Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Jeffrey Gantz [11]
The material of these tales encompasses both impacted myth and corrupted history. Although Irish mythology does evince the tripartism detected by Georges Dumézil in other Indo-European cultures (‘The Second Battle of Mag Tured’ is on one level an explanation of how the priests and warriors – Dumézil’s first two functions – wrested the secrets of agriculture from the third function, the farmers), its fundamental orientation seems more seasonal than societal, for the mythic subtexts of the tales focus on themes of dying kings and alternating lovers. (This strong pre-Indo-European element in Irish mythology probably derives both from the Celts’ innate conservatism and from the fringe position of Ireland in the geography of the Indo-European world.) These themes are stated most clearly in ‘The Wooing of Étaín’ and ‘The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu’. In the former story, Bóand passes from her husband, Elcmar, to the Dagdae (also called Echu) and then returns to Elcmar; Étaín goes from Mider to Óengus and back to Mider, from Echu Airem to Ailill Angubae and back to Echu, and from Echu Airem to Mider and back (in some versions) to Echu. In the latter tale, Derdriu passes from an old king, Conchubur, to a young hero, Noísiu, and back to Conchubur after Noísiu’s death; when Conchubur threatens to send her to Noísiu’s murderer, she kills herself. Sometimes, the woman’s father substitutes for the dying king (this variant appears in the Greek tales of Jason and Medea and Theseus and Ariadne): Óengus has to win Étaín away from her father in ‘The Wooing of Étaín’ and Cáer Ibormeith away from hers in ‘The Dream of Óengus’; Fróech has to win Findabair from Ailill and Medb – but primarily, and significantly, from Ailill – in ‘The Cattle Raid of Fróech’, while Cú Chulaind has to win Emer from Forgall in ‘The Wooing of Emer’. Sometimes, the dying king is absent, and the regeneration theme is embodied in the wooing of a mortal hero by a beautiful otherworld woman (whom he often loses or leaves): Cáer Ibormeith seeks out Óengus in ‘The Dream of Óengus’, Macha comes to Crunniuc in ‘The Labour Pains of the Ulaid’, Fand appears to Cú Chulaind in ‘The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind’. (This variant persists even into the Find Cycle, where Níam’s wooing of Oisín becomes the basis of Yeats’s ‘The Wanderings of Oisín’.) And sometimes the theme treats only of the dying king: in ‘The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel’, Conare Már is slain, at Samuin, in the hostel of a chthonic red god; in ‘The Intoxication of the Ulaid’, Cú Chulaind is nearly burnt, also at Samuin, in an iron house in the southwest of Ireland (where the House of Dond, an Irish underworld deity, was located). Centuries of historical appropriation and Christian censorship notwithstanding, these regeneration themes are never far from the narrative surface; and in their ubiquitousness is apparent their power.
As history, the early Irish tales verge upon wishful thinking, if not outright propaganda. The Ulster Cycle, however, does appear to preserve genuine traditions of a continuing conflict between the Ulaid (who appear to have concentrated in the area round present-day Armagh) and the Uí Néill (who were probably centred at Temuir, though for reasons suggested earlier – see page 7 – they have been moved to present-day Connaught by the storytellers); in any case, it is a valuable repository of information about the Ireland of prehistory – what Kenneth Jackson has called ‘a window on the Iron Age’13 – with its extensive descriptions of fighting (chariots are still the norm) and feasting (an abundance of strong words and strong drink) and dress (opulent, at least for the aristocracy) and its detailing of such institutions as fosterhood, clientship and the taking of sureties. The important