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Books: Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined

A >> A. H. Leahy >> Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined





It seems thou art not without rewards,
so greatly hast thou praised him;
why else hast thou extolled him
ever since I left my house?
they who now extol the man
when he is in their sight
come not to attack him,
but are cowardly churls.


PAGE 128

Line 34. "As a hawk darts up from the furrow." O'Curry gives "from
the top of a cliff." The word in the Irish is claiss.


PAGE 129

The metre of this poem, which is also the metre of all the preceeding
poems except the second in this romance, but does not occur elsewhere
in the collection, may be illustrated by quoting the original of the
fifth verse, which runs as follows:


Re funiud, re n-aidchi
Madit eicen airrthe,
Comrac dait re bairche,
Ni ba ban in gleo:
Ulaid acot gairmsiu,
Ra n-gabartar aillsiu,
Bud olc doib in taidbsiu
Rachthair thairsiu is treo.


Literal translation of the first two stanzas:


What has brought thee here, O Hound,
to fight with a strong champion?
crimson-red shall flow thy blood
over the breaths of thy steeds;
woe is thy journey:
it shall be a kindling of fuel against a house,
need shalt thou have of healing
if thou reach thy home (alive).

I have come before warriors
who gather round a mighty host-possessing prince,
before battalions, before hundreds,
to put thee under the water,
in anger with thee, and to slay thee
in a combat of hundreds of paths of battle,
so that thine shall the injury
as thou protectest thy head.


Line 2 of the fifth stanza, "Good is thy need of height."

Line 8 of the seventh stanza, "Without valour, without strength."


PAGE 133

Line 3. Literally: "Whatever be the excellence of her beauty." A
similar literal translation for page 138, line 10, of the dialogue; the
same line occurs in verse 3 on page 148, but is not rendered in the
verse translation.


PAGE 134

Line 18. "O Cuchulain! for beautiful feats renowned." O'Curry gives
this as prose, but it is clearly verse in the original.


PAGE 138

Lines 5, 6 of dialogue. "O Cuchulain! who art a breeder of wounds"
(lit. "pregnant with wounds"); "O true warrior! O true" (?accent
probably omitted) "champion!"

Lines 7, 8. "There is need for some one" (i.e. himself) "to go to the
sod where his final resting-place shall be." The Irish of line 7 is is
eicen do neoch a thecht, which O'Curry translates "a man is constrained
to come," and he is followed by Douglas Hyde, who renders the two lines:


Fate constrains each one to stir,
Moving towards his sepulchre.


But do neoch cannot possibly mean "every man," it means "some man;"
usually the person in question is obvious. Compare page 125 of this
romance, line 3, which is literally: "There will be some one who shall
have sickness on that account," biaid nech diamba galar, meaning, as
here, Ferdia.

The line is an explanation of Ferdia's appearance, and is not a moral
reflection.

Line 29. "O Cuchulain! with floods of deeds of valour," or "brimming
over with deeds, &c."


PAGE 141

Line 9. "Four jewels of carbuncle." This is the reading of H. 2, 17;
T.C.D; which O'Curry quotes as an alternative to "forty" of the Book of
Leinster. "Each one of them fit to adorn it" is by O'Curry translated
"in each compartment." The Irish is a cach aen chumtach: apparently
"for each one adornment."


PAGE 144

Line 8 of poem. "Alas for the departing of my ghost."


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 passage 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 eo oir
a Fhirdiad na n-dam
a belc bemnig buain
ba buadach do lamh.


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, brass and maeth; it runs thus


Do barr bude brass
ba cass, ba cain set;
do chriss duillech maeth
immut taeb gu t-ec.


The rhymes in the last two verses are exactly those of the
reproduction, they are cain sair, main, laim, chain, the other three
end rhymes being oir, choir, and oir.

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, gaine 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





@@{Redactors Note: In the original book the 'Literal Translation' is
printed on facing pages to the poetic translation. In this etext the
literal translation portions have been collated after the poetic
translation, for the sake of readability. Hence the page numbers are
not sequential--JBH}





PREFACE TO VOL. II


It seems to have been customary in ancient Ireland to precede by
shorter stories the recital of the Great Tain, the central story of the
Irish Heroic Age. A list of fourteen of these "lesser Tains," three of
which are lost, is given in Miss Hull's "Cuchullin Saga"; those
preserved are the Tain bo Aingen, Dartada, Flidais, Fraich, Munad,
Regamon, Regamna, Ros, Ruanadh, Sailin, and Ere. Of these, five only
have been edited, viz. the Tain bo Dartada, Flidais, Fraich, Regamon,
and Regamna; all these five are given in this volume.

The last four tales are all short, and perhaps are more truly
"preludes" (remscela) than the Tain bo Fraich, which has indeed enough
of interest in itself to make it an independent tale, and is as long as
the four put together. All the five tales have been rendered into
verse, with a prose literal translation opposite to the verse
rendering, for reasons already given in the preface to the first
volume. A short introduction, describing the manuscript authority, is
prefixed to each; they all seem to go back in date to the best literary
period, but appear to have been at any rate put into their present form
later than the Great Tain, in order to lead up to it. A possible
exception to this may be found at the end of the Tain bo Flidais, which
seems to give a different account of the end of the war of Cualgne, and
to claim that Cuchulain was defeated, and that Connaught gained his
land for its allies. It may be mentioned that the last four tales are
expressly stated in the text to be "remscela" to the Great Tain.




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;

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:

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.




CONTENTS



THE PRELUDES TO THE RAID OF CUALGNE


TAIN BO FRAICH - Page 1

THE RAID FOR DARTAID'S CATTLE - Page 69

THE RAID FOR THE CATTLE OF REGAMON - Page 83

THE DRIVING OF THE CATTLE OF FLIDAIS - Page 101

THE APPARITION OF THE GREAT QUEEN TO CUCHULAIN - Page 127

APPENDIX

IRISH TEXT AND LITERAL TRANSLATION OF PART OF THE COURTSHIP OF ETAIN -
Page 143




TAIN BO FRAICH



INTRODUCTION


The Tain bo Fraich, the Driving of the Cattle of Fraech, has apparently
only one version; the different manuscripts 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 courtship 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
"Courtship 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 manuscripts 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 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 classical 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-god 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 manuscript authority for the Tain bo Fraich is the Book of
Leinster, written before 1150. There are at least two other manuscript
authorities, one; in Egerton, 1782 (published by Professor Kuno Meyer
in the Zeitschrift für 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 manuscripts 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).




PERSONS IN THE STORY



MORTALS


Ailill, King of Connaught.

Medb (or Maev), Queen of Connaught.

Findbar (or Finnabar), their daughter.

Froech (or Fraech), (pronounced 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 (pronounced like "owned"), sister to Befind; Queen of the Fairies.

Three fairy harpers.




TAIN BO FRAICH



THE RAID FOR THE CATTLE OF FRAECH


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;
And sure thy mother's sister's hand will give to thee all thy need."

To Mag Breg,[FN#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 shields, that of silver white were
made.


[FN#1] Pronounced Maw Brayg.


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;
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;
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 stitch of the silver threads the heads of beasts were
traced,
And each housing was buckled with silver and gold: of findruine[FN#2]
was made the whip
For each rider to hold, with a crook of gold where it came to the horse
man's grip.


[FN#2] Pronounced "find-roony," the unknown "white-bronze" metal.


By their sides, seven chase-hounds were springing
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,
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
shield;
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[FN#3] hold, in that guise so brave, away did the host
depart.


[FN#3] Pronounced Crow-han.


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,
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,
Who gazed, to death were crushed.

To the fort came the youths, from their steeds they leapt, for the
steeds and the stabling cared,
And they loosed the hounds that in leash they kept, for the hunt were
the hounds prepared;
Seven deer, seven foxes and hares, they chased to the dun on Croghan's
plain,
Seven boars they drave, on the lawn in haste the game by the youths was
slain:
With a bound they dashed into Bree, whose flood by the lawns of Croghan
flows;
Seven otters they caught in its stream, and brought to a hill where the
gateway rose.

'Twas there that Fraech and the princes sat at the castle-gate to rest,
And the steward of Croghan with Fraech would speak, for such was the
king's behest:
Of his birth it was asked, and the men he led all truth to the herald
spake:
"It is Idath's son who is here," they said, and they gave him the name
of Fraech.
To Ailill and Maev went the steward back of the stranger's name to tell;
"Give him welcome," said they: "Of a noble race is that youth, and I
know it well;
Let him enter the court of our house," said the king, the gateway they
opened wide;
And the fourth of the palace they gave to Fraech, that there might his
youths abide.

Fair was the palace that there they found,
Seven great chambers were ranged it round;
Right to the walls of the house they spread,
Facing the hall, where the fire glowed red:
Red yew planks, that had felt the plane,
Dappled the walls with their tangled grain:

Rails of bronze at the side-walls stood,
Plates of bronze had made firm the wood,
Seven brass bolts to the roof-tree good
Firmly the vaulting tied.

All that house had of pine been made,
Planks, as shingles, above were laid;
Sixteen windows the light let pass,
Each in a frame of the shining brass:
High through the roof was the sky seen bright;
Girder of brass made that opening tight,
Under the gap it was stretched, and light
Fell on its gleaming side.

All those chambers in splendour excelling,
The midmost of all in the ring,
Rose a room, set apart as the dwelling
Of Queen Maev, and of Ailill the king.
Four brass columns the awning supported
For their couch, there was bronze on the wall;
And two rails, formed of silver, and gilded,
In that chamber encircled it all:
In the front, to mid-rafters attaining,
Rose in silver a wand from the floor;
And with rooms was that palace engirdled,
For they stretched from the door to the door.

'Twas there they went to take repose,
On high their arms were hung;
And down they sank, and welcome rose,
Acclaimed by every tongue.

By the queen and the king they were welcome made, the strangers they
turned to greet;
And their courtesy graciously Fraech repaid: "'Twas thus we had hoped
to meet."
"Not for boasting to-day are ye come!" said Maev; the men for the chess
she set:
And a lord of the court in the chess-man sport by Fraech in a match was
met.
'Twas a marvellous board of findruine fair was prepared, when they
played that game,
Four handles, and edges of gold it had, nor needed they candles' flame;
For the jewels that blazed at the chess-board's side, a light, as from
lamps, would yield;
And of silver and gold were the soldiers made, who engaged on that
mimic field.

"Get ye food for the chiefs!" said the king; said Maev, "Not yet, 'tis
my will to stay,
To sit with the strangers, and here with Fraech in a match at the chess
to play!"
"Let thy game be played!" said Ailill then, "for it pleaseth me none
the less:"
And Queen Maev and Fraech at the chess-board sate, and they played at
the game of chess.

Now his men, as they played, the wild beasts late caught were cooking,
they thought to feed;
And said Ailill to Fraech, "Shall thy harpmen play?" "Let them play,"
said Fraech, "indeed:"
Now those harpers were wondrous men, by their sides they had sacks of
the otter's skin,
And about their bodies the sacks were tied, and they carried their
harps within,
With stitches of silver and golden thread each case for a harp was
sewed;
And, beneath the embroidery gleaming red, the shimmer of rubies showed!

The skin of a roe about them in the middle, it was as white as snow;
black-grey eyes in their centre. Cloaks of linen as white as the tunic
of a swan around these ties.[FN#4] Harps of gold and silver and
bronze, with figures of serpents and birds, and hounds of gold and
silver: as they moved those strings those figures used to run about the
men all round.


[FN#4] This is the Egerton version, which is clearly right here. The
Book of Leinster gives: "These figures accordingly used to run," &c.,
leaving out all the first part of the sentence, which is required to
make the meaning plain.


They play for them then so that twelve of the people[FN#5] of Ailill
and Medb die with weeping and sadness.


[FN#5] The Book of Leinster omits "of Ailill and Medb."


Gentle and melodious were the triad, and they were the Chants of
Uaithne[FN#6] (Child-birth). The illustrious triad are three brothers,
namely Gol-traiges (Sorrow-strain), and Gen-traiges (Joy-strain), and
Suan-traiges (Sleep-strain). Boand from the fairies is the mother of
the triad: