Everything about Ulster Cycle totally explained
The
Ulster Cycle, formerly known as the
Red Branch Cycle, one of the four great cycles of
Irish mythology, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the
Ulaid in what is now eastern
Ulster and northern
Leinster, particularly counties
Armagh,
Down and
Louth. The stories are set in and around the reign of king
Conchobar mac Nessa, who rules the Ulaid from
Emain Macha (now Navan Fort near
Armagh). The most prominent hero of the cycle is Conchobar's nephew
Cúchulainn. The Ulaid are most often in conflict with the people of
Connacht, led by their queen,
Medb, her husband
Ailill, and their ally
Fergus mac Róich, a former king of the Ulaid in exile. The longest and most important story of the cycle is the
Táin Bó Cúailnge or "Cattle Raid of Cooley", in which Medb raises an enormous army to invade the
Cooley peninsula and steal the Ulaid's prize bull,
Donn Cúailnge, opposed only by the seventeen year old Cúchulainn. Perhaps the best known story is the tragedy of
Deirdre, source of plays by
W. B. Yeats and
J. M. Synge. Other stories tell of the births, courtships and deaths of the characters and of the conflicts between them.
The stories are written in
Old and
Middle Irish, mostly in prose, interspersed with occasional verse passages. They are preserved in manuscripts of the 12th to 15th centuries, but in many cases are much older: the language of the earliest stories is dateable to the 8th century, and events and characters are referred to in poems dating to the 7th. The tone is terse, violent, sometimes comic, and mostly realistic, although supernatural elements intrude from time to time. Cúchulainn in particular has superhuman fighting skills, the result of his semi-divine ancestry, and when particularly aroused his battle frenzy or
ríastrad transforms him into an unrecognisable monster who knows neither friend nor foe. Evident
deities like
Lugh, the
Morrígan,
Aengus and
Midir also make occasional appearances.
Unlike majority of early Irish historical tradition, which presents ancient Ireland as largely united under a succession of
High Kings, the stories of the Ulster Cycle depict a country with no effective central authority, divided into local and provincial kingdoms often at war with each other. The civilisation depicted is a pagan, pastoral one ruled by a warrior aristocracy. Bonds between aristocratic families are cemented by fosterage of each other's children. Wealth is reckoned in cattle. Warfare mainly takes the form of cattle raids, or single combats between champions at fords. The characters' actions are sometimes restricted by religious taboos known as
geasa.
The events of the cycle are traditionally supposed to take place around the time of
Christ. The stories of Conchobar's birth and death are synchronised with the birth and death of Christ, and the
Lebor Gabála Érenn dates the
Táin Bó Cúailnge and the birth and death of Cúchulainn to the reign of the High King
Conaire Mor, who it says was a contemporary of the
Roman emperor Augustus (27 BC - AD 14). However, some stories, including the
Táin, refer to
Cairbre Nia Fer as the king of
Tara, implying that no High King is in place at the time.
Some scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as
Eugene O'Curry and
Kuno Meyer, believed that the stories and characters of the Ulster Cycle were essentially historical;
T. F. O'Rahilly was inclined to believe the stories were entirely mythical and the characters euhemerised gods; and
Ernst Windisch thought that the cycle, while largely imaginary, contains little genuine myth. Elements of the tales are reminiscent of classical descriptions of
Celtic societies in
Gaul,
Galatia and
Britain. Warriors fight with swords, spears and shields, and ride in two-horse chariots, driven by skilled charioteers drawn from the lower classes. They take and preserve the heads of slain enemies, and boast of their valour at feasts, with the bravest awarded the
curadmír or "champion's portion", the choicest cut of meat. Kings are advised by
druids (Old Irish
druí, plural
druíd), and poets have great power and privilege. These elements led scholars such as
Kenneth H. Jackson to conclude that the stories of the Ulster Cycle preserved authentic Celtic traditions from the pre-Christian
Iron Age. Other scholars have challenged that conclusion, stressing similarities with early medieval Irish society and the influence of classical literature, but it's likely that the stories do contain genuinely ancient material.
Texts in translation
Most of the important Ulster Cycle tales can be found in the following publications:
- Thomas Kinsella, The Táin, Oxford University Press, 1969
- Jeffrey Gantz, Early Irish Myths and Sagas, Penguin, 1981
- Tom Peete Cross & Clark Harris Slover, Ancient Irish Tales, Henry Holt & Company, 1936 (reprinted by Barnes & Noble, 1996)
- John T Koch & John Carey, The Celtic Heroic Age, Celtic Studies Publications, 2000
- Kuno Meyer, The Death-Tales of the Ulster Heroes, Todd Lecture Series, 1906
- A H Leahy, Heroic Romances of Ireland, 2 vols, 1905-1906 (Online at Sacred Texts
)
Online translations
The Birth of Conchobar
Tidings of Conchobar son of Ness
The War of Fergus and Conchobar
Medb's Men, or the Battle of the Boyne
The Conception of Conall Cernach
The Birth of Cú Chulainn
The Wooing of Emer
The Death of Aífe's Only Son
The Story of Mac Dathó's Pig
Bricriu's Feast
The Exile of the Sons of Usnech
The Dream of Óengus
The Cattle Raid of Fráech
The Raid for the Cattle of Regamon
The Raid for Dartaid's Cattle
The Driving of Flidais's Cattle
The Courtship of Ferb Book of Leinster version; Egerton version
The Adventures of Nera
The Cattle Raid of Regamna
The Debility of the Ulstermen
The Cattle Raid of Cooley Recension 1; Recension 2
The Death of Cú Roí
The Sick-Bed of Cuchulain
The Pursuit of Gruaidh Ghriansholus
The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel
The Death of Celtchar mac Uthechair
The Affliction of the Ulstermen
The Colloquy of the Two Sages
The Death of Cú Chulainn
The Death of Cet mac Mágach
The Death of Lóegaire Búadach
The Death of Conchobar
The Battle of Airtech
The Death of Fergus mac Róich
The Violent Death of Medb
The Phantom Chariot of Cú Chulainn
The Revealing of the Táin Bó Cúailnge
Adaptations
The Ulster Cycle provided material for Irish writers of the Gaelic revival around the turn of the twentieth century. Augusta, Lady Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) retold most of the important stories of the cycle, as did Eleanor Hull for younger readers in The Boys' Cuchulain (1904). contemporary William Butler Yeats wrote a series of plays - On Baile's Strand (1904), Deirdre (1907), The Green Helmet (1910), At the Hawk's Well (1917), The Only Jealousy of Emer (1919) and The Death of Cuchulain (1939) - and a poem, Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea (1892), based on the legends, and completed the late John Millington Synge's unfinished play Deirdre of the Sorrows (1910), in collaboration with Synge's widow Molly Allgood.
More recent literary adaptations include Rosemary Sutcliff's children's novel The Hound of Ulster (1963) and Vincent Woods' play A Cry from Heaven (2005). Cartoonist Patrick Brown is currently adapting the cycle as a webcomic, beginning with the story of Conchobar's mother Ness.
Further Information
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