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[finnbennach]

The Táin: Before the Táin

Trans. Thomas Kinsella

Since the table of contents divides this prologue chunk more or less into tales about Conchobor and tales about Cúchulainn, I'll follow suit. ("How the Táin Bó Cuailnge Was Found Again" was covered in a previous post.)

CONCHOBOR

The three tales given here concern the conception of Conchobor, how he got to be king of Ulster, and his cruel treatment of Derdriu (Deirdre). The middle tale is about Macha's curse of the Ulstermen, and though it doesn't explicitly state who the king is who decides to make the pregnant Macha race his horses, the fact that this tale is sandwiched in the "Conchobor" section of the prologue imply that Conchobor was the king in question.

Conchobor is clearly an important figure, likely beyond the Táin. He is the child of a druid and Queen Nes (in this version), and raised by the druid, Cathbad; though there is no supernatural element to his conception (as there is with Cúchulainn's), he is conceived at an auspicious hour, and thanks to his mother's cunning takes the kingship of Ulster at the age of seven.

His best qualities are given in the first tale, the highest being that "[t]here was no wiser being in the world" (Kinsella 4). On the same page, the narrative states that when it was time for Fergus to retake his kingship from Conchobor (as part of Nes's plot), the men of Ulster were angry at Fergus and conversely "grateful to Conchobor for all he had given them," indicating he was a generous as well as a wise king.

My reading of the second and third tales, then, is that they are included as foils for this first one. Where the first tale paints Conchobor as wise and good, the others complicate him: he sometimes makes bad decisions (as in the decision that lead to Macha cursing all of Ulster) and he can be cruel (as in his treatment of Derdriu, beyond imprisoning her for life, but especially in taunting her as she is being driven to Eogan, which prompts her to kill herself [Kinsella 20]).

CÚCHULAINN

Cúchulainn's relevant background is also given in three tales concerning how he was begotten, his courtship of Emer and his training in arms, and his killing of his own son, Connla.

Cúchulainn is a warrior-hero, and I suppose these three tales are meant to give a glimpse of what kind of warrior and hero he is. He is thrice-born, but his supernatural-ness is heralded even before his birth with the desolation of the plains of Ulster by a flock of supernatural birds. I was looking for this to somehow reflect badly back on Conchobor, since the health of the land and the legitimate rulership of the king were interconnected in Celtic cultures. Maybe, though, this immediately-established tension between Cúchulainn and Conchobor returns later in the Táin.

On pg. 25, it is shown how Cúchulainn is to be reared under the influence of many people: "he will be formed by all---chariot-fighter, prince and sage." I think we are to get a picture of him as what we would now call a well-rounded man, and not a mere brute. His complexity, too, is further hinted at in the story of his courtship of Emer, when he embarks on the journey to his training in arms and he and Emer swear to stay pure until they are reunited (Kinsella 29)--but of course he has a son with Aife while he is gone. He seems to be quick to anger when, on pg. 39, he has to go out and find all the herds of Sliab Fuait and bring them back to Conchobor, which exercises his anger. Then, of course, there is in "The Death of Aife's One Son" Cúchulainn killing Connla because he promised himself to the honor of Ulster.

As this is not meant to be a scholarly reading of anything, but a reader's reading, I am looking now for some of these complexities and faults of Cúchulainn's to come back and bite him in the ass, as they say.

THE QUARREL OF THE TWO PIG-KEEPERS, AND HOW THE BULLS WERE BEGOTTEN

The most I have to say about this tale, beyond that I freaking love it, is that all the shape-shifting calls to mind two tales from the Welsh tradition. One is in the tale of Math ap Mathonwy, who punishes brothers Gwydion and Gilfaethwy for their elaborate and organized rape of Math's maiden, Goewin, by having them take the shape of various wild animals and mate with each other, one pair of animals each year for three years. But the resemblance is, I think, only passing, or at least that's all I can make of it, for in the Math tale, this line of the story ends with the end of the punishment and immediately other matters take precedence.

The other tale is the one of Gwion Bach and Ceridwen, in which Gwion Bach receives the three drops that spring out of Ceridwen's cauldron, filling him with wisdom. Enraged, she chases him, and they take the form of various prey and predator animals, until finally Gwion Bach assumes the form of a grain and Ceridwen of a black hen and swallows him, then carries him for nine months and delivers him, thus bringing the poet Taliesin into the world.

It's obviously the shape-shifting aspects of the two stories that interest me, and the struggle and resistance in each. The pig-keepers fight each other in each shape until they become the maggots that are drunk up with the spring water by cows, one belonging to Dáire mac Fiachna and the other to Medb and Ailill, which resulted in the two bulls, the Dub of Cuailnge and Finnbennach.

Not to suggest that these two tales are directly related--only that there may be a theme or template in use here, or perhaps just a feature common to Celtic storytelling that was employed both in Ireland and in Wales, involving two characters changing shape multiple times and struggling against each other, and ending up with the gestation and birth of one or more important figures.

Which makes me wonder if the shape-shifting bit in the Math tale initially ended elsewhere, but with that result lost to the Christian re-writers.

[finnbennach]

A Slight Change of Plans

Originally I intended to make an entry for each tale that fell in this pre-Táin section of Kinsella's book. But I've had a hard time figuring out what to say for each one (hence the lack of posts since the first bit). And now that I've read through the whole prologue-ish chunk and all the accompanying scholar's notes on the text, as well as a bit of outside research, it's clearer to me than it previously was that these tales are being lifted from other larger stories and presented here just for background, but out of context. And I am inadequately informed to make comments on them in this stand-alone fashion, having not yet read any of those larger texts.

For purposes of the reading journal, it makes more sense to me now to reflect on them based on what they are to this book: a bunch of tales from different sources that fill in necessary information prior to reading the main story. (I really should have thought of this at first!)

Onward and upward! Or something like that.

[finnbennach]

The Táin: Before The Táin: I

             Trans. Thomas Kinsella

HOW THE TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE WAS FOUND AGAIN

This little anecdote is really odd to me. It introduces a moment in which the entirety of the Táin has apparently been lost and all its pieces must be gathered up again. It's like the first "bookend" of a frame story, though if I flip to the back of the book I can see there's no twin bookend rounding things out. I thought of One Thousand and One Nights in which the Scheherazade story is a convenient though intriguing frame set up to hold a bunch of stories that wouldn't otherwise go together. I could maybe make the case here, since the translator's note says everything in "Before the Táin" is meant to prep the reader to understand what happens in the Táin itself; thus these stories might not have been intended to preface the main tale.

But the anecdote doesn't leave us at "and then the poets went out in search of the tales...." It comes round to its own end, with one of the poets, Muirgen, getting the whole story from the ghost of Fergus mac Roich. Only then does it proceed. The "Notes on the Text" in the back of the book say the anecdote is in the Book of Leinster version; maybe this prologue is a model of an old oral way of storytelling in Celtic parts?

It offers no explanation for why Muirgen decided Ghost Fergus was the best choice to reveal the entire story. But I like that as soon as he is summoned, Fergus shows up and gives Muirgen exactly what he needs. (Gravestone of Requirement?)

"However, there are some who say that the story was told to Senchán himself after he had gone on a fast to certain saints of the seed of Fergus. This seems reasonable" (Kinsella 2). Sure it does.

[finnbennach]

Reading Log Format and Starting _The Táin_

The first real book of tales that I've gotten my mitts on since starting the GP path is Thomas Kinsella's translation of the Táin Bó Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley). I've read snippets and bits of this and other tales online from sources like Sacred Texts, but it's so wildly different to have a physical book to learn from. For one thing, I comprehend better when reading from a printed book than from a screen. And I practically cannot read now without annotating the text (thanks, grad school!), which is hard to do satisfactorily on a computer.

So I am a happy geek. :)

To whatever other proud geeks might decide to follow along this geekery, here's the way I'll be formatting reading log posts.

In the post title--Book Title: Subheading: Chapter #

Top of post body--Author, Editor, or Translator

Below that--Chapter Title

Entry

Tags--Will likely duplicate some of the above for easy filing.

Voila!

I welcome comments &c., even though that wouldn't ordinarily be possible with a physical journal. Maybe precisely because of that. New Media is great, right?!

No, really, it can be, and I made the conscious decision (obviously--who makes unconscious decisions?) to keep this reading journal online even though I have a physical journal for non-religious reading. I did that to see what could happen with it, how it might stretch the boundaries of a private reading journal, and hopefully connect me with others, religious and not, who are reading these same stories. I'm trying to partake, even though I still don't know what to do with my damn Twitter account.

To the future! *whoosh*

[finnbennach]

Première

In a physical reading journal, you normally wouldn't write a "first post" kind of entry. That would be silly. Who's going to ever read that again but you, or, if you're fabulously lucky/unlucky, a future snooping relative or ardent biographer? What would you think of yourself if you came across that ten years down the road, when you're looking through your old notebooks for a sense of who you used to be? "Hello, world! :DDDD": your first entry. You rip out this inane little scribble with mounting shame and hide it immediately. What flavor of nutball were you anyway?

But this is the internet, crowded with onlookers who are never looking on at you specifically (unless you can balance a glass of champagne on your ass). You feel somehow that a greeting is necessary before you can get down to business. We are all guilty here. We want to be polite. We want people to see, before our regular rantings reveal otherwise, that we are charming, witty, smart, trendy, and occasionally screwball-hilarious, in a comfortable and socially-validated way. We want people to love and favorite and share our posts, to like us out the wazoo, because our posts are our little tiny babies, they are part of us being sent out into the Wild Web, and they are so delicate. Please be nice to me, we say with each brave click of the "Publish!" button. And we know that to make friends, we have to be nice first and say hi.

So alright, hello or whatever. Please don't take my lunch money.