Given Conchobar king of the Ultonians, his runaway wife queen of Connaught, and the exile Fergus enjoying more than hospitality at her court, we have the relative positions of some of the principal forces marshalled in the greatest epic story of the Irish, that which their literary men most endeavoured to elaborate. It purports to describe the events of an expedition by Ailill and Medb, with their numerous allies, to the kingdom of Ulster. Their chief object is said to have been the possession of a marvellous bull, called the Black of Cúailnge, from the district in which he grazed. Cúailnge is in modern Irish Cuailghe, Anglicized Cooley, the name of a mountainous part of the county of Louth:[1] ancient Ulster extended to the Boyne, and sometimes even further southwards.[2] The story serves as the centre around which other stories cluster, and the whole is known as the Táin or 'Driving' of the Kine of Cooley.[3] Ailill and Medb made use of Fergus on the Táin as the captain of the vanguard of their army, he being acquainted with the district they wished to reach; and they arrived there during the couvade[4] of the Ultonians, when none of their heroes could stir, excepting Cúchulainn, who accordingly had to face
- ↑ Bk. of Rights, p. 21, O'Donovan's note.
- ↑ O'Curry's MS. Mat. p. 269.
- ↑ It is called in Irish Táin Bó Cúailnge, or simply in Táin, literally 'the Driving' away of the cattle in question. The fragment of the tale in the Bk. of the Dun occupies fol. 55a—82b, and in the Bk. of Leinster it takes up much more space, namely, fol. 53b—104b, but neither is that complete. For references to other manuscripts of it, analyses and abstracts, see M. d'Arbois de Jubainville's Essai d'un Catalogue de la Littérature épique de l'Irlande (Paris, 1883), pp. 214—216.
- ↑ For an account of this strange custom, see Tylor's Researches into the Early History of Mankind, pp. 289—297.
