#oileamhain con culainn

[trans-cuchulainn]

well at least he’s honest

#murder all the way down #oileamhain con culainn #the training of cu chulainn #cu chulainn

[finnlongman]

Is there any reason certain names end up being used so repeatedly in the Ulster Cycle? Like, I remember reading some translations of The Wooing of Emer+Cú Chulainn's Training with Scathach, and the name Cett/Cat appears 3 times; once as one of Emer's brothers, once as one of Scathach's sons, and once as a soldier fighting with Aoife. Is it just a translation thing or is it not actually deep and it was just a common name? Sorry if this question seems a little stupid. Thank you for your time.

Interesting question! I've been thinking a lot about names recently, particularly those that repeat, so this coincides well.

A lot of the time, I think it's simply that they're common names. There are a zillion guys called Ailill (sometimes within the same text), every other random maiden seems to be called Étain, and I lose track of how many Eochaids there are. Whenever you get an index of names, as you sometimes do for longer texts where a lot of characters appear, you find yourself scrolling through half a page of the same name. If you're lucky, they'll be distinguished by epithets or patronymics. If you're not, good luck figuring out which Lugaid you're supposed to be looking up...

There are some names that only come up once, like Cú Chulainn, but for the most part, I'd hazard that it's more common for there to be multiple characters with a name than for it to be wholly unique.

Now, sometimes this is a plot point. Recently, I've been working on a tiny fragment from TCD H.3.17, concerning the seven Maines. The seven Maines, if you haven't come across them, are the seven sons of Medb and Ailill, all of whom have the same name (but different epithets to distinguish them). In this case, there's a reason for it: Medb renamed all of them because when she asked a druid which of her sons would kill Conchobar, he prophesied that it would be Maine. Realising she didn't have a son called Maine yet, Medb took action to fix that. But! She wasn't precise enough in her question. Maine Andoe does kill a Conchobar... but it's a different one.

So here we have a story that not only involves seven people called Maine, but also two people called Conchobar, and that overlap is central to the plot. But this fragment seems to be an excerpt from the longer text Cath Boinde... where there are two guys called Eochaid and that's not a plot point whatsoever. Eochaid Feidleach and Eochaid Dala just happen to have the same first name. Even within the same story, repeated names both do and don't have meaning.

The Maines aren't too unusual, even if they're one of the only groups I know of where there's an explanation for their names: there are a lot of lists of people with the same name. In the Táin the largest groups of same-named warriors are ten people, I think ("Ten Fiacs, ten Fiachas, ten Feidlimids"), although three is a pretty common number there and in Togail Bruidne Da Derga. But in some of the later (early modern) texts, we get groups of up to three hundred: "Ferdia son of Daman with three hundred Ferdias in his train; Fraoch son of Fidhach with three hundred Fraochs [etc.]" (Táin Bó Flidais II). It makes you wonder whether they made them all change their name, or whether they just had a highly selective job interview process with only one question...

It's clear that names recur a lot even within the same texts, but what about across different texts? Well, looking at the example you asked about, it's worth noting that The Training of Cú Chulainn is a later text that derives from The Wooing of Emer, so that may also result in some overlap or borrowing of names -- even if it's for different characters. But often the reason a name is common is to do with the meaning of it. You get a lot of names with the Cú or Con element at the beginning because 'hound' was evidently a comparison made for particularly fierce fighters. You also get a lot of names with the 'Fer' prefix -- Fer Diad, Fer Baeth, Fer Logain, etc, and 'fer' just means 'man'. So names that mean things are bound to recur.

What do these names mean? Well, I'm away from my books and library access at the moment, which makes it a little tricky to verify which spellings are used in the original Irish of those texts -- Cat and Cett would be distinct names, but I'm also aware of at least one spelling of Scáthach's son's name as Caid, which would be different again. (Caid means 'pure, holy, noble', which would maybe place him in opposition to her other son Cuar, meaning 'crooked, bent', although it usually means in the physical rather than moral sense -- and I'm not sure where the Caid spelling comes from as I've only come across it in translation.)* It looks like it's usually spelled Cet in Tochmarc Emire (but one of the manuscripts also says 'Scathqu' at one point, so I Don't Trust It). The most famous Cet is Cet mac Mágach, but 'cét' has a bunch of meanings -- it can mean 'first', it can mean 'a hundred'... it's a solid name for a firstborn son, so maybe that's why it shows up so much. One of the MSs of Training uses Cat, which is harder to pin down -- it could just mean 'cat', although that seems unlikely, or maybe it relates to 'cath' ('battle'), or maybe it's an early modern scribe getting confused about his vowels, I'm not sure.

This is... getting very long, and not saying much, so, the short version is: Sometimes Names Just Show Up A Lot. And the scribes and authors are evidently aware of the potential for confusion and plot points with regard to this, as the story of the seven Maines proves, but at other times, they throw repetition at you and leave you to figure it out. But a lot of the names that show up very frequently do so because they have a meaning, one that may relate to the characters' physical traits (so many fair-haired Fionns!) or their skills or even just their birth order.

I hope this was... useful? Sorry, I feel like I just threw a lot of words at you when you were probably looking for a quick answer. You happened to catch me at a time when I'm immersed in thinking about names in medieval Irish lit, so the infodumping was inevitable!

* Note that manuscript spellings are often wildly inconsistent, so the same name might show up as Cet, Cat, Caut -- without translating fully and getting context, it's hard to figure out whether they're all the same person, and right now I'm just scrolling quickly through editions, so I apologise if I've missed anything in that regard.

#medieval irish #answered #oddnub #irish mythology #ulster cycle #tain bo cuailnge #foghlaim con culainn #oileamhain con culainn #tochmarc emire #cath boinde #h.3.17

[incorrect-ulster-cycle]

“Everyone knows that the best way to learn is under intense life threatening pressure.”

- Scáthach, probably

#source: into the spiderverse #scathach #ulster cycle #oileamhain con culainn #scathach sending a bunch of children to war for her like whatevs this is fine #she's so sketchy oh my god #who let her teach kids #scathach would not pass an enhanced DBS check that's for sure #incorrect ulster cycle

[trans-cuchulainn]

the true source of fer diad’s rage is his student loans

#oileamhain con culainn

[trans-cuchulainn]

Any good copies or ways to read oileamhain con culainn

good question (also i realise this is from a few days ago and i failed to answer it, sorry)

there's a translation by whitley stokes which is available on CELT. this is probably fine bc it's stokes but also it's from 1908 so i doubt it's stylish. this is the one i've read/worked with mostly.

there's a more recent translation of one of the other manuscripts by ruairi o huiginn that i don't think is online, which also includes some discussion of the text and its origins. it's in the journal "emania". i have a scan of it somewhere; if you need it, lmk.

(i don't have anywhere i can like. safely upload stuff publicly but i can email stuff to people if necessary)

#you can dm me here with your email #or email me at my twitter username at gmail.com #my twitter username is also my ao3 handle #detective work here is to avoid spam #oileamhain con culainn #foghlaim con culainn #cu chulainn #answered #anonymous

[incorrect-ulster-cycle]

Cú Chulainn: You want to teach me how to fight?

Scáthach: I know you know how to fight. I want to teach you how to fight and not die.

#source: black sails #cu chulainn #scathach #oileamhain con culainn #irish mythology #ulster cycle #incorrect quotes

[incorrect-ulster-cycle]

Scáthach: You call contorting your body into a writhing mass of flesh and murderous instinct a martial art?

Cú Chulainn: Hey, as long as it works

#source: fist of the north star #submission #submitted by: tainbocuailnge #thank you for the submission! #cu chulainn #scathach #oileamhain con culainn #irish mythology #ulster cycle #incorrect quotes

[incorrect-ulster-cycle]

Úathach: You fight like my elderly mother!

Cú Chulainn: I’ve fought your mother! That’s a compliment!

#uathach #implied scathach #cu chulainn #source: the road to el dorado #irish mythology #ulster cycle #tochmarc emire #i guess #also maybe... #oileamhain con culainn #incorrect quotes

[incorrect-ulster-cycle]

Cú Chulainn: You have no idea what I’m capable of!

Scáthach: Don’t take it personally, but I feel like I’m being threatened by a cupcake.

#cu chulainn #scathach #tochmarc emire #oileamhain con culainn #is that even how you spell that #if not i apologise #source: how to train your dragon #ulster cycle #irish mythology

[trans-cuchulainn]

what kind of stuff do you feel like people who read your fic but haven't read the tain miss out on reading in loco parentis?

hmm, good question. it's a tricky one because I'm not JUST drawing on TBC, I'm also drawing on a bunch of other stories, so even people who've read the táin might miss some details if they haven't read the others! so for example...

a lot of it's in the character relationships and stuff. everything with conchobar, dee and naoise is a reference to "longes mac nuislenn", so if you know the plot of that, you can see how i've adapted it. láeg as the designated driver and mum friend obviously comes from how he functions as charioteer in most texts. conall's motorbike is based on his horse, which mainly shows up in "brislech mór maige muirthemni" / "oidheadh con culainn". this text and others also provide the background for "conall is always away when shit goes down and turns up 15 minutes late with starbucks". cormac's characterisation is... mostly my invention, tbh, he doesn't have much of a personality in canon

a lot of things with cú chulainn and ferdia have a grounding in the texts. ferdia's moment of jealousy, when he says that there's no point competing against cú chulainn as he'll never win, echoes a similar outburst in "oileamhain con culainn", while the idea of the two of them being forced to compete in a way that doesn't allow for them both to win is drawing on the táin, specifically the "comrac fir diad" episode. emer daring cú chulainn to take on a challenge that leads to him training with scáthach comes from "tochmarc emire". cú chulainn's defence of derbforgaill comes from "aided derbforgaill", but his anger, and the way he talks about rage and dance and so on is drawing on descriptions of the ríastrad from the táin and other texts.

ferdia's flatmates being medb and ailill and the fact that fergus is sleeping with both of them is a táin detail although. well. he's not canonically sleeping with ailill as well in TBC, but... maybe he should've been lmao. the fact that they are loud and obnoxious and láeg and cú chulainn are half ready to declare war on their neighbours was at one point going to be more of a plot point, but i got distracted. that would've been a táin detail as well though, if it had happened

so that's like, plot stuff (there's probably a lot more of it that I would've forgotten about by now). but then there are small details like some of the imagery used – e.g. the use of colours in the most recent chapter, which comes from "longes mac nuislenn" again, sort of. again, the descriptions that are supposed to echo the ríastrad, which ties into the way I'm using ballet as a stand-in for cú chulainn's heroic feats and therefore leaning on some of those associations...

plus all the like, analytical levels of stuff of cú chulainn using pointework to compensate and compete when others see his position as a male dancer as dubious echoes the way he uses his feats and tricks and training to beat those who question his beardlessness and small size in the táin – turning his unconventional masculinity to his advantage

there are a lot of layers of references and some are more obvious than others. also some of them are accidental because I am often VERY immersed in the ulster cycle to the point of like. making references unconsciously that then other people point out to me. so there are probably some obvious ones. but that's like a quick rundown of some of the most obvious "easter eggs" that those with knowledge of the texts would pick up on but those who didn't, wouldn't. idk that they're essential for following the story in any way, i guess they might just explain why I made the narrative choices i made at various points.

#it's a shitty college au of the tain and i love it #group chats of the ulster cycle #answered #anonymous

[finnlongman]

sorry this is so random but I follow you on twitter but couldn't dm you so this seems like the next best option! I study medieval Irish at Ox and have found your series really helpful, but obv now I'm finding it really hard to revise. My exam is on Scela Muicce Meic Datho and Longes mac nUislenn - was wondering if you had any recommendations on either or how they fit into Ulster Cycle. I could give u my email or smth if its easier to speak elsewhere? dw if not but would appreciate anything! ty x

Hey, thanks for reaching out! It must be really tough trying to revise right now -- my thoughts are with all the students trying to make sense of this mess.

I have a couple of videos on Longes mac nUislenn -- you've probably already seen them, but in case you missed them, part one is here [link] and part two is here [link]. I was planning to do a video on SMMD about six months ago but it never happened, though I still intend to get around to it eventually... 🙄

The short answer regarding how they fit into the Ulster Cycle is "lol cycles are fake", or possibly "it's complicated" (everyone's favourite answer in Celtic Studies in general).

Longes mac nUislenn is presented as a remscél to the Táin, so you would expect it to match up chronologically to that timeline, but... it doesn't. The end of LmU says that the exiles were gone for sixteen years, but Fergus is Cú Chulainn's foster father and Cú Chulainn is only seventeen at the time of the Táin, suggesting that Fergus has not been gone that long. Moreover, some other texts, like Oileamhain Con Culainn, say that Naoise trained with Scáthach alongside Cú Chulainn, so again, must have been more recent. That makes it odd that Cú Chulainn isn't in it -- which is possibly why the early modern author tried to explain away his absence in the later version of the story (I discussed this a bit in the video). We only have the versions of the story that survive -- maybe originally there was a more consistent tradition that matched up with TBC, but what we've got is a mix and match.

SMMD presents some similar issues: when is this happening? If Cú Chulainn is such a central part of the Ulster Cycle, where is he? Some think the text is intended as a parody of Fled Bricrenn and other texts featuring heroes contending for the champion's portion. This doesn't really explain Cú Chulainn's absence, though. Some think he's not there because the text is actually very early, and it predates his starring role in the Ulster Cycle -- it's been suggested that he's a relatively late addition and may not initially have been the primary hero.

I can probably talk in more detail about both these texts -- I wrote an essay on SMMD in first year that I still have somewhere, and I did a fair bit of research into LmU a couple of years back -- but right now I'm just throwing out ideas off the top of my head, because otherwise I'll exit out of my notifications and forget that this message exists until I stumble on it in three weeks' time. I can probably give you some article titles as well, based on my bibliographies for those essays, but I don't know how easy it'll be for you to access them during the lockdown thanks to the frustrating lack of digitisation of Celtic Studies journals and the like 🙃

I guess if I were going to make generalisations, I'd say the most important thing to remember is that although we like to group these texts as a Cycle because it's convenient, medieval authors wouldn't necessarily have thought of them like that, and we shouldn't project expectations of consistency or continuity on different texts. They don't all neatly fit together in a chronological order -- they're a disparate body of texts that we've grouped under one heading because they have some features and characters in common. Which characters they have in common is one of the interesting parts!

If you'd like to talk in more detail about specifics, let me know your Twitter username and I can DM you/follow you so you can DM me, that's probably easiest 😊 I just have it set to only people I follow to deter randomers.

Good luck with the revision!

#hoping this is at least slightly coherent #i can't look back at the full message while writing my answer on mobile #so i might have forgotten exactly what it said oops #medieval irish #ulster cycle #scela mucce meic datho #longes mac nuislenn

[trans-cuchulainn]

WAIT, scathach slept with a six year old? Wat

hahahahahha

yeah

sketchy as fuck amirite

serious explanation: the texts that explore cú chulainn’s training with scáthach are the wooing of emer and the training of cú chulainn, the latter being a later text (the two overlap in some places, but contradict each other in others). the gist of tochmarc emire is that in order to woo his wife (emer) he goes to train as a warrior -- standard state of affairs, really -- and while he’s there he sleeps with scáthach, her daughter úathach, and the warrior woman aífe. in another text aífe is said to be scáthach’s sister, although that isn’t mentioned here, but clearly he’s keeping it in the family. oileamhain con culainn is fairly similar in terms of the shenanigans he gets up to while training with scáthach, though there are a few differences. point is, cú chulainn’s age is not given in either of these texts that i can recall. the táin, on the other hand, mentions his wooing of emer and his training with scáthach as having happened when he was six years old -- fergus discusses it when recounting the boyhood deeds. the táin therefore retrospectively makes this whole thing super fucking dodgy, but the age thing isn’t really present within those texts themselves. most of that’s because the táin is the chronological problem child of the ulster cycle, and anyway cycles are fake.

(but tbh even if he wasn’t six, he was her student, so like... pedagogical morality, come ON scáthach, that’s crossing several lines)

hope that cleared things up!

#scathach #cu chulainn #medieval irish #irish mythology #also yeah it was kind of cu chulainn's idea but like ?? he's a child?? #i don't think mythological ireland had an age of consent but nevertheless #there's something dodgy going on #answered #hiziram

[finnlongman]

Finn Reads "The Hound of Ulster" - Conclusions

Okay, I finished rereading The Hound of Ulster now, so you're free of my liveblogging. Before I go, some thoughts:

On the whole, I liked it a lot. I think it would be very enjoyable to read aloud, because stylistically it has that oral rhythm.

Rosemary Sutcliff does make a few weird choices, some of which are definitely not supported by the texts and others I'd have to research to be sure of. E.g. the conception story she uses is just... weird, and why is Láeg ginger?

It's possible Láeg has red hair in some texts, but I'm pretty sure he's dark-haired in the Táin, because I looked it up.

However, I love Láeg. I love that he got to play a significant role in this.

I actually started shipping Cú Chulainn/Láeg somewhat which is wild.

Some of her narrative choices were very reasonable though, e.g. using the later version of Longes mac nUislenn that actually has Cú Chulainn in it.

Though I'm sad that no one acknowledges the fact that Cú Chulainn and Naoise supposedly trained together under Scáthach (according to Tochmarc Émire and Oileamhain Con Culainn). We've been deprived of their adventures together.

Cú Chulainn is repeatedly described as small, slight, and at one point, even as "bird-boned". GOOD. Team small Cú forever.

Literally every time Fer Diad is mentioned it gets gayer.

Everything about their first meeting is just ridiculously adorable and also made me cry because FORESHADOWING.

She somehow made bits of Comrac Fir Diad actually gayer than the original? E.g. they wash/tend each other's wounds, rather than being treated by healers.

Having said that... I expected to cry more at that scene and I didn't. Maybe I am just too used to it. Maybe because the way I wrote it in TRWTH was so much worse and I'm desensitised now.

And the mourning verses should have been longer.

But Láeg taking care of Cú Chulainn afterwards? GOOD.

Conall Cernach is a weirdo and I can see why @ad-ciu is so invested in him. A highlight was seeing the events of Togail Bruidne Da Derga alluded to, first right after they've happened, and later when Bricriu is throwing shade at Conall for not being able to save Conaire Mór.

Sutcliff is obviously aiming to make Cú Chulainn more likeable than the original texts do (which, frankly, is a pretty low bar). Mostly, I think she succeeds, without robbing him of too much of his strangeness and violence.

I got intensely emotional about Láeg's death. That one I am not overly familiar with, having written neither a dissertation not a novel about it, so... it got me. My son :'(

Pretty sure Emer's mourning verses hinted at Láeg/Emer/Cú Chulainn being a thing and honestly, headcanon accepted. They would roast him mercilessly. It would be hilarious. I'm here for it. Once I've stopped crying about the fact that everyone is dead.

Finally... I wish she didn't Anglicise the names, even though she acknowledges that in the foreword and makes it clear it's a conscious decision. "Lugy" is bad. "Quelgney" is extremely cursed. And I cannot take "Fergus mac Roy" seriously.

Anyway. I'm done.

Conclusions: The Hound of Ulster is very enjoyable on some levels and by far not the most inaccurate of retellings out there. It's definitely not the best place to start if you're hoping to learn more about the stories, though - I think it would be quite misleading in places. You'd be better off reading the original.

BUT if I ever find myself in an educational/family setting in which I'm reading stories to children... I could see myself reading bits of this. It's got that oral storytelling style to it.

Also, according to Goodreads I last read this in December 2017. You'd think, if it's that recent, that I'd remember doing so. You would be wrong.

EDIT: Turns out Goodreads was lying and is now saying I read it in the summer of 2015. That makes a lot more sense and explains why I didn’t remember the details. I felt sure that couldn’t be right.

#finn reads the hound of ulster #the hound of ulster #rosemary sutcliff #cu chulainn #tain bo cuailnge