Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster by Lady Augusta Gregory

Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster Reviews

• 
  L. Alexandra

  If I were to sing you a song of brave Cuchulain, hero and hound, loyal warrior, beardless boy better than three times fifty men of Ulster, I would surely run out of breath before you yet understood the heart of him, yet knew his many feats and the deeds that drew his name across the rocky ridge of the world in ogham. This book is a contagious classic, better for its aged language and seasoned anachronism, and better still for Lady Gregory's meticulously subtle whittling away of the density of the dialect that preceded this revised version. While the plot seems scattered at first, and the characters too numerous and complex to contain, I promise you that if you push through the pages you will find a past more glorious than the greatest action movie, more soaked in blood and brain, more steeped in righteous rage and honest tradition than any myth we could make today. Lady Gregory, with a careful and keen eye, strung together the old tales, trimming and stitching, binding and blending each, cutting out their contradictions and connecting their time lines until one fluid narrative came together to blanket us with heroes long lost to the laurels of time and battle. And I swear to you by the oaths my people swear by, that you will not find another collection of Western mythos with greater color or creativity, greater attention to detail or divination, than Cuchulain of Muirthemne: The Story of the Men of the Red Branch of Ulster. But trust not the storyteller alone, for the Achilles of Ireland, and a better man besides, Cuchulain, the Hound of Culain, said it best himself, "It is little I would care...if my life were to last one day and one night only, so long as my name and the story of what I had done would live after me." And live they do.
  
  
• 
  Philip of Macedon

  A more complete and wonderfully presented collection of the Ulster cycle of Irish mythology probably does not exist than this work Lady Augusta Gregory first published in 1902. She collects, transcribes, and pieces together the translations of many of the most significant sagas of Cuchulain and the people of Ulster. Her scholarship is remarkable and important, and so is the wealth of mythology here. This is every bit as grand a work as her publication of the Fenian and Mythological lore around the same time.
  
  I have read many of these stories elsewhere, mostly in Early Irish Myths and Sagas, as well as the impossibly magnificent epic Tain Bo Cuailnge, but a few I had never read before, including most of those which take place after the Tain. Lady Augusta's telling is in an authentic prose that is not dolled up or stylized, preserving the delivery of these tales as their translations first presented them from the original manuscripts. The stories are presented somewhat chronologically. Since the majority of them involve Cuchulain or reference him and other recurring figures from the Ulster sagas, it is easy to understand the timeline of these stories.
  
  All of these stories, even the most minor, are densely packed with the mysterious, alluring, bizarre, sometimes un-explainable magical myth-history of Irish sagas. The elements that give character and color to these tales have not been toned down, they have not been modified for contemporary audiences whose tastes are fleeting and formulaic, they have not been reworked to be more comfortable or familiar or sterile for popular consumption. They are presented with authenticity, with some clever fixing up by Lady Augusta simply for coherence and flow, but lacking none of the charming otherworldly, othertimely weirdness and glory and poetry and intensity that found its place in these myths of ancient ages. The unfamiliar becomes familiar through repeated exposure, such that the beliefs and values and ideas of these Gaels, which at first might appear alien and odd to the uninitiated, take on a fullness and a consistency and a life more real than the world around you.
  
  The birth and childhood deeds of Cuchulain are here, detailing his early decision to live a short life of elite heroism, immortalized in saga, as are the legendary events at Bricriu’s feast as Cuchulain and Conall Cearnach and Laegaire attempt to outdo one another in amazing feats. This story finishes with a competition of beheadings performed by (and on) a seemingly supernatural entity capable of regrowing its head, which is thought to have been the inspiration for the similar competition seen in the Arthurian tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Also here is Cuchulain’s courting of Emer, and the demise of the High King of Ireland, Conaire, at Da Derga’s hostel by his foster brothers and Ingcel. The sagas describing the key developments that precede the mighty epic of the Tain are here complete, in a few tales that I had never read before. What was new to me also were many of the tales after the Tain epic ends.
  
  Conchobar, king of Ulster, decides that the deeds and crimes of the people of Connacht and Leinster and Munster that occurred during their raid of Cúailnge for the mighty bull must be avenged. He demands satisfaction against Ailill and Madb, and against all the kings and warriors who aided their plot. The people of Ulster, including Cuchulain, agree. A massive battle follows, and Cuchulain, adding to the body count of warriors he has slain, destroys yet another man on the battlefield, Cairbre Niafer, whose son Erc will later seek vengeance.
  
  There is the tale of Cuchulain’s son, whom Cuchulain is tricked into fighting years after the boy has undergone intense training, unrecognized due to his son’s hidden identity and thirst for blood. This might remind one of the Hildebrandslied from middle high Germanic epic, in which father and son engage in battle against one another, for they do not know they are fighting kin. This is an old German tale, put first to print around 830 AD, but the Cuchulain story might be just as old. Both come from older oral traditions. We’ll probably never know which came first, as the history of these myths get blurrier with age.
  
  After the battle of Rosnaree I just mentioned, many of Cuchulain’s enemies conspire to end him. They are mostly the sons and daughters of those he has slain, including the daughters of Calatin who are trained in enchantments and witchcraft from a young age specifically so they may help defeat Cuchulain.
  
  The blood-pumping, symphonic drama of this massive conspiracy grows, and it soon entails all those who wish to avenge the deaths of those Cuchulain killed during his defense of Ulster during the Tain, and it crescendos until a grueling, poetic, remarkable end. It is not only Cuchulain who is killed, but his charioteer, and then his faithful horse, who does not die immediately, but defends Cuchulain against his enemies until the bitter end, later alerting Ulster to his death by showing up covered in blood. Despite the tricks of the enchanters, despite the forces opposing him and the odds against him, despite knowing his fate, despite the emphatic pleas from his wife and his friends to avoid combat, at least until his friend Conall is able to come to his aid, he wishes to face death and to face the enemy alone, because his deeds and his name will live forever. Cuchulain engages the enemy and strikes down all he can until his end is met. The children of those he vanquished have had their revenge.
  
  But as the people of Ulster lament his death and their inability to prevent it, Conall Cearnach rides out for revenge, remembering his oath to Cuchulain — if either died before the other, the other would seek satisfaction for their death before the next day, or before their blood was cold on the ground. Conall stays true to his promise and carves a path of red destruction across Ireland, eventually returning to Ulster and to Cuchulain’s wife, Emer, with the heads of all those he’s slain in vengeance. For each head, Emer asks who the person was, and Conall tells her who the head belonged to and where he left the body, or how they died. With this satisfaction, though her heart still broken, Emer can rest. She is buried with Cuchulain and dies of grief as she kisses him. Conall raises a stone for the two of them as all of Ulster is keening their deaths.
  
  It seems that the post-Tain Ulster cycle is composed largely of a sequence of revenge upon revenge upon revenge, ending in ultimate tragedy.
  
  This is one of the best collections of the immortal tales of maybe Ireland’s greatest hero and some of its most sensational, moving, and powerful sagas. Additional notes by Lady Gregory and WB Yeats provide excellent supplementary material, discussing Irish myth’s significance, and the scholarship behind bringing many of these stories to the public consciousness.
• 
  Clara Mazzi

  Ero molto interessata a conoscerne la storia e il suo mito, giunto a noi in maniera frammentaria, conservato e ritrovato a pezzi su diversi documenti di diversi autori. Non mi è stato possibile dunque ricostruire la sua storia in maniera lineare ma il lavoro fatto da Yeats mi è piaciuto moltissimo. Ho sentito tutta la sua ricerca, sia a livello di tecniche di scrittura che di sperimentazione ma soprattutto il grande lavoro su di sé tramite l’analisi del mito. Cinque atti unici che raccontano di altrettanti momenti topici della vita di Cuchulain, elaborati con un grande rispetto per l’aura dell’effetto del mito che è poi quello che affascina di più in questo tipo di narrazione e che viene ampliato magnificamente tramite la rappresentazione teatrale.
• 
  A. Mary

  Gregory takes great care to use the syntax of common speech, which gives her versions of these stories a distinctly Irish voice, something that is sacrificed in polished English prose.
• 
  Daniel

  First Thoughts:
  
  A great heroic epic. The story of Cú Chulainn, hound of Ulster and what is.. basically an Irish demingod. A story of a young man grasping a prophesy trading a long happy life for a shot one filled with glory and one where his name would be passed down through generations.
  
  Familiar story aint it?
  
  But the Irish version has its its own set of tropes. The laws of hospitality even between enemies, honour, bonds and just the general style of the writing. Its also the very first time where ive seen one of the heroes of these stories act in profound shame over one of his hasty actions and directly offer apology and change from the better in one of the old stories.
  
  The interaction with the Sidhe was also extremely interesting, and ive never quite seen a cultures stories reflect the supernatural in quite this way before. It certainly gives me a better appreciation for lore about Fae in modern works.
  
  Otherwise the formatting (as it often is when you get stories that old) was a little bumpy at times but manageable, and the translation still kept the stories interesting and distinctly different than some of the other works out of western Europe/Britain. I wouldnt recommend reading it if you were not already interested in this kind of thing. But Its something I enjoyed and looking back it helps me appreciate some other stories more too.
• 
  Ivan Llanes

  This is very personal, I know Cuchulainn is all but forgotten these days, but I just love this book. The power, the sheer strength it conveys washed me away when I first read it, years ago. I just can`t understand how come it is not more popular.
  The book is a re-write of a mythological cycle collected in medieval Irish texts. Lady Gregory turned these scattered legends into one only book, apt for a modern reader.
  
  Now imagine an ancient world where warriors ride charriots into battle, where druids hold a wisdom which has come down to them from Prehistory and conceal it by speaking in riddles, imagine pagan gods who cross the border of the Otherworld and help human heroes. See Ireland, see Europe as it was during Iron age, when kings fought over cattle and every banquet might turn into a bloody feud.
  This book is a time machine into a long forgotten world. Forget history novels, forget Simon Scarrow. These are real Celts talking for themselves. Nothing can be more exciting:
  
  For my husband is pleasant Conall of the great shield, the Victorious; he is proud, going with brave steps up to the spears of the fight; he is proud coming back to me after it, with the heads of his enemies in his hands.
  
  Damn, ain`t it cool??
• 
  Raro de Concurso

  Lo confieso. No lo he podido terminar. Lo he dejado al 40%. El tema suena fantástico, pero su lectura es como un capítulo de Tom y Jerry, pero con nombres irlandeses impronunciables. Y en vez de un ratón y un gato, una plaga de "marditos" roedores perseguidos por los mismos gatos.
  Continuos episodios de valientes guerreros que o bien destrozan al enemigo ellos solos, como les cortan la cabeza y siguen hablando, como se teletransportan, como pegan saltos propios de spiderman. Y mucha repetición de las cosas, y descripciones que sólo aportan sueño.
  
  En fin, espero la reacción airada de algún irlandés que quiera poner mi cabeza en la punta de su lanza, pero es lo que hay.
  
  Ah, y nada comparable con la saga artúrica. Ésta es mucho más amena y divertida.
• 
  Jamaya Bookworm

  This book provides some background in Irish mythology useful for understanding the poetry of W.B. Yeats. It's rather morbid, like a lot of mythology; most of the plots consist of heroes killing each other at the slightest provocation, or sometimes for no reason at all. It's like a Shakespeare tragedy... everyone dies at the end.
• 
  Robert

  A book read for background in understanding old myths and symbolism in Yeat's poetry. To a modern mind, it might be hard to read in places. The myths seem to be similar in theme to tall tales, as the heroes are capable of taking on armies single-handed. Warriors are overstuffed with pride, often tricked into fighting for slight causes.
• 
  Manda

  Ever since I was a little kid, these were some of my favorite stories, and I think Lady Gregory's version is probably the most complete and readable version of this particular hero cycle.
• 
  Claire S

  Object of parody in 'Ulysses' and 'Two Birds'...
• 
  Mike Mastropietro

  Men of Ulster stories. Language is old timey and folklore-y so not the easiest read, but as a rookie to these stories I enjoyed them.
• 
  Eric

  Superb language and stories.
• 
  Louise Zedda-Sampson

  Helpful with my essay of a mythological hero.
• 
  Anonymous Writer

  The Celtic mythology is one of the most intriguing mythology that existed in the whole world. Besides being very original, the Celtic myths have also inspired several writers and poets alike. During the late nineteenth century the Irish Revival played a major role in the translation of Celtic myths into the English language. Such myths were often used by the Romantics, the ones that considered national legends a great source of inspiration. Yeats was one of those poets that attempted to use Celtic myths in his beautiful and awe-inspiring poems that are considered the national treasure of the Irish. When thinking about mythology, in general, we shall consider it the treasure of the collective unconscious, like Carl Gustav Jung would say. Myths, legends, they are like the dreams of a culture. They were kept for centuries in the legends of folk people, becoming part of the folklore. Lady Augusta Gregory was an Irish woman that attempted to translate such Celtic myths into the English language. She wrote two books that made Irish myths more popular among the people. One deals with the gods, while the other is about the great hero that was called Cu Cuchulain.
  
  Cu Cuchulain is the most famous Celtic hero from the Celtic mythology. He is like any ancient hero: brave and powerful. He can be compared to Heracles, the Greek hero that had a lot of strength and a brave heart. Cu Cuchulain is very brave and often helps people to win battles, such as in the great battle/war of the bulls against a foreign queen. From the beginning, his life seems different. He is the son of the daughter of the king of Ulster and the god Lug. That makes him a demigod, a powerful one. When he was a boy he killed a hound from the feast of the king, being named Cu Cuchulain. A prophecy said that he would become famous, and yet he would die young. He had a son, but he killed him by mistake. He has many lovers, but Emer is the most famous of them. Emer became jealous one time, after he fell in love with a fairy. His death is also very popular. After breaking the taboo of eating dog meat, he became weak and his enemies attacked him and he died, in a courageous manner.
  
  The stories about heroes are becoming very popular nowadays. Children and teenagers are very attracted to super-heroes, not knowing that the popularity of heroes has had a very long tradition. All the mythologies have had their heroes, each being known for their brave acts. The stories of heroes teach us to act bravely, to be courageous despite the many enemies and obstacles that we face in our life. Each story can teach us virtues, such as friendship, courage, calmness, and so on. Such ethical issues can become appropriate for adults, as well, to make them remember the virtues of human nature, despite the hardships we encounter.
• 
  Temucano

  Sobre la vida de Cuchulain de Muirthemne, hijo de Dechtire y de un sidh, Lugh de la Mano Larga, uno de los dioses de la isla. Es un hombre sinigual, el más fuerte, rápido y valeroso que existe. Se crío con los hombres de Ulster, al mando de Conchubar, y desde allí fue tejiendo su leyenda, donde termina enfrentándose a Irlanda entera.
  
  Esta historia de los Hombres de la Rama Roja de Ulster representa una de las más grandes epopeyas mitológicas celtas. La aparición de este héroe junto a varios guerreros, brujas, hadas, los Tuatha de danaan, la Morrigu, la reina Maeve, el Toro Colorado de Cuailgne, el Astiblanco de Cruachan y otros personajes, nos permiten conocer el universo mágico de Eire y quedarnos embelesados ante tamaña fantasía. Mención especial para Angus Og, el hijo de Dagda.
  
  Excelente trabajo de Lady Gregory, traducción erudita y fidedigna de las leyendas celtas. Y para que hablar de la edición de Siruela, otra joya del Ojo sin Párpado, con prólogo de Yeats incluido y unas notas que incluyen la identificación de los lugares en la isla. Perfecto. (2.2.2005)
  
  
• 
  George Noland II

  The earlier work by Lady Gregory about the hero of the Red Branch of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. Excellent!
• 
  Cian

  Leaves out a lot of the true Cuchulain, and a great deal of the more tragic and brutal stuff.
• 
  Nathan Ward

  Early Yeats > late Yeats & Yeats poems > Yeats plays
• 
  The Warped One

  My favorite. I have no idea how many times I’ve read these tales.
• 
  Sarah

  Lol- didn't really read this version. I only read Death of Cuchulain
• 
  Cristobo De

  Based on a bunch of messed up, entangled, confused manuscripts from Early Christian Ireland, bungled into a couple of "recensions" which try to reduce plot holes without much success, CuChulain is an almost unreadable "epic" about an Irish champion and the enemies he defeats, crushes and decapitates. CuChulain is so awesome, so superior to his rivals, that each fight looks more like a butchery.
  John Nolan called this book "an Illiad by the pint". Quite appropriate.