#/ im gomen i do these tain rants instead of actually doing replies but... i love... cu chulainn...

[caemthe-a]

     So I ended up reading Kinsella’s Táin in a day (something I should’ve done first since it’s far more comprehensible than older translations, but I’m didn’t because I’m a dumbass) and here are some details I didn’t pay much attention to when reading other translations until yesterday and also other things because I find them extremely amusing: 

It’s all Conchobar’s fault ngl.

The Táin properly starts on a Monday after Samain’s feast (Oct. 31) and ever since Cú never slept “unless against his spear for an instant after the middle of the day, with head on fist and fist on spear and the spear against his knee” (p.143, yes I put page because I’m annoying like that) until a Wednesday after Imbolc’s feast (Feb. 1), which means that Cú had been fighting the enemy armies without sleeping for MONTHS.

Until Cú was badly wounded so Lugh (aka Cú’s father) appeared to watch over him and heal him while Cú slept. Cú slept for 3 days and 3 nights. (Must’ve been some awkward days for Láeg since he was there too). That also meant that Ulster was defenseless against its enemies but Uster’s boys’ troop (150 young boys who were training to become warriors under Cú’s guidance) fought and they were all slaughtered. But they were no mere children because they managed to kill 3 times their own numbers. Absolute legends. (Actually, it’s very sad once Cú wakes up and is told that the boys’ troop been slaughtered... and then he goes full ríastrad on Medb’s armies)

Lugh is a storm god theory is WHACK and a stretch to try to compare him to another god of Norse mythology. (Alright, this isn’t particular to the Táin, it’s just me being salty about this very specific topic.)

Remember when I said Cú was a morning person? Well, that’s WRONG and I’m stupid. Cú actually hates waking up and no one ever tries to wake him up because, when he was a kid, some dude tried to wake him and baby Cú accidentally punched the dude’s brains out. (Another of baby Cú’s stories includes him hiding under Conchobar’s bed after punching about 50 boys and then you got the entirety of Ulster + King Conchobar + Fergus trying to pull him out). Anyway, back to the Táin.

One of the armies that were allied to Connacht was really efficient and fast and Medb didn’t like that one bit so her solution was to kill them all. Aillil: ‘What a womanly thing to say! We can’t do that!’ Fergus agreed and was the bigger brain then and therefore it was decided that the badass army should be distributed among the other armies.

I actually really like Fergus’ character during the entirety of the book and how he kept making fools of Medb and Aillil the whole time to delay their armies and give some time to Cú to recover and fight back. I’m giving him some rights back because I’m Cú biased.

Right, for at least 3 months, the war was only between the armies of Connacht (+ armies sent from other regions of Ireland... they all pretty much said Fuck them Ulster) against Cú Chulainn (with Láeg and his horses as emotional support). You would think that the armies of thousands of warriors would easily win against one 17yo boy, right? Haha... You would also think that considering Cú’s kill count, this enemy forces would start considering Cú as a serious threat and respect him, right? Absolutely not! Aillil actually has to threaten his troops to stop them from badmouthing Cú (Context: As soon as anyone insulted Cú, Cú would use his slingshot to blow their heads. He’s always watching... and listening!) Also, Cú has to wear a fake beard on TWO different occasions because, otherwise, the warriors wouldn’t fight him. (The best part of this is that the people actually bought the fake beard thing.)

Unless someone’s talking shit about him, Cú can’t aim for shit. (He does things out of spite.) For nearly three months he tries to shoot Medb and Aillil’s heads but he keeps missing each time and hits other targets instead. Sad.

Sometimes Cú likes to lie practically naked on the snow while staring at nothingness and tbh? Mood.

At some point, The Morrígan shows up disguised as a beautiful princess and tries to seduce Cú in a quite forceful manner, to which Cú says hard pass. The Morrigan gets offended and decides to make Cú’s life miserable from then on, to which our best boy says: Bring it on, WENCH! (Jokes aside, in concept, it’s really interesting that the goddess of death, victory, and war falls in love with a hero fated to accomplish greats feats and have his name remembered forever in all of Ireland and to die young.)

Then, The Morrigan transforms into an eel/fish and makes Cú trip when he’s crossing the river to meet the Connacht armies. Apparently, this is THE WORST that could ever happen to Cú because he gets so embarrassed and flustered that he just lies there and tries to hide a little. It’s so bad that he has no will to fight and Láeg has to give him prep talk so that he stands up again. I said Láeg was his emotional support!

And also Cú’s only brain cell! Because when Medb sent a message to Cú to meet her without carrying any weapon, Láeg went ‘Yeah, dude, don’t be stupid, that’s a trap.’ And of course it was a trap! This made Cú kinda annoyed because Medb had tried to deceive him and therefore destroys all the armies that Medb sent to kill him. And upon seeing her warriors getting slaughtered, Medb goes ‘This is so unfair! He’s doing injustice against my people!’ Mmm, I wonder who’s fault that this.

Ferdiad and Cú’s battle is always overwhelming and depressing and there’s gay drama no matter what.

An iconic moment from that battle is when Ferdiad asks his charioteer to look and see if Cú has arrived yet, to which the charioteer says ‘no, Ferdiad, buddy, we arrived like... 3 hours early to your date, what the fuck’. And Ferdiad goes, ‘Look again’ and the charioteer says, ‘Hey, dude, I know your boyfriend is tiny but he’s not THAT tiny’.

The book doesn’t explicitly mention how short is Cú but the people keep comparing him to a little hound, little deer, whelp, calf, little goat, etc.etc. etc. There also was this one time when Cú went ‘hey, hey what the fuck. I went full ríastrad last night. I can’t have people thinking I’m ugly.’ So he puts on his cool clothes and walked between where the Kingdoms of Ireland were gathered and the crowds went WILD. The men were standing there looking at Cú all dumbfounded but the women (their wives) couldn’t see him (like I said, he’s really short) so they got on the men’s shoulders to look at Cú. Medb got curious about what was the ruckus about and got on some dude’s shoulder’s too and looked at Cú and went ‘Hey, what the fuck! He’s a literal baby and you’re telling me that he’s the one who has been humiliating my troops?!’ Medb wasn’t amused.

Btw the reason why Medb and Aillil didn’t grab the brown bull Donn Cualigne and yeeted themselves out of there was because the bull was a powerhouse and no one could actually grab him. He would kill a fuckton of people whenever they tried to grab him so they decided that that was a bad idea.

Anyway, by the end of the Táin, the men of Ulster recovered from the pangs of Macha. (It was a curse that fell upon them for being major assholes. Don’t force pregnant women, who are about to give birth, to participate in chariot races, that’s just bad. Btw Macha, the pregnant woman, won the race.) And so everyone starts talking and making a huge deal of THE GREAT BATTLE and there are these cool and long introductions to the warriors of Ulster, Conchobar is all ‘I just came here to laugh at you’ at Medb and Aillil. And so you get a bunch of warriors come and go from THE GREAT BATTLE, and Cú says, ‘Damn, Laég, you better tell me all about THE GREAT BATTLE’ (Cú can’t participate because he’s still too wounded from his battle with Ferdiad). But they never actually show you THE GREAT BATTLE. Sad.

Also, sadly, there wasn’t nowhere nearly enough content of Conall Cernach and his dog-headed, man-eating, gore-covered, foaming monster horse and I think that’s a damn shame. ucu.