Ulster Cycle

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Topics in the Ulster Cycle
Ulster characters

Amergin Athirne Blaí Briugu Briccriu Cairbre Cuanach Cathbad Celtchar Cethern mac Fintain Conall Cernach Conchobar mac Nessa Condere mac Echach Cruinniuc Cúchulainn Culann Cúscraid Dáire mac Fiachna Deichtine Deirdre Éogan mac Durthacht Fedlimid mac Daill Fergus mac Leti Findchóem Folloman mac Conchobair Furbaide Ferbend Láeg Lóegaire Búadach Mugain Naoise Ness Sencha mac Ailella Sualtam Usnech
Connacht characters

Ailill mac Máta Bélchú Cet mac Mágach Ferdiad Findabair Fráech Maine Medb Nera
Ulster exiles

Cormac Cond Longas Dubthach Dóeltenga Fergus mac Róich Fiachu mac Fir Febhe
Other characters

Achall Áed Ruad Aífe Cairbre Nia Fer Connla Cú Roí Emer Erc mac Cairpri Fand Fedelm Noíchrothach Flidais Friuch Garb mac Stairn Goll mac Carbada Lugh Lugaid mac Con Roí Lugaid Riab nDerg Macha Mesgegra Mórrígan Nechtan Scéne Scáthach Uathach
Weapons

Caladbolg Gae Bulg
Places

Emain Macha Cruachan Newgrange Red Branch Tara
Animals

Donn Cuailnge Finnbhennach
Texts

Fled Bricrenn Mesca Ulad Serglige Con Culainn Táin Bó Cuailnge

The Ulster Cycle, formerly known as the Red Branch Cycle, one of the four great cycles of Irish mythology, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster and northern Leinster, particularly counties Armagh, Down and Louth. The stories are set in and around the reign of king Conchobar mac Nessa, who rules the Ulaid from Emain Macha (now Navan Fort near Armagh). The most prominent hero of the cycle is Conchobar's nephew Cúchulainn. The Ulaid are most often in conflict with the people of Connacht, led by their queen, Medb, her husband Ailill, and their ally Fergus mac Róich, a former king of the Ulaid in exile. The longest and most important story of the cycle is the Táin Bó Cúailnge or "Cattle Raid of Cooley", in which Medb raises an enormous army to invade the Cooley peninsula and steal the Ulaid's prize bull, Donn Cúailnge, opposed only by the seventeen year old Cúchulainn. Perhaps the best known story is the tragedy of Deirdre, source of plays by W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge. Other stories tell of the births, courtships and deaths of the characters and of the conflicts between them.

The stories are written in Old and Middle Irish, mostly in prose, interspersed with occasional verse passages. They are preserved in manuscripts of the 12th to 15th centuries, but in many cases are much older: the language of the earliest stories is dateable to the 8th century, and events and characters are referred to in poems dating to the 7th.[1] The tone is terse, violent, sometimes comic, and mostly realistic, although supernatural elements intrude from time to time. Cúchulainn in particular has superhuman fighting skills, the result of his semi-divine ancestry, and when particularly aroused his battle frenzy or ríastrad transforms him into an unrecognisable monster who knows neither friend nor foe. Evident deities like Lugh, the Morrígan, Aengus and Midir also make occasional appearances.

Unlike majority of early Irish historical tradition, which presents ancient Ireland as largely united under a succession of High Kings, the stories of the Ulster Cycle depict a country with no effective central authority, divided into local and provincial kingdoms often at war with each other. The civilisation depicted is a pagan, pastoral one ruled by a warrior aristocracy. Bonds between aristocratic families are cemented by fosterage of each other's children. Wealth is reckoned in cattle. Warfare mainly takes the form of cattle raids, or single combats between champions at fords. The characters' actions are sometimes restricted by religious taboos known as geasa.

The events of the cycle are traditionally supposed to take place around the time of Christ. The stories of Conchobar's birth and death are synchronised with the birth and death of Christ,[2] and the Lebor Gabála Érenn dates the Táin Bó Cúailnge and the birth and death of Cúchulainn to the reign of the High King Conaire Mor, who it says was a contemporary of the Roman emperor Augustus (27 BC - AD 14).[3] However, some stories, including the Táin, refer to Cairbre Nia Fer as the king of Tara, implying that no High King is in place at the time.

Some scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Eugene O'Curry and Kuno Meyer, believed that the stories and characters of the Ulster Cycle were essentially historical; T. F. O'Rahilly was inclined to believe the stories were entirely mythical and the characters euhemerised gods; and Ernst Windisch thought that the cycle, while largely imaginary, contains little genuine myth.[4] Elements of the tales are reminiscent of classical descriptions of Celtic societies in Gaul, Galatia and Britain. Warriors fight with swords, spears and shields, and ride in two-horse chariots, driven by skilled charioteers drawn from the lower classes.[5] They take and preserve the heads of slain enemies,[6] and boast of their valour at feasts, with the bravest awarded the curadmír or "champion's portion", the choicest cut of meat.[7] Kings are advised by druids (Old Irish druí, plural druíd), and poets have great power and privilege. These elements led scholars such as Kenneth H. Jackson to conclude that the stories of the Ulster Cycle preserved authentic Celtic traditions from the pre-Christian Iron Age.[8] Other scholars have challenged that conclusion, stressing similarities with early medieval Irish society and the influence of classical literature,[9] but it is likely that the stories do contain genuinely ancient material.

Contents

[edit] Texts in translation

Most of the important Ulster Cycle tales can be found in the following publications:

  • Thomas Kinsella, The Táin, Oxford University Press, 1969
  • Jeffrey Gantz, Early Irish Myths and Sagas, Penguin, 1981
  • Tom Peete Cross & Clark Harris Slover, Ancient Irish Tales, Henry Holt & Company, 1936 (reprinted by Barnes & Noble, 1996)
  • John T Koch & John Carey, The Celtic Heroic Age, Celtic Studies Publications, 2000
  • Kuno Meyer, The Death-Tales of the Ulster Heroes, Todd Lecture Series, 1906
  • A H Leahy, Heroic Romances of Ireland, 2 vols, 1905-1906 (Online at Sacred Texts)

[edit] Online translations

[edit] Adaptations

The Ulster Cycle provided material for Irish writers of the Gaelic revival around the turn of the twentieth century. Augusta, Lady Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) retold most of the important stories of the cycle,[10] as did Eleanor Hull for younger readers in The Boys' Cuchulain (1904).[11] contemporary William Butler Yeats wrote a series of plays - On Baile's Strand (1904), Deirdre (1907), The Green Helmet (1910), At the Hawk's Well (1917), The Only Jealousy of Emer (1919) and The Death of Cuchulain (1939) - and a poem, Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea (1892), based on the legends, and completed the late John Millington Synge's unfinished play Deirdre of the Sorrows (1910), in collaboration with Synge's widow Molly Allgood.[12]

More recent literary adaptations include Rosemary Sutcliff's children's novel The Hound of Ulster (1963) and Vincent Woods' play A Cry from Heaven (2005). Cartoonist Patrick Brown is currently adapting the cycle as a webcomic, beginning with the story of Conchobar's mother Ness.[13]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Garret Olmsted, "The Earliest Narrative Version of the Táin: Seventh-century poetic references to Táin bó Cúailnge", Emania 10, 1992, pp. 5-17
  2. ^ Kuno Meyer, "Anecdota from the Stowe MS. No 992", Revue Celtique 6, 1884, pp. 173-183; Kuno Meyer, The Death Tales of the Ulster Heroes, Todd Lecture Series, 1906, pp. 2-21
  3. ^ R. A. Stewart Macalister, (ed & trans), Lebor Gabála Erenn: The Book of the Taking of Ireland Part V, Irish Texts Society, 1956, p. 301
  4. ^ T. F. O'Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946, pp. 269-271; Cecile O'Rahilly, Táin Bó Cualnge from the Book of Leinster, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1967, Introduction, p. ix
  5. ^ Compare Táin Bó Cúailnge from the Book of Leinster pp. 164-166 with Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library 5.29, Julius Caesar, Commentarii de bello Gallico 4.33
  6. ^ Compare The Tidings of Conchobar son of Ness §15 with Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library 5.29
  7. ^ Compare The Story of Mac Dá Thó's Pig and Bricriu's Feast with Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 4.40, Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library 5.28
  8. ^ Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson, The Oldest Irish Tradition: a Window on the Iron Age, Cambridge University Press, 1964
  9. ^ John T. Koch, "Windows on the Iron Age", Ulidia, December Publications, 1994, pp. 229-237; J. P. Mallory, "The World of Cú Chulainn: The Archaeology of Táin Bó Cúailnge", Aspects of the Táin, December Publications, 1992, pp. 103-153
  10. ^ Lady Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne
  11. ^ Eleanor Hull's The Boys' Cuchulain
  12. ^ J. M. Synge's Deirdre of the Sorrows
  13. ^ The Ulster Cycle webcomic by Patrick Brown.
Wikisource
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
v • d • e
Irish mythology: the Ulster Cycle
Supernatural figures
Bébinn • Boann • Étaín • Fand • Lugh • Macha • Midir • Morrígan
Warriors and heroes
Civilians
Cathbad • Deichtine • Deirdre • Emer • Uathach
Weapons
The Bulls
part of a series on Celtic mythology