Like all the warriors of Ireland's four provinces, I have a task as insurmountable as dislodging Culann's hound from
the ford. How can one take the breadth and depth of the Tain Bo Cuailnge, this epic, in the same class as
Beowulf or The Odyssey, and synthesize it down a few topic headings and two pages. Herein is a
wealth of information about the Irish culture as it underwent a flowering on par with the pax romana or the
Renaissance. I wonder do they call it an epic because that is how much of a task it is to adequately approach this
fabulous gem of literature.
Some of the hallmarks of Gaelic society receive attention in the backdrop of the militant action in the Tain.
One of these, which is central to the story of Setanta, is the concept of fosterage, whereby a youth usually at the age
of seven is given into the household of a noble, a druid for their education. Of course, this being a young boyish
fantasy our intrepid hero begins his fosterage at the age of five, and by seven is already in Alba (Scotland) learning
arms from Scathcath. The entire tale revolves about and around the idea of a warrior's honor. This element is used
most specifically in the case of Fergus mac Roech, in the return of the sons of Uisliu where he is tricked into
drinking instead of going to retrieve them. Both he and Cuchulainn are bound at different times in their
confrontation to retreat from the other, which inevitably insures the triumph of Ulster. Another element, just as
important as honor, is the concept of satire and shame, both used effectively by poets and nobles to goad warriors
into action. Fedia, Cuchulainn's friend and fellow student in Alba, would not have come out to fight in the Tain,
had it not been for Mebd's use of poets to ridicule and shame him. All three of these ideas are hallmarks of Gaelic
society, and particularly important to the warrior culture in the Tain.
The culture as portrayed in the Tain is rife with the supernatural, the mystical, the occult. The
reincarnation cum shape changing of the two pigkeepers sets the stage for the entire magickal goings on which
follow. This is one of the stranger twists in the framework of Gaelic culture, the combination of the warrior
mentality of honor and shame, and the reverence for the otherworld. There is a correlation between the poet/harper
and the druids in the characters from Cain Bile. In the poetry of the Taln, we see the heptameter used
infrequently. There was a form of poetics that made use of a strict meter, in Ireland it was called rannaigecht.
The only time this meter is strictly used throughout a dialogue is between the two great champions of Ulster whom
the entire action of the Tain swirls about, Fergus and Cuchulainn. The Morrigan and the Druid's Cathbad
and Dubthach use a heptameter, but it doesn't take the traditional four-line stanza of the rannaigecht.
One of the other more prominent aspects of this supernatural activity is the multiplicity of triads. Cuchulainn's life
seems to revolve around the action of the number three. It would be nigh impossible to recount the number of times
a triplicity is mentioned in association with him. Two of the more important instances are, the three times his
mother Deichtine is impregnated with him, by Lugh. An aside to this, is the idea that she becomes a 'virgin and
whole again' before she becomes pregnant the third time, in a weird juxtaposition with the Christian doctrine of the
virgin birth. Another instance of triplicity that bears on the idea of divine intercession, a common theme in Celtic
myth, is the number of times the Morrigan actually appears. Once to Dom Cuailgne, once to Cuchulainn (the
second appearance is in a dream state when he blesses her), and finally to utter the "Hail and Woe" to Ulster and
Ireland before the last battle. The idea of closeness between the world of temporal existence and that of the
'Otherworld', is a hallmark in Celtic culture; of course there are three deities who intercede they are Lugh,
Morrigan, and Nemain. In fact Medb, is seen not so much as a temporal queen, but the goddess of sovereignty, she
being a tutelary Goddess of Temain or Tara, the seat of the high kings of Ireland.
The women in the Tain, stand out as singularly important, even more so then the heroes. The Indo-European
culture was originally matrifocal and even though one can't say this in context to the information we are given in
the Tain, the fact remains they are the force about which the story pivots. One can see the importance of
the motif of cattle in the early spirituality of Catal Huyuk, as described in Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe,
by Marija Gimbutjas or William Irwin Thompson's The Time Failing Bodies Take To Light. As in the books of
the Old Testament, it is the female characters who seem to have more agency than their male counterparts, this
idea is the basis for the Book of J, by Harold Bloom. Deirdre's shaming of Noisiu is an example, as is Medb
wedding contract, of the place women had in determining their destiny in life, they weren't the cattle being raided,
instead they were the initiators of the raid and the reason for Fergus' exile.
One can see in the Tain. a precognition one might say of the future of Ireland. All of the four provinces of
Ireland at war with Ulster. The reality is as eerie as the scream of a bean sidhe. The Morrigan says at the
beginning of the last battle,
Hail Ulster! Woe men of Ireland! / Woe to Ulster! Hail men of Ireland!
The rivalry between Connacht and Ulster seems to be more of a cultural reality than a political division. One can
also get a sense of difference in the treatment of women between the two provinces. In Ulster we have this custom
of giving over the bride-bed to Conchobar, Cuchulainn's comment to Emer before he goes out to fight his son Connla,
as well as the desultory comments of Fergus at the end of the last battle. Whereas the pillow talk between Medb and
Aillil suggests more of a kinship in power than this antagonism or as the introduction posits an "ancient ironic
anti-feminist poem." Why this difference? It suggests to me an idea that received attention in the previously
mentioned book by W. I. Thompson, that being a shift in the cultural focus from matrifocal to patrilineal.
There is more here than a scholar could digest in any one sitting. I will return again and again to this, and hopefully
also to the hundreds of texts still untranslated in what is left of the tech screpta. Some of the themes that
bear further study include the use of poetics as dialogue, especially in regards to the residue of the oral tradition.
The wealth of information in the place names, and the sense of place in general which is a central theme
throughout the actual Tain. And finally the various feats in the arsenal of the warriors training. What can we make
of the comments of Connla after his defeat by his father, "I would slaughter the warriors of the world. You would rule
as far as Rome" - a Celtic empire?