaid should be around them in one place, if the three of themstood back to back, they would not overcome them, for the excellenceof their defence. They were as swift as hounds at the hunt. They usedto kill deer by their speed.

When Naoisi was there outside, soon she went out to him, asthough to go past him, and did not recognise him. “Fair is the heifer that goes past me,” said he. “Heifers must grow big where there areno bulls,” said she. “You have the bull of the province,” said he, “theking of the Ulaid.” “I would choose between you,” said she, “and Iwould take a young bull like you.” “No! said he. Then she sprangtoward him and caught his ears. “Here are two ears of shame andmockery,” said she, “unless you take me with you.”

Naoisi sounded his cry, and the Ulstermen sprang up as theyheard it, and the sons of Usnach, his two brothers, went out to restrainand warn him. But his honour was challenged. “We shall go intoanother country,” said he. “There is not a king in Ireland that will notmake us welcome.” That night they set out with 150 warriors and 150

women and 150 hounds, and Deirdre was with them.Conchobar pursued them with plots and treachery, and they fledto Scotland. And they took service with the king of Scotland and built a


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house around Deirdre so that they should not be killed on account of her. One day the steward saw her and told the king of her beauty, sothat he demanded her for wife; and the sons of Usnach had to flee andtake refuge on an island in the sea.

Then Conchobar invited them back and sent Fergus as a surety;but when they came to Emain, Naoisi and his followers were killed,

and Deirdre was brought to Conchobar, and her hands were boundbehind her back.When Fergus and Cormac heard of this treachery, they came and didgreat deed: three hundred of the Ulaid were killed, and women werekilled, and Emain was burnt by Fergus. And Fergus and Cormac wentto the court of Ailill and Maeve, and for sixteen years the Ulaid had nopeace.

But Deirdre was for a year with Conchobar, and she never smiledor raised her head from her knee.[. . .] And when Conchobar wascomforting her she used to say:

Conchobar, what are you doing? You have caused me sorrowsand tears. As long as I live, I shall not love you.What was dearest to me under heaven, and what was most beloved, you have taken from me, - a great wrong - so that I shall not see him till I die.Two bright cheeks, red lips, eyebrows black as a chafer, pearly teeth bright with the noble colour of snow.Do not break my heart. Soon I shall die. Grief is stronger than thesea, if you could understand it, Conchobar.

“What do you hate most of what you see?” said Conchobar. “You,”she said, “and Eogan son of Dubhthach.” “you shall be a year withEogan,” said Conchobar. He gave her to Eogan. They went next dayto the assembly of Macha. She was behind Eogan in the chariot. Shehad prophesied that she would not see two husbands on earthtogether. “Well, Deirdre,” said Conchobar. “You look like a sheepbetween two rams, between Eogan and me.” There was a big rock infront of her. She thrust her head against the rock, so that it shatteredher head, and she died.

That is the exile of the Sons of Usnach, and the exile of Fergusand the Tragic Death of the sons of Usnach and of Deirdre. Finit. Amen. Finit.

Summary by Myles Dillon

3. 4. 2. Táin Bó Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley)

Táin Bó Cuailnge is the best known and longest tale of the cycle (closest toan Old Irish epic.)

Main plot concerns the invasion of Ulster by the army of Connacht led byMedb who wants to capture the Brown Bull of Cooley.

As the Ulsterman are debilitated by the curse of Macha, Cuchulain (who isexempt from it) defeats Medbs army single-handed.


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Though the Brown Bull is captured and sent to Cruachain, he kills the WhiteBull of Connacht but dies of exhaustion after galloping back to Ulster with hisrival on his back.

There follows a summary of this tale:

TAIN BO CUAILNGE

Once when their royal bed had been made ready for Ailill and Maevethey conversed as they lay on the pillows. “It is a true saying, girl,” said Ailill, “that the wife of a good man is well off.” “It is true,” said the girl.“Why do you say so?” “Because,” said Ailill, “you are better off todaythan the day I wed you.” “I was well off without you,” said Maeve. “Ihad not heard or known it,” said Ailill, “but that you were an heiressand that your nearest neighbours were robbing and plundering you.”“That was not so,” said Maeve, “for my father, Eochu Feidlech son of Finn, was high king of Ireland.” And she went on to boast of her riches,and he of his.

Their treasures were brought before them, and it appeared thatMaeve had possessions equal to those of Ailill, save for a splendidbull, Whitehorn, which had belonged to Maeves herd but hadwandered into the herd of Ailill because it would not remain in awomans possession. All her wealth seemed to Maeve not worth apenny, since she had no bull equal to that of Ailill. She learned thatthere was one as good in the province of Ulster in the cantred of Cuailnge, and she sent messengers to ask a loan of it for a year,promising a rich reward. If the reward was not enough, she would

even grant the owner the enjoyment of her love. The messengersreturned without the bull and reported the owners refusal. “There is noneed to smooth over difficulties,” said Maeve, “for I knew that it wouldnot be given freely until it was taken by force, and so it will be taken.”

Maeve summoned the armies of Connacht and Cormac son of Conchobar and Fergus son of Roech, who were in exile from Ulster atthe time, and set out to carry off the precious bull. Before theexpedition started, she consulted her druid for a prophesy. He told her that she at least would return alive. Then she met a mysteriousprophetess who rode on the shaft of a chariot, weaving a fringe with agold staff, and she asked her to prophesy. The woman answered, “I

see crimson upon them, I see red.” Four times Maeve appealedagainst this oracle, but each time the answer was the same; and theprophetess then chanted a poem in which she foretold the deeds of Cuchulainn.

On the first day the army advanced from Cruachan as far as CuilSilinni, and the tents were pitched. Ailills tent was on the right wing of the army. The tent of Fergus was next, and beside it was the tent of Cormac, son of Conchobar. To the left of Ailill was the tent of Maeveand next to hers that of Findabair, her daughter. [...] Fergus wasappointed to guide the army, for the expedition was a revenge for him.He had been King of Ulster for seven years and had gone into exile

when the sons of Usnach were killed in violation of his guaranty andprotection. And so he marched in front. But he felt a pang of longingfor Ulster and led the army astray northward and southward while he


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sent warnings to the Ulstermen. But the Ulstermen had been strickenwith a mysterious sickness which afflicted them in times of danger, theresult of a curse laid upon them by Macha, a fairy whom they hadwronged. Cuchulainn and his father, Sualtam, were exempt from thecurse, and they set out to oppose the enemy. They arrived at ArdCuillenn, and Cuchulainn told his father to go back and warn the

Ulstermen to depart from the open plains into the woods and valleys.He cut an oak sapling with a single stroke, and, using one arm, oneleg, and one eye, he made it into a hoop, wrote an ogam on it, andfixed it around a stone pillar. Then he departed to keep a tryst with agirl south of Tara.

The Connacht army reached Ard Cuillenn and saw the ogam.Fergus interpreted it for them. Any man who advanced farther thatnight, unless he made a hoop in the same way, would be slain byCuchulainn before morning. Ailill decided to turn aside into the forestfor the night. In the morning Cuchulainn returned from his tryst andfound the army at Turloch Caille Moire, north of Cnogba na Rig. Therehe cut off the fork of a tree with a single stroke and cast it into theearth from his chariot, so that two-thirds of the stem was buried in theearth. He came upon two Connaught warriors and beheaded themand their charioteers. He set their heads upon the branches of thetree-fork and turned their horses back toward the camp, the chariotsbearing the headless bodies of the men. [. . . ]

“The Man who did this deed, Fergus said, ‘is Cuchulainn. It is hewho struck the branch from its base with a single stroke, and killed thefour as swiftly as they were killed, and who came to the border with

only his charioteer.‘What sort of man, Aillil said, ‘is this Hound of Ulster we hear tell of? How old is this remarkable person?

‘It is soon told, ‘ Fergus said. ‘In his fifth year he went to studythe arts and the crafts of War with Scathach, and courted Emer. In hiseight year he took up the arms. At present he is in his seventeenthyear.

‘Is he the hardest they have in Ulster? Maeve said.‘Yes, the hardest of all, Fergus said. ‘Youll find no harder

warrior against you - no point more sharp, more swift, more slashing;no raven more flesh-ravenous, no hand more daft, no fighter more

fierce, no one of his own age one third as good, no lion moreferocious; no barrier in battle, no hard hammer, no gate of battle, nosoldiers doom, no hinderer of hosts, more fine. Youll find no onethere to measure him - for youth or vigour, for apparel, horror or eloquence; for splendour, fame or form, for voice or strength or sternness, for cleverness, courage or blows in battle; for fire or gury,victory, doom, or turmoil; for stalking, scheming or slaughter in thehunt; for swiftness, alertness or wilderness; and no one with the battle-feat ‘nine men on each point - none like Cuchulainn.

On the next day the army moved eastward, and Cuchulainn went

to meet them. He surprised Orlam son of Ailill and Maeve and killedhim, and the next day he killed three more with their charioteers. Thearmy advanced and devastated the plains of Bregia and Muirthemne,


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and Fergus warned them to beware of Cuchulainns vengeance. Theywent on into Cuailnge and reached the river Glaiss Cruind, but it roseagainst them so that they could not cross. A hundred chariots wereswept into the sea. Cuchulainn followed hard upon them seekingbattle, and he killed a hundred men. Maeve called upon her ownpeople to oppose him in equal combat. “Not I, not I!” said each one

from where he stood. “My people owe no victim, and if one were owingI would not go against Cuchulainn, for it is not easy to fight with him.”That night a hundred warriors died of fright at the sound of Cuchulainns weapons.

Maeve sent a messenger to summon Cuchulainn to a parley withher and Fergus, but he would accept no conditions; and for the nextthree days the army lay without pitching their tents and withoutfeasting or music, and Cuchulainn killed a hundred men each night.The messenger was sent again to ask for terms, and he refused allthat were proposed. There was one condition that he would accept,but he would not himself declare it. Fergus was able to tell thatCuchulainn would agree to single combat with a warrior each day, if the army would advance only while the combat lasted and would haltwhen the warrior had been killed until another was found. Maevedecided to accept the proposal, because it would be better to lose oneman every day than a hundred every night. [. . .]

Meanwhile Maeve turned northward to Dun Sobairche, andCuchulainn followed her. He turned back to protect his own territoryand found Buide son of Ban Blai, with twenty-four followers, driving theBrown Bull of Cuailnge, which they had found in Glenn na Samisce inSliab Cuilinn. The bull was accompanied by twenty-four of his cows.

Cuchulainn challenged Buide and killed him, but, while they wereexchanging casts of their spears, the great bull was driven off, andthat was the greatest grief and dismay and confusion that Cuchulainnsuffered on that hosting. Maeve plundered Dun Sobairche, and thenafter six weeks the four provinces of Ireland with Ailill and Maeve andthose who had captured the bull came into camp together. [. . .]

In the morning, when the sun was up, the Ulstermen attacked, andthe men of Ireland [the Connaught army] came to meet them. Threetimes the Men of Ireland broke through northward and each time theywere driven back. The Conchobar himself went into the field, wherethe enemy had been advancing, and found Fergus opposed to him.

They fought shield to shield, and Fergus struck three mighty blowsupon the shield of Conchobar so that it screamed aloud. But,remembering that he was an Ulsterman, he turned his anger againstthe hills, and three hills were shorn of their tops by his sword.

Cuchulainn heard the scream of Conchobars magic shield wherehe lay prostrate from his wounds. He rose up in heroic frenzy andseized no mere weapons but his war-chariot, body and wheels, towield against the enemy. Fergus had promised, if ever he andCuchulainn should meet in the battle, that he would retreat before him.When Cuchulainn now came against him, he led his company out of the fight, and the Leinstermen and Munstermen followed them, so that

only Ailill and Maeve and their sons with nine battalions remained inthe field. At noon Cuchulainn came into the battle. At sunset he had


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defeated the last battalion, and of his chariot there remained a few ribsof the body and a few spokes of the wheels.

Meanwhile, Maeve had sent the Brown Bull of Cuailnge toCruachan, so that he at least should come there, whoever else mightfail to come. Then she appealed the Cuchulainn to spare her armyuntil it should go westward past Ath Mor, and he consented. [. . .]

When the Brown Bull came to Cruachan, he uttered three mightybellows, and the Whitehorned Bull heard that and came to fight him. All who had returned from the battle came to watch the bull-fight. Theywatched until night fell, and when night fell they could only listen to thegreat noise of the fight. The bulls travelled all over Ireland during thenight, and in the morning the Brown Bull was seen going pastCruachan with the Whitehorned Bull on his horns. He galloped back toUlster, scattering fragments of the dead bulls flesh from his horns onthe way, and when he came to the border of Cuailnge, his heart broke,and he died.

Summary by Myles Dillon

3.4.3. Táin Bó Fraoch (The Cattle Raid of Fraoch)

Táin Bó Fraoch is the second most popular cattle raid tale in Old Irishliterature.

Its first part, in which Medb plots the death of Fraoch (a young Connachwarrior who has fallen in love with Finnabair) forcing him fight a monster who

dwells in a lake, has echoes in the anglo-saxon poem of Beowulf. After killingthe monster, Fraoch marries Finnabair, and the second part of the talerecounts how both she and his cattle herds are kidnapped and carried off from Connacht.

3.5. Celtic Myth in the Theatre of W.B. Yeats

3.5.1. The Cuchulain cycle of plays

Cuchulain appears as the main hero in 5 plays written by William Butler Yeats from 1902 to 1938. In these plays Yeats blends elements of Irish mythmade available to him through the translations of the Taín, and Lady AugustaGregorys Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902), with his personal symbolism thatcarries forward the oppositions between the real and the spirit world evolvedin his poems.

In their chronological order, the Cuchulain plays are:

3.5.1.1. On Bailes Strand (1904)

3.5.1.2. The Green Helmet (1910)

3.5.1.3. At the Hawks Well (1916)

3.5.1.4. The Only Jealousy of Emer (1916)


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3.5.1.5. The Death of Cuchulain (1938)

At the Hawks Well

Sources: Macgnìmartha/boyhood deeds, narrated by Fergus in the Taín;

Tochmarc Emire (the Courtship of Emer).Cuchulain overhears from Cathbad that the youth who take up arms that daywould become the greatest warrior in Ireland; his life would be most glorious,but short. He makes his choice immediately and asks the king to let him takeup arms like a man.

Cuchulain receives his training first under Fergus and then under Scathach, afamous warrior woman from the Land of Shadow (island of Skye).

While in Scotland, he has to fight Scathachs sister, Aife, whom he finallymanages to defeat. Becoming her lover, he begets Aife a son, Connla.

Play: Cuchulain, as a Young Man, arrives at a Well, whose waters are saidto give immortality. An Old Man, who has spent 50 years waiting for thechance of drinking from its waters, urges him to join him, for else his life willbe spent in ceaseless warfare. Cuchulain decides to pursue the Hawkguardian of the well, and in doing so he embraces his heroic destiny.

The Green Helmet

Source: Fledd Bricrenn (Bricrius Feast)

Bricriu, a mischief-maker, invites the warriors of Ireland to a feast, where he

maliciously exploits the contention that the choicest portion of meat is givento the greatest hero. Cuchulain, Conall Cernach and Laegaire Buadach claimthe title in turn. To decide which of these warriors is the greatest, a giant or demon, named Uath (Horror) appears and challenges them into a beheadinggame. Only Cuchulain accepts the challenge and beheads the giant, to bethen proclaimed by Uath the greatest champion in Ireland.

Play: Cuchulain makes a sacrificial gesture in offering himself to the RedMan from the sea (Manannan in disguise) to kill.

On Bailes Strand

Source: Aided Oenfhir Aife (Violent Death of Aifes Son)

Before the birth of his son, Cuchulain placed a geis upon him: Connla was tonever reveal his name to any man; he was to fight any man who impeded hispath.

When Connla grew into a young man, he set out for Emain Macha in searchof his father. There he encountered many warriors of the Red Branch, butrefused to give each warrior his name, and he either wounded or killed them.Finally Conchobar send Cuchulain against the boy, and, though warned byEmer that the young man was possibly his son by Aife, his duty to his king

forced him fight and kill Connla.Play: Reluctantly, Cuchulain swears loyalty to Conchobar and is forbidden byhim to befriend an unknown young man sent by Aife. After learning that the


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youth he killed was his own son, Cuchulain dies fighting the waves, mistakentheir foam for Conchobars crown.

A Blind Man and a Fool act as chorus, framing the main action of the play.

ON BAILES STRAND (1901, P.1904)

FOOL: What a clever man you are though you are blind! Theresnobody with two eyes in his head that is as clever as you are. Whobut you could have though that the henwife sleeps every day alittle at noon? I would never be able to steal anything if you didnttell me where to look for it. And what a good cook you are! Youtake the fowl out of my hands after I have stolen it and plucked it,and you put it into the big pot at the fire there, and I can go outand run races with the witches at the edge of the waves and getan appetite, and when Ive got it, theres the hen waiting inside for me, done to the turn.

BLIND MAN [who is feeling about with his stick ]: Done to the turn.FOOL [ putting his arm round Blind Man’s neck ]: Come now, Ill have a

leg and youll have a leg, and well draw lots for the wish-bone. Illbe praising you while youre eating it, for your good plans and for your good cooking. Theres nobody in the world like you, BlindMan. Come, come. Wait a minute. O shouldnt have closed thedoor. There are some that look for me, and I wouldnt like them notto find me. Boann herself out of the river and Fand out of the deepsea. Witches they are, and they come by in the wind, and they cry,

‘Give a kiss, Fool, give a kiss, thats what they cry. Thats wideenough. All the witches can come in now. I wouldnt have thembeat at the door and say, “Where is the Fool? Why has he put alock on the door?” Maybe theyll hear the bubbling of the pot andcome in and sit on the ground. But we wont give them any of thefowl. Let them go back to the sea, let them go back to the sea.

BLIND MAN [feeling legs of big chair with his hand ] Ah! [Then, in alouder voice as he feels the back of it ]. Ah - ah -

FOOL: Why do you say ‘Ah - ah?BLIND MAN: I know the big chair. It is to-day the High King Conchubar

is coming. They have brought out this chair. He is going to be

Cuchulains master in earnest from this day out. It is that hescoming for.FOOL: He must be a great man to be Cuchulains master.BLIND MAN: So he is. He is a great man. He is over all the rest of the

kings of Ireland.FOOL: Cuchulains master! I thought Cuchulain could do anything he

liked.BLIND MAN: So he did, so he did. But he ran too wild, and Conchubar

is coming to-day to put an oath upon him that will stop hisrambling and make him as biddable as a housedog and keep himalways at his hand. He will sit in this chair and put the oath upon

him.FOOL: How will he do that?


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BLIND MAN: You have no wits to understand such things. [The Blind Man has got into the chair ]. He will sit up in this chair and hell say:‘Take the oath, Cuchulain. I bid you take the oath. Do as I tell you.What are your wits compared with mine, and what are your richescompared with mine? And what sons have you to pay your debtsand to put a stone over you when you die? Take the oath, I tellyou. Take a strong oath.

FOOL [crumpling himself up and whining ]: I will not. Ill take no oath. Iwant my dinner.

BLIND MAN: Hush, hush! It is not done yet.FOOL: You said it was done to a turn.BLIND MAN: Did I, now? Well, it might be done, and not done. The

wings might be white, but the legs might be red. The flesh mightstick hard to the bones and not come away in the teeth. But,believe me, Fool, it will be well done before you put your teeth in it.

FOOL: My teeth are growing long with the hunger.

BLIND MAN: Ill tell you a story - the kings have story-tellers while theyare waiting for their dinner - I will tell you a story with a fight in it, astory with a champion in it, and a ship and a queens son that hashis mind set on killing somebody that you and I know.

FOOL: Who is that? Who is he coming to kill?BLIND MAN: Wait, now, till you hear. When you were stealing the

fowl, I was lying in a hole in the sand, and I heard three mencoming with a shuffling sort of noise. They were wounded andgroaning.

FOOL: Go on. Tell me about the fight.BLIND MAN: There had been a fight, a great fight, a tremendous great

fight. A youg man had landed on the shore, the guardians of theshore had asked his name, and he had refused to tell it, and hehad killed one, and others had run away.

FOOL: Thats enough. Come on now to the fowl. I wish it was bigger. Iwish it was as big as a goose.

BLIND MAN: Hush! I havent told you all. I know who that young manis. I heard the men who were running away say he had red hair,that he had come from Aoifes country, that he was going to killCuchulain.


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II.

CUCHULAIN: Because I have killed men without your bidding And have rewarded others at my own leisure,Because of half a score of trifling thing,Youd lay this oath upon me , and now - and now

you add another pebble to the heap, And I must be your man, well-nigh your bondsman,

Because a youngster out of Aoifes countryHas found the shore ill-guarded.

CONCHUBAR: He came to landWhile you were somewhere out of sight and hearing,Hunting or dancing with your wild companions.

CUCHULAIN: He can be driven out. Ill not be bound.Ill dance or hunt, or quarrel or make love,Wherever and whenever Ive a mind to.If time had not put water in your blood,You never would have thought it.

CONCHUBAR: I would leave A strong and settle country to my children.

CUCHULAIN: And I must be obedient in all things;Give up my will to yours; go where you please;Come when you call; sit at the council board Among the unshapely bodies of old men;I whose mere name has kept this country safe,I that in early days have driven outMaeve of Cruachan and the northern pirates,

The hundred kings of Sorcha, and the kingsOut of the Garden in the East of the World.Must I, that held you on the throne when allHad pulled you from it, swear obedience As if I were some cattle-raising king? Are my shins specked with the heat of the fire,Or have my hands not skill but to make figuresUpon the ashes with a stick? Am ISo slack and idle and I need a whipBefore I serve you?

CONCHUBAR: No, no whip, Cuchulain,

But every day my children come and say:‘This man is growing harder to endure.How can we be at safety with this manThat nobody can buy or bid or bind?We shall be at his mercy when you are gone;He burns the earth as if he were a fire, And time can never touch him.

CUCHULAIN: And so the taleGrows finer yet; and I am to obeyWhatever child you set upon the throne,

As if it were yourself!CONCHUBAR: Most certainly.

I am High King, my son shall be High King;


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And you for all the wildness of your blood, And though your father came out of the sun, Are but a little king and weigh but lightIn anything that touches government,If put in balance with my children.

CUCHULAIN: Its well that we should speak out minds out plainly,

For when we die we shall be spoken of In many countries. We in our young daysHave seen the heavens like a burning cloudBrooding upon the world, and being moreThan men can be now that clouds lifted up,We should be the more truthful. Conchubar,I do not like your children - they have no pith,No marrow in their bones, and will lie softWhere you and I lie hard. [ . . . ]

IV.

FOOL: He is going up to King Conchubar. They are all about the youngman. No, no, he is standing still. There is a great wave going tobreak, and he is looking at it. Ah! Now he is running down to the sea,but he is holding up his sword as if he were going into a fight.[ pause]. Well struck! Well struck!

BLIND MAN: What is he doing now?FOOL: O! he is fighting the waves!BLIND MAN: He sees kind Conchubars crown on every one of them.FOOL: There, he has struck at a big one! He has struck the crown off it;

he has made the foam fly. There again, another big one!BLIN MAN: Where are the kings? What are the kings doing?FOOL: They are shouting and running down to the shore, and the people

are running out of the houses. They are all running.BLIND MAN: You say they are running out of the houses? There will be

nobody left in the houses. Listen, Fool!FOOL: There, he is down! He is up again. He is going out in the deep

water. There is a big wave. It has gone over him. I cannot see himnow. He has killed kings and giants, but the waves have masteredhim, the waves have mastered him!

BLIND MAN: Come here, Fool!

Fool: The waves have mastered him.BLIND MAN: Come here!FOOL: The waves have mastered him.BLIND MAN: Come here, I say.FOOL [coming towards him, but looking backwards towards the door ]:

What is it?BLIND MAN: There will be nobody in the houses. Come this way; come

quickly! The ovens will be full. We will put our hands into the ovens.[They go out].


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The Only Jealousy Of Emer

• Sources: Serglige con Chulainn (Cuchulains Illness) and OenetEmire (The Jealousy of Emer)

• When Cuchulain tries to kill two magical birds, he is horsewhipped in adream by two women of the sídh. He spends a year in a coma at Emain

Macha, until , in a further vision, he is told that Fand needs him to fight off three demons who besieged her palace. Cuchulain enters the Otherworld,defeats the demons, and spends a month in Fands loving arms. When hereturns to the surface, he promises to meet Fand again. Emer plans to killFand at the meeting-place, but instead each woman offers to surrender her love. Fand leaves, but all three are distraught until Manannan uses his magiccloak to cast a spell of oblivion upon them.

Play: Yeats exploits the dramatic potential of the love triangle, adding a newcharacter, Eithne Inguba, Cuchulains young mistress.

While Emer renounces Cuchulain in order to save him from Fand (who wants

to take him to the Otherworld), Eithne seemingly wins him back to life and toherself.

The Death Of Cuchulain

Source: Aided Chon Culainn (The Violent Death Of Cuchulain)

Cuchulain meets his death on the plain of Mag Muirthemne, as ordained byMorrigan. As in the Taín, he contends alone against the enemies of Ulster.

Pierced by a spear in the fighting, he fastens himself to a pillar-stone, so thathe may die standing up. When a raven settles on his shoulder, it is taken asa sign he is dead, and his enemies behead him.

Play: Though in legend Cuchulain is said to die young, here he has agedwith the poet.

The Morrigan gets Eithne Inguba to falsify a message from Emer, so thatCuchulain leaves to fight against Medbs army, who has attacked Ulster again. He is wounded six times in battle. Aife appears and ties him to astake, ready to avenge upon him the death of Connla. But it is not her, butthe Blind Man (from On Bailes Strand) who beheads the hero, having been

promised 12 pennies by a “big man”. Cuchulains mode of dying becomes anindictment of the modern materialist society which no longer treasuresheroes and artists alike.


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3. 6. De-Constructing Heroism: Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

Cú Chulainn I

from Selected Poems, 1988

Small dark rigid manCú Chulainnwho still lacks a lump on your shoulder who spent your first nine months in a caveswimming in your mothers fluid.

Grave hunter whod satisfy no woman

saying your father never wentto a small seaside townlike Ballybuionnever made arms and instruments of war to give you

so you could leap from the wombthree minutes after the conceptionyour hand full of spearsholding five shields -it is not we who injured you.

We also came my ladies, out of wombsand the danger yet remainsmorning noon and eveningthat the ground will openand opened to us all will beBrufon na hAlmhaineBr ú na Bóinneor Teach Da Deigewith its seven doorsand hot cauldrons.

Dont threat us again with your youth againsmall poor dark manCú Chulainn.

TaskChoose from one of the following topics to develop into a 4000-word essay of the argumentative type:

1. Tain Bo Cualgne and the Celtic Framework.

2. Constructing and De-constructing Mythic Heroism: representations

of Cuchulain in Tain Bo Cualgne , W. B. Yeatss “Cuchulain plays”

and Nuala NiDhumnaills Chuchulain I .


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Chapter 4 - The Cycle of Munster (the Finn Cycle)

4.1. The Fionn Cycle (Fenian, Ossianic, Munster)

4.2. Fenian Heroes and Tales

4.3. Oísin in the Land of Youth

4.4. Literary Treatments of Fenian Tales and Heroes

4. 4. 1. Ossianism

4. 4. 2. W. B. Yeats, “The Wanderings of Oisin”

4. 4. 3. Finn Maccool, from “Finnegans Wake” to

Joyces “Finnegans Wake”


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4.1. The Fionn Cycle (Fenian, Ossianic, Munster)

The Fionn Cycle contains a group of tales developed in Munster and Leinster and dating to the 3rd century A.D.

Most stories centre on the exploits of the mythical hero Fionn mac Cumhaill,his son Oisín, and other famous members of the fian (warrior-band) of Fionn,collectively known as the Fianna, who hunt, fight, conduct raids, and live anopen-air nomadic life.

This set of literary conventions reflects a feature of early Irish society in thatsuch bands of warriors did live outside the structures of that society whileretaining links with it.

Another characteristic is its frequent celebration of the beauty of nature,evoked in vivid language.

4.2. Fenian Heroes and Tales

Fionn mac Cumhaill is the leader of the Fianna under the High King Cormacmac Airt, Fionn was to some extent an outlaw; yet he was also a poet,diviner, and sage, and, therefore, endowed with traditional, and, in earlyIreland, institutional attributes.

His father, Cumhall, had led, in his turn, the Tara fian, while his mother,Muirne (Muireann) was the daughter of the druid Tadg, said to bedescending from the Danann. As such, his parentage combined warrior andvisionary elements.

As well as being endowed with physical courage, Fionn possesses a gift of special insight which he can summon by biting his finger.

According to one account of his origin, his finger was injured when a fairywoman caught it in the door of the fairy-fort at Femun.

In folklore the injury is caused by Fionns burning his thumb on the Salmon of Knowledge from the Boyne, which he is cooking for Finnegas, his druidteacher.

Thereafter he finds himself inspired with imbas (great knowledge), which alsobrings him the gift of poetry.

His famous hounds, Bran and Sceolang, are said to be his cousins(Muirnes sister having been turned into an animal during her pregnancy.)

Among his romances, the most famous is the one with the goddess Sadb,the mother of Oísin, who came to him in the form of a deer.

In “The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne”, Fionn appears as a vindictiveand jealous older man, initially threatened by the youthful lover, buteventually getting his bride back.

When Cormacs son succeeds to the thrown, he declares war on the Fianna. At the battle of Gabhra (Cath Gabhra), Oscar (Fionns grandson) and many

of the Fianna are killed.


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Afterwards, Oísin is lured away to Tir-na-nOg by Niamh, Manannansdaughter, where he spends 300 years until returning to Ireland.

4.3. OISIN IN THE LAND OF YOUTH(FROM THE FINN CYCLE)

Hundreds of years after Finn and his companions had died, SaintPatrick came to Ireland bringing the Christian religion with him. He hadheard many stories about the adventures of the Fianna and he wasinterested in these old heroes whom the people spoke about as if theywere gods. Their story was written into the very landscape of Ireland;hills and woods resounded with their legends, rivers and valleys boretheir names, dozens marked their graves.

One day a feeble, blind old man was brought to Patrick. Hisbody was weak and wasted but his spirit was strong. Patrick preachedthe new doctrines to him but the old warrior scorned the newcomersand their rituals and in defiant response sand the praises of theFianna, their code of honour and their way of life. He said he wasOisin, the son of Finn himself. Patrick doubted the old mans wordsince Finn had been dead for longer than the span of any human life.So to convince the saint that his claim was true, Oisin, last of theFianna, told his story.

After the battle of Gowra, the last battle the Fianna fought,Oisin, Finn and a handful of survivors went south to Lough Lene inKerry, a favourite haunt of theirs in happier times. They were dispirited

because they knew their day was over. They had all fought manybattles in their time, but this last battle had brought them total defeatand bitter losses. Many of their companions had been killed at Gowra,among them the bravest warrior of the Fianna, Oisins own son,Oscar. When Finn, the baule-hardened old veteran, had seen hisfavourite grandson lying dead on the field, he had turned his back tohis troops and wept. Only once before had the Fianna seen their leader cry and that was at the death of his staghound Bran.

Around Lough Lene the woods were fresh and green and theearly mists of a May morning were beginning to lift when Finn and hisfollowers set out with their dogs to hunt. The beauty of the countryside

and the prospect of the chase revived their spirits a little as theyfollowed the hounds through the woods. Suddenly a young hornlessdeer broke cover and bounded through the forest with the dogs in fullcry at its heels. The Fianna followed them, rejuvenated by the familiar excitement of the chase.

They were stopped in their tracks by the sight of a lovely youngwoman galloping towards them on a supple, nimble white horse. Shewas so beau

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THE CELTIC PARADIGM IN MODERN IRISH WRITING