The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) : An Old Irish Prose-Epic eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 157 pages of information about The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) .

The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) : An Old Irish Prose-Epic eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 157 pages of information about The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) .

They do this:  hence this glen is called Glenn Gatt.  Then they bring the Bull to Findabair.  The place where he saw the herd, Lothar, he attacked him, so that he brought his entrails out on his horns; and he attacked the camp with his three fifties of heifers, so that fifty warriors were killed.  And that is the death of Lothar on the Foray.

Then the Bull went from them out of the camp, and they knew not where he had gone from them; and they were ashamed.  Medb asked the herd if he had an idea where the Bull was.

‘I think he would be in the secret places of Sliab Culind.’

When they returned thus after ravaging Cualnge, and did not find the Bull there.  The river Cronn rose against them to the tops of the trees; and they spent the night by it.  And Medb told part of her following to go across.

A wonderful warrior went next day, Ualu his name.  He took a great stone on his back to go across the water; the stream drove him backwards with the stone on his back.  His grave and his stone are on the road at the stream:  Lia Ualand is its name.

They went round the river Cronn to the source, and they would have gone between the source and the mountain, only that they could not get leave from Medb; she preferred to go across the mountain, that their track might remain there for ever, for an insult to the Ulstermen.  They waited there three days and three nights, till they dug the earth in front of them, the Bernas Bo Cuailnge.

It is there that Cuchulainn killed Crond and Coemdele and ——­ [Note:  Obscure.].  A hundred warriors ——­ [Note:  Obscure.] died with Roan and Roae, the two historians of the Foray.  A hundred and forty-four, kings died by him at the same stream.  They came then over the Bernas Bo Cuailnge with the cattle and stock of Cualnge, and spent the night in Glenn Dail Imda in Cualnge.  Botha is the name of this place, because they made huts over them there.  They come next day to Colptha.  They try to cross it through heedlessness.  It rose against them then, and it carries a hundred charioteers of them to the sea; this is the name of the land in which they were drowned, Cluain Carptech.

They go round Colptha then to its source, to Belat Alioin, and spent the night at Liasa Liac; that is the name of this place, because they made sheds over their calves there between Cualnge and Conaille.  They came over Glenn Gatlaig, and Glass Gatlaig rose against them.  Sechaire was its name before; Glass Gatlaig thenceforth, because it was in withes they brought their calves; and they slept at Druim Fene in Conaille. (Those then are the wanderings from Cualnge to Machaire according to this version.)

This is the Harrying of Cualnge

(Other authors and books make it that another way was taken on their journeyings from Findabair to Conaille, as follows: 

Medb said after every one had come with their booty, so that they were all in Findabair Cuailnge:  ‘Let the host be divided,’ said Medb; ’it will be impossible to bring this expedition by one way.  Let Ailill go with half the expedition by Midluachair; Fergus and I will go by Bernas Ulad.’ [Note:  YBL.  Bernas Bo n-Ulad.]

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The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) : An Old Irish Prose-Epic from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.