Cuchulain of Muirthemne

Summary

Cuchulain of Muirthemne is Lady Gregory's arrangement of the Ulster Cycle, the oldest group of Irish heroic tales, told in the English of the Kiltartan countryside in County Galway, with its Irish turns of phrase such as 'it is what he said'. Working from medieval Irish texts and the editions and translations of nineteenth-century scholars, she joined the separate tales into a single life of the hero Cuchulain, leaving out what she thought her readers would not care for and adding little of her own. The book opens with a dedication to the people of Kiltartan and a preface by W. B. Yeats. Cuchulain is born to Dechtire, sister of King Conchubar of Ulster, and is first called Setanta. As a small boy he defeats the whole boy-troop at Emain Macha; he kills the fierce hound of the smith Culain in self-defence and offers to guard Culain's house himself until a new hound is trained, earning the name Cuchulain, the Hound of Culain. Hearing the druid Cathbad say that whoever takes arms that day will win great fame but a short life, he takes arms at once. He courts Emer, daughter of Forgall Manach, in riddling speech, trains in arms overseas with the warrior-woman Scathach, and wins her hand. Bricriu's Feast and the Championship of Ulster show the heroes Conall, Laegaire and Cuchulain quarrelling over the champion's portion until Cuchulain alone faces a stranger's beheading test without flinching. Other tales follow: the High King Conaire, the Fate of the Sons of Usnach, in which Deirdre flees to Alban with Naoise and returns to tragedy through Conchubar's treachery, and the Dream of Angus Og. The long centre of the book is the War for the Bull of Cuailgne, the Tain. Queen Maeve of Connaught, comparing her wealth with her husband Ailell's, sends the armies of Ireland to seize the Brown Bull of Cuailgne while the men of Ulster lie under the curse of Macha, a weakness like childbirth pains. The seventeen-year-old Cuchulain holds the fords alone, killing champion after champion, until Maeve sends his foster-brother Ferdiad, and after three days' combat Cuchulain kills him and mourns him. Ulster awakens, the armies meet, and the Brown Bull kills Maeve's White-Horned Bull. Later chapters tell of Fand and the jealousy of Emer, the Battle of Rosnaree, and the sorrowful killing of Connla, Cuchulain's son by Aoife. In the Great Gathering at Muirthemne Maeve and the children of Calatin bring about the hero's death: mortally wounded, he ties himself to a pillar-stone to die standing, and Emer is buried with him. The library text is the 1907 third edition published by John Murray, scanned and cleaned from OCR.

Top Lessons

• Fame chosen over a long life

  When Cathbad says that the boy who takes arms that day will be famous but short-lived, Cuchulain takes arms at once and says he would gladly live a single day if his deeds were remembered. The whole book follows the cost of that choice to its end at the pillar-stone.

• Making amends

  The boy Setanta kills Culain's hound to save his own life, yet he sees the smith's loss and offers to be his watch-dog until a new hound is trained. He takes his very name from that act of repair, so the hero's identity begins in responsibility.

• Friendship tested by war

  Ferdiad and Cuchulain trained together under Scathach and swore never to fight each other, but Maeve's promises and threats bring Ferdiad to the ford. Cuchulain fights him only because he must defend Ulster, and his lament afterwards is one of the most moving passages in the book.

• A people's stories in a people's speech

  Lady Gregory wrote for her neighbours in Kiltartan, telling heroic stories in the English they spoke every day rather than in a learned style. The book shows how old tales can be handed back to the people they first belonged to.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The book preserves a striking picture of medicine in early Irish saga. Physicians are named professionals attached to kings: Fingan, Conchubar's druid physician, is said to diagnose an illness from the smoke of a house and to read from a wound what kind of warrior inflicted it, and he examines Cethern's wounds one by one after fifteen other physicians have pronounced him beyond cure. In the Dream of Angus Og all the physicians of Ireland fail to name Angus's wasting until Fergne, physician of Conn, sees that the sickness is on his mind and not his body and guesses it is love for a woman, an episode that belongs to the long literary tradition of lovesickness diagnosed by a perceptive physician. Healing in battle is often supernatural: Lugh puts Druid herbs on Cuchulain's wounds while he sleeps for three days and nights after weeks without rest, and the Sidhe cast healing herbs into the streams. The curse of Macha, by which the men of Ulster fall into a weakness like the pains of childbirth when danger comes, is a mythic explanation, not a description of any illness. Emer dies of grief at Cuchulain's grave. Early Irish law texts also set out duties of care toward the injured, which some scholars connect with the saga's physicians; any modern reading of these episodes is interpretive.

• The Dream of Angus Og

  Angus pines and refuses food for a year after a dream-woman stops visiting him; Fergne, physician of Conn, judges the sickness to be of the mind and identifies love as its cause.

• The War for the Bull of Cuailgne (Macha's curse)

  Macha, forced to race while pregnant, gives birth at the goal and lays on the men of Ulster a weakness like that of childbirth in their hour of need.

• The War for the Bull of Cuailgne (Lugh's watch at the Lerga)

  Exhausted after fighting since Samhain with only brief rests on his spear, Cuchulain sleeps three days and nights while Lugh heals his wounds with Druid herbs.

• The Awakening of Ulster (Fingan and Cethern)

  Fingan examines each of Cethern's wounds in turn and names the warriors who dealt them from the wounds alone.

• Death of Cuchulain (Emer's lament)

  Emer asks Conall to make the grave wide, lies down beside Cuchulain and dies of grief; the two are buried under one stone.