Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Jeffrey Gantz [56]
She went to the fair, then, and her labour pains seized her. ‘Help me,’ she said to the hosts, ‘for a mother bore every one of you. Wait until my children are born.’ She failed to move them, however. ‘Well then,’ she continued, ‘the evil you suffer will be greater, and it will afflict Ulaid for a long time.’ ‘What is your name?’ asked the king. ‘My name and that of my children will mark this fairground for ever – I am Macha daughter of Sainrith son of Imbath,’ she said. She raced against the chariot, then, and, as the chariot reached the end of the field, she gave birth in front of it, and she bore a son and a daughter. That is why the place is called Emuin Machae. At her delivery, she screamed that any man who heard her would suffer the pains of birth for five days and four nights. All the Ulaid who were there were so afflicted, and their descendants suffered for nine generations afterwards. Five days and four nights, or five nights and four days – that was the extent of the labour pains of the Ulaid; and, for nine generations, the Ulaid were as weak as a woman in labour. Three classes of people, however, did not suffer this affliction: the women and the children of Cú Chu laind. This was the inheritance of Ulaid from the time of Crunniuc son of Agnoman son of Curir Ulad son of Fíatach son of Urmi until the time of Furcc son of Dalián son of Manech son of Lugaid.
The Birth of Cú Chulaind
Introduction
‘The Birth of Cú Chulaind’ exists in two quite different versions, one going back, in written form, to the (now lost) Book of Druimm Snechtai, the other being somewhat later; it is the earlier version that is presented here. Cú Chulaind, like Conare Már, has two fathers, but the story of his birth is clearly corrupt. In the original version, Lug must have come to Deichtine (perhaps as a bird) in the strange house and slept with her and left her pregnant; in this version, Deichtine’s visit to the Bruig accomplishes nothing, and there is no connection between Lug and the tiny creature in the copper vessel.
Lug himself was one of the most important Irish deities. His continental counterpart, who was probably named Lugos, is identified by Caesar as the Celtic Mercury and the most important of the Celtic gods, and he gave his name to a number of European towns, including Lyon, Leiden and Liegnitz (Legnica). In Irish literature, Lug is the most prominent of the Túatha Dé Danand in ‘The Second Battle of Mag Tured’; while it is thus appropriate that Cú Chulaind, the greatest Irish hero, should be his son, the tradition that makes him so may not be very old. The last section of the story represents a not very refined attempt to explain why Cú Chulaind was known as the son of Súaltaim when his real father was Lug.
The Birth of Cú Chulaind
Like the birth of the Welsh hero Pryderi, the birth of Cú Chulaind is contemporaneous with the birth of a horse; and each hero subsequently receives the animal as a gift. Cú Chulaind’s birth, however, is marked by other portents: the appearance and guidance of the flock of birds, which clearly is from the otherworld, and the great snowfall. The event takes place, oddly, at Bruig na Bóinde (New Grange), a site associated with the mythological tales and not with those about the Ulaid, but it may have been chosen to underline the assertion that he is of divine origin. That Cú Chulaind is the son of Conchubur