The Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid Of Cooley): An Irish Epic-Poem Summarized

========================== The Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid Of Cooley): An Irish Epic-Poem Summarized (By SimoTheFinlandized / Paul Palazzolo - 2023 AD): ========================== The Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid Of Cooley) begins by King Ailill and Queen Medb of Connacht comparing their respective wealths only to find that the only thing that distinguishes them is Ailill's possession of the phenomenally fertile bull Finnbhennach, who had been born into Medb's herd but scorned being owned by a woman so decided to transfer himself to Ailill's. Queen Medb determines to get the equally potent Donn Cuailnge from Cooley to equal her wealth with her husband. She successfully negotiates with the bull's owner, Dáire mac Fiachna, to rent the animal for a year. However, her messengers, while drunk, reveal that Medb intends to take the bull by force if she is not allowed to borrow him. The deal breaks down, and Medb raises an army, including Ulster exiles led by Fergus mac Róich and other allies, and sets out to capture Donn Cuailnge. ========================== The men of Ulster are disabled by an apparent illness, the "ces noínden" (literally "debility of nine days", although it lasts several months). A separate tale explains this as the curse of the goddess Macha, who imposed it after being forced by the king of Ulster to race against a chariot while heavily pregnant. The only person fit to defend Ulster is seventeen-year-old Cú Chulainn, and he lets the army take Ulster by surprise because he is off on a tryst when he should be watching the border. Cú Chulainn, assisted by his charioteer Láeg, wages a guerrilla campaign against the advancing army, then halts it by invoking the right of single combat at fords, defeating champion after champion in a stand-off lasting months. However, he is unable to prevent Medb from capturing the bull. ========================== Cú Chulainn is both helped and hindered by supernatural figures from the Tuatha Dé Danann (the Irish pagan gods). Before one episode of combat, the Morrígan, the goddess of war, visits him in the form of a beautiful young woman and offers him her love, but Cú Chulainn spurns her. She then reveals herself and threatens to interfere in his next fight. She does so, first in the form of an eel who trips him in the ford, then as a wolf who stampedes cattle across the ford, and finally as a heifer at the head of the stampede, but in each form, Cú Chulainn wounds her. After he defeats his opponent, the Morrígan appears to him in the form of an old woman milking a cow, with wounds corresponding to the ones Cú Chulainn gave her in her animal forms. She offers him three drinks of milk. With each drink he blesses her, and the blessings heal her wounds. Cú Chulainn tells the Morrígan that had he known her real identity, he would not have spurned her. ========================== After a particularly arduous combat Cú Chulain is visited by another supernatural figure, the god Lugh, who reveals himself to be Cú Chulainn's father. Lug puts Cú Chulainn to sleep for three days while he works his healing arts on him. While Cú Chulainn sleeps the youth corps of Ulster come to his aid but are all slaughtered. When Cú Chulainn awakes he undergoes a spectacular ríastrad or "warp- spasm", in which his body twists in its skin and he becomes an unrecognizable monster who knows neither friend nor foe. Cú Chulainn launches a savage assault on the Connacht camp and avenges the youth corps sixfold. ========================== After this extraordinary incident, the sequence of single combats resumes, although on several occasions Medb breaks the agreement by sending several men against Cú Chulainn at once. When Fergus, his foster-father, is sent to fight him, Cú Chulainn agrees to yield to him on the condition that Fergus yields the next time they meet. Finally, Medb incites Cú Chulainn's foster-brother Ferdiad to enter the fray, with poets ready to mock him as a coward, and offering him the hand of her daughter Finnabair, and her own "friendly thighs" as well. Cú Chulainn does not wish to kill his foster-brother and pleads with Ferdiad to withdraw from the fight. There follows a physically and emotionally grueling three-day duel between the hero and his foster-brother. Cú Chulainn wins, killing Ferdiad with the legendary spear, the Gáe Bolga. Wounded too sorely to continue fighting, Cú Chulainn is carried away by the healers of his clan. ========================== The debilitated Ulstermen then start to rouse, one by one at first, then en masse. King Conchobar mac Nessa of Ulster vows, that as the sky is above and the Earth is beneath, he will return every cow back to its stall and every abducted woman back to her home. The climactic battle begins. ========================== At first, Cú Chulainn sits it out, recovering from his wounds. Fergus has Conchobar at his mercy, but is prevented from killing him by Cormac Cond Longas, Conchobar's son and Fergus' foster-son, and in his rage cuts the tops off three hills with his sword. Cú Chulainn shrugs off his wounds, enters the fray and confronts Fergus, whom he forces to make good on his promise and yield before him. Fergus withdraws, pulling all his forces off the battlefield. Connacht's other allies panic and Medb is forced to retreat. Cú Chulainn then comes upon Medb having her menstrual period. She pleads for her life and he not only spares her, but guards her retreat. ========================== Medb brings Donn Cuailnge back to Connacht, where the bull fights Finnbhennach, kills him, but is mortally wounded, and wanders around Ireland dropping pieces of Finnbhennach off his horns and thus creating place-names before finally returning home to die of exhaustion. ========================== Source: Wikipedia ==========================