Heroic Legends Of Ireland Part 13

PAGE 146.

Lines 1, 2. "Though he had struck off the half of my leg that is sound, though he had smitten off half my arm."

PAGE 148.

Line 5. "Since he whom Aife bore me," literally "Never until now have I met, since I slew Aife's only son, thy like in deeds of battle, never have I found it, O Ferdia." This is O'Curry's rendering; if it is correct, and it seems to be so substantially, the pa.s.sage raises a difficulty. Aife's only son is, according to other records, Conlaoch, son of Cuchulain and Aife, killed by his father, who did not at the time know who Conlaoch was. This battle is usually represented as having taken place at the end of Cuchulain's life; but here it is represented as preceding the War of Cualgne, in which Cuchulain himself is represented to be a youth. The allusion certainly indicates an early date for the fight with Conlaoch, and if we are to lay stress on the age of Cuchulain at the time of the War, as recorded in the Book of Leinster, of whose version this incident is a part, the "Son of Aife" would not have been a son of Cuchulain at all in the mind of the writer of this verse. It is possible that there was an early legend of a fight with the son of Aife which was developed afterwards by making him the son of Cuchulain; the oldest version of this incident, that in the Yellow Book of Lecan, reconciles the difficulty by making Conlaoch only seven years old when he took up arms; this could hardly have been the original version.

Line 23 of poem is literally: "It is like thrusting a spear into sand or against the sun."

The metre of the poem "Ah that brooch of gold," and of that on page 144, commencing "Hound, of feats so fair," are unique in this collection, and so far as I know do not occur elsewhere. Both have been reproduced in the original metre, and the rather complicated rhyme-system has also been followed in that on page 148. The first verse of the Irish of this is Dursan, a o ir a Fhirdiad na n-dm a belc bemnig buain ba buadach do lmh.

The last syllable of the third line has no rhyme beyond the echo in the second syllable of the next line; oir, "gold," has no rhyme till the word is repeated in the third line of the third verse, rhymed in the second line of the fourth, and finally repeated at the end. The second verse has two final words echoed, bra.s.s and maeth; it runs thus Do barr bude bra.s.s ba ca.s.s, ba cin st; do chriss duillech maeth immut teb gu t-c.

The rhymes in the last two verses are exactly those of the reproduction, they are cin sir, min, lim, chin, the other three end rhymes being ir, chir, and ir.

Line 3 of this poem is "O hero of strong-striking blows."

Line 4. "Triumphant was thine arm."

PAGE 149.

Lines 11 and 12 of the poem. "Go ye all to the swift battle that shall come to you from German the green-terrible" (? of the terrible green spear).

PAGE 150.

Line 12. The Torrian Sea is the Mediterranean.

PAGE 151.

Line 15. Literally: "Thou in death, I alive and nimble."

Line 23. "Wars were gay, &c." Cluchi cach, gine cach, "Each was a game, each was little," taking gaine as gainne, the known derivative of gand, "scanty." O'Curry gives the meaning as "sport," and has been followed by subsequent translators, but there does not seem any confirmation of this rendering.

PAGE 153.

Line 10. Banba is one of the names of Ireland.

END OF VOL. I.

VOL. II.

INTRODUCTION IN VERSE.

When to an Irish court of old Came men, who flocked from near and far To hear the ancient tale that told Cuchulain's deeds in Cualgne's War; Oft, ere that famous tale began, Before their chiefest bard they hail, Amid the throng some lesser man Arose, to tell a lighter tale; He'd fell how Maev and Ailill planned Their mighty hosts might best be fed, When they towards the Cualgne land All Irelands swarming armies led; How Maev the youthful princes sent To harry warlike Regamon, How they, who trembling, from her went, His daughters and his cattle won; {p. viii} How Ailill's guile gained Darla's cows, How vengeful fairies marked that deed; How Fergus won his royal spouse Whose kine all Ireland's hosts could feed; How, in a form grotesque and weird, Cuchulain found a Power Divine; Or how in shapes of beasts appeared The Magic Men, who kept the Swine; Or how the rowan's guardian snake Was roused by order of the king; Or how, from out the water, Fraech To Finnabar restored her ring.

And though, in greater tales, they chose Speech mired with song, men's hearts to sway, Such themes as these they told in prose, Like speakers at the "Feis" to-day.

To men who spake the Irish tongue That form of Prose was pleasing well, While other lands in ballads sung Such tales as these have loved to tell: {p. ix} So we, who now in English dress These Irish tales would fain And seek their spirit to express, Have set them down in ballad verse; And, though to Celts the form be strange, Seek not too much the change to blame; 'Tis but the form alone we change; The sense, the spirit rest the same.

{p. xi} CONTENTS.

THE PRELUDES TO THE RAID OF CUALGNE.

Page TAIN BO FRAICH.

1.THE RAID FOR DARTAID'S CATTLE.

69.THE RAID FOR THE CATTLE OF REGAMON.

83.THE DRIVING OF THE CATTLE OF FLIDAIS.

101.

THE APPARITION OF THE GREAT QUEEN TO CUCHULAIN.

127.

APPENDIX--.

IRISH TEXT AND LITERAL TRANSLATION OF PART OF THE COURTs.h.i.+P OF ETAIN.

143.

{p. 3} TAIN BO FRAICH.

INTRODUCTION.THE Tain bo Fraich, the Driving of the Cattle of Fraech, has apparently only one version; the different ma.n.u.scripts which contain it differing in very small points; most of which seem to be due to scribal errors.

Practically the tale consists of two quite separate parts. The first, the longer portion, gives the adventures of Fraech at the court of Ailill and Maev of Connaught, his courts.h.i.+p of their daughter, Finnabar, and closes with a promised betrothal. The second part is an account of an expedition undertaken by Fraech to the Alps "in the north of the land of the Long Beards," to recover stolen cattle, as well as his wife," who is stated by O'Beirne Crowe, on the authority of the "Courts.h.i.+p of Trebland" in the Book of Fermoy, to have been Trebland, a semi-deity, like Fraech himself. Except that Fraech is the chief actor in both parts, and that there is one short reference at the end of the second part to the fact that Fraech did, as he had promised in the first part, join Ailill and Maev upon the War of Cualnge, there is no connection between the two stories. But the difference between the two parts is not only in the subject-matter; the difference in the style is even yet more apparent. The first part has, I think, the most complicated plot of any Irish romance, it abounds in brilliant descriptions, and, although the original is in prose, it is, in feeling, highly poetic. The second part resembles in its simplicity and rapid action the other "fore tales" or preludes to the War of Cualnge contained in this volume, and is of a style represented in English by the narrative ballad.

In spite of the various characters of the two parts, the story seems to have been regarded as one in all the ma.n.u.scripts which contain it; and the question how these two romances came to be regarded as one story becomes interesting. The natural hypothesis would be that the last part was the original version, which was in. its earlier part re-written by a man of genius, possibly drawing his plot from some brief statement that Finnabar was promised to Fraech in return for the help that he and his recovered cattle could give in the Great War; but a difficulty, which prevents us from {p. 4} regarding the second part as an original legend, at once comes in. The second part of the story happens to contain so many references to nations outside Ireland that its date can be pretty well fixed. Fraech and his companions go, over the sea from Ulster, i.e. to Scotland; then through "north Saxon-land" to the sea of Icht (i.e. the sea of Wight or the English Channel); then to the Alps in the north of the land of the Long-Beards, or Lombards. The Long-Beards do not appear in Italy until the end of the sixth century; the suggestion of North Saxon-Land reaching down to the sea of Wight suggests that there was then a South Saxon-Land, familiar to an Irish writer, dating this part of the story as before the end of the eighth century, when both Saxons and Long-Beards were overcome by Charlemagne. The second part of the story is, then, no original legend, but belongs to the seventh or eighth century, or the cla.s.sical period; and it looks as if there were two writers, one of whom, like the author of the Egerton version of Etain, embellished the love-story part of the original legend, leaving the end alone, while another author wrote an account of the legendary journey of the demi-G.o.d Fraech in search for his stolen cattle, adding the geographical and historical knowledge of his time. The whole was then put together, like the two parts of the Etain story; the difference between the two stories in the matter of the wife does not seem to have troubled the compilers.

The oldest ma.n.u.script authority for the Tain bo Fraich is the Book of Leinster, written before 1150. There are at least two other ma.n.u.script authorities, one; in Egerton, 1782 (published by Professor Kuno Meyer in the Zeitschrift fr Celt. Philologie, 1902); the other is in MS. XL., Advocates' Library, Edinburgh (published in the Revue Celtique, Vol. XXIV.). Professor Meyer has kindly allowed me to copy his comparison of these ma.n.u.scripts and his revision of O'Beirne Crowe's translation of the Book of Leinster text. The text of the literal translation given here follows, however, in the main O'Beirne Crowe's translation, which is in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy for 1870; a few insertions are made from the other MSS.; when so made the insertion is indicated by a note.

For those who may be interested in the subsequent history of Fraech, it may be mentioned that he was one of the first of the Connaught champions to be slain by Cuchulain in the war of Cualnge; see Miss Faraday's translation (Grimm Library, page 35).

{p. 5} PERSONS IN THE STORY.

MORTALS.

AILILL, King of Connaught.

MEDB (or Maev), Queen of Connaught.

FINDABAR (or Finnabar), their daughter.

FROECH (or Fraech), (p.r.o.nounced Fraych); son of a Connaught man and a fairy mother.

CONALL CERNACH (Conall the Victorious), champion of Ulster.

Two IRISH WOMEN, in captivity in the Alps, north of Lombardy.

LOTHAR (or Lothur), a follower of Fraech.

BICNE, a follower of Conall.

IMMORTALS.

BEFIND, Fraech's fairy mother.

BOAND (p.r.o.nounced like "owned"), sister to Befind; Queen of the Fairies.

THREE FAIRY HARPERS.

{p. 6} TAIN BO FRAICH.

THE RAID FOR THE CATTLE OF FRAECH.

LITERAL TRANSLATION.

FRAECH, son of Idath of the men of Connaught, a son he to Befind from the Sid: a sister she to Boand. He is the hero who is the most beautiful that was of the men of Eriu and of Alba, but he was not long-lived. His mother gave him twelve cows out of the Sid (the fairy mound), they are white-eared. He had a good housekeeping till the end of eight years without the taking of a wife. Fifty sons of kings, this was the number of his household, co-aged, co-similar to him all between form and instruction. Findabair, daughter of Ailill and Medb, loves him for the great stories about him. It is declared to him at his house. Eriu and Alba were full of his renown and the stories about him.

To Fraech[1] was Idath[2] father, A Connaught man was he: And well we know his mother Who dwells among the Shee;[3]

Befind they call her, sister To Boand,[4] the Fairy Queen; And Alba ne'er, nor Erin, Such grace as Fraech's hath seen.

Yet wondrous though that hero's grace, {10} His fairy lineage high, For years but few his lovely face Was seen by human eye.

Fraech had twelve of white-eared fairy-cattle, 'Twas his mother those cattle who gave: For eight years in his home he dwelt wifeless, And the state of his household was brave; Fifty princes, whose age, and whose rearing, And whose forms were as his, with him played; And his glory filled Alba and Erin {20} Till it came to the ears of a maid: For Maev and Ailill's[5] lovely child, Fair Findabar, 'twas said, By tales of Fraech to love beguiled, With Fraech in love would wed.

[1. p.r.o.nounced Fraych.

2. p.r.o.nounced Eeda.

3. The Fairies.

4. p.r.o.nounced with the sound of "owned."

5. p.r.o.nounced Al-ill.]

{p. 8} LITERAL TRANSLATION.

After this going to a dialogue with the maiden occurred to him; he discussed that matter with his people.

"Let there be a message then sent to thy mother's sister, so that a portion of wondrous robing and of gifts from the Sid (fairy folk) be given thee from her." He goes accordingly to the sister, that is to Boand, till he was in Mag Breg, and he carried away fifty dark-blue cloaks, and each of them was like the back of a black chafer,[1] and four black-grey, rings on each cloak, and a brooch of red gold on each cloak, and pale white tunics with loop-animals of gold around them. And fifty silver s.h.i.+elds with edges, and a candle of a king's-house in the hand of them (the men), and fifty studs of findruine[2] on each of them (the lances), fifty k.n.o.bs of thoroughly burned gold on each of them; points (i.e. b.u.t.t-ends) of carbuncle under them beneath, and their point of precious stones. They used to light the night as if they were the sun's rays.

And there were fifty gold-hilted swords with them, and a soft-grey mare under the seat of each man, and bits of gold to them; [1. The Book of Leinster gives "fifty blue cloaks, each like findruine of art."

2. p.r.o.nounced "find-roony," the unknown "white-bronze" metal.]

{p. 9} Now the news of the love of that maid to Fraech, at his home where he dwelt, was brought, And he called his folk, and with all he spoke, and for speech with the maid he sought: And they counselled him thus: "Let a message from thee be sent to thy fairy kin To entreat their aid when we seek that maid; a boon we may chance to win: For the wondrous robes of the fairy land, and for gifts from the fairies plead; {30} And sure thy mother's sister's hand will give to thee all thy need."

To Mag Breg,[1] where his mother's sister dwelt, to Boand he away hath gone, And she gave to him mantles of dark black-blue, like a beetle's back they shone: Four dark-grey rings in each cloak she gave were sewn, and a brooch shone, bright With the good red gold in each mantle's fold; she gave tunics pale and white, And the tunics were bordered with golden loops, that forms as of beasts displayed; And a fifty she added of well-rimmed s.h.i.+elds, that of silver white were made.

Then away they rode, in each hero's hand was a torch for a kingly hall, For studs of bronze, and of well-burned gold, shone bright on the spears of all; On carbuncle sockets the spears were set, their points with jewels blazed; {40} And they lit the night, as with fair sunlight, as men on their glory gazed.

By each of the fifty heroes' side was a sword with a hilt of gold; And a soft-grey mare was for each to ride, with a golden curb controlled; [1. p.r.o.nounced Maw Brayg.]

{p. 10} LITERAL TRANSLATION.

a plate of silver with a little bell of gold around the neck of each horse. Fifty caparisons[1] of purple with threads of silver out of them, with buckles of gold and silver and with head-animals (i.e. spiral ornaments). Fifty whips of findruine, with a golden hook on the end of each of them. And seven chase-hounds in chains of silver, and an apple of gold between each of them. Greaves of bronze about them, by no means was there any colour which was not on the hounds.

Seven trumpeters with them with golden and silver trumpets with many coloured garments, with golden fairy-yellow heads of hair, with s.h.i.+ning tunics. There were three jesters before them with silver diadems under gilding. s.h.i.+elds with engraved emblems (or marks of distinction) with each of them; [1. The word for caparisons is "acrann," the usual word for a shoe. It is suggested that here it may be a caparison of leather: "shoes" seem out of place here. See Irische Texts, iii.

2. p. 531.]

{p. 11} At each horse's throat was a silver plate, and in front of that plate was swung, With a tinkling sound to the horse's tread, a bell with a golden tongue.

on each steed was a housing of purple hide, with threads of silver laced, And with spiral st.i.tch of the silver threads the heads of beasts were traced, And each housing was buckled with silver and gold: of findruine [1] was made the whip For each rider to hold, with a crook of gold where it came to the horse man's grip.

By their sides, seven chase-hounds were springing {50} At leashes of silver they strained, And each couple a gold apple, swinging On the fetter that linked them, sustained: And their feet with bronze sheaths had been guarded, As if greaves for defence they had worn, Every hue man hath seen, or hath fancied, By those chase-hounds in brilliance was borne.

Seven trumpeters strode on the road before, with colour their cloaks were bright, And their coats, that shone with the gauds they wore, flashed back as they met the light; On trumpets of silver and gold they blew, and sweet was the trumpets' sound, {60} And their hair, soft and yellow, like fairy threads, shone golden their shoulders round.

Three jesters marched in the van, their-crowns were of silver, by gilt concealed, And emblems they. carried of quaint device, engraved on each jester's s.h.i.+eld; [1. p.r.o.nounced "find-roony," the unknown "white-bronze" metal.]

{p. 12} LITERAL TRANSLATION.

with crested staves, with ribs of bronze (copper-bronze) along their sides, Three harp-players with a king's appearance about each of them opposite to these.[1] They depart for Cruachan with that appearance on them.

The watchman sees them from the dun when they had come into the plain of Cruachan. "A mult.i.tude I see," he says, "(come) towards the dun in their numbers. Since Ailill and Maev a.s.sumed sovereignty there came not to them before, and there shall not come to them, a mult.i.tude, which is more beautiful, or which is more splendid. It is the same with me that it were in a vat of wine my head should be, with the breeze that goes over them.

"The manipulation and play that the young hero who is in it makes--I have not before seen its likeness. He shoots his pole a shot's discharge from him; before it reaches to earth the seven chase-hounds with their seven silver chains catch it."

At this the hosts come from the dun of Cruachan to view them. The people in the dun smother one another, so that sixteen men die while viewing them.

[1. "Opposite to these" is in the Egerton MS. only.]

{p. 13} They had staves which with crests were adorned, and ribs down their edges in red bronze ran; Three harp-players moved by the jesters' sides, and each was a kingly man.

All these were the gifts that the fairy gave, and gaily they made their start, And to Croghan's' hold, in that guise so brave, away did the host depart.

On the fort stands a watchman to view them, And thus news down to Croghan he calls: "From yon plain comes, in fulness of numbers, {70} A great army to Croghan's high walls; And, since Ailill the throne first ascended, Since the day we hailed Maev as our Queen, Never army so fair nor so splendid Yet hath come, nor its like shall be seen."

"'Tis strange," said he," as dipped in wine, So swims, so reels my head, As o'er me steals the breath divine Of perfume from them shed."

"A fair youth," said he, "forth with them goeth, And the grace of such frolicsome play, And such lightness in leap as he showeth Have I seen not on earth till to-day: For his spear a full shot's length he flingeth, Yet the spear never reacheth to ground, For his silver-chained hounds follow after, In their jaws is the spear ever found!"

The Connaught hosts without the fort To see that glory rushed: Sixteen within, of baser sort, {90} Who gazed, to death were crushed.