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Pierce's Reviews > The Táin: From the Irish Epic Táin Bó Cúailnge
The Táin: From the Irish Epic Táin Bó Cúailnge
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Giving this stars seems kind of ridiculous. But I will, anyway.
It is a minor embarrassment that I had not read The Táin until last week. When my sister found out she made me, which is fair enough. We are quite immersed in many of the stories surrounding the Ulster cycle during our education: the young Cúchulainn, Medb and Ailill. We are even told a vastly simplified version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, mostly focusing on the two bulls and not the war going on around them.
My first shock was how blood-thirsty the epic is. They certainly excised that aspect of the tales in school. My second was how funny it was. And I'm still not sure if the humour is intentional. There's a section where Cathach comes back after riding his chariot off into battle alone, and he's been ripped to bits. Cúchulainn sends for healers and 15 (some say 50) of them come and each says he's done for, and every time one of them says that Cathach kills them with a fierce punch. Eventually Cúchulainn says "Come on Cathach, you can't be killing healers."
A healer eventually comes and agrees to treat Cathach, and he begins describing each wound, and each awful wound he mentions Cathach describes the man or men who inflicted them, and Cúchulainn says "Oh! I know them! That's the brothers so-and-so, they're the son of this guy and have killed that guy." This goes on for three pages, in exactly the same repetitive structure. And it's so long and elaborate that it seems like it must be comic, but I'm just not sure.
These tales were written down by monks in the 12th century from spoken stories that had been passed down for hundreds of years, since perhaps around 0AD. So they are very like Homer's works, and that you can see the repetition and exaggeration that would be characteristic of such stories. So much of Irish storytelling shows its roots in this work.
Also: the depiction of women in these stories is really interesting. There are warrior queens. Strong women. Girls decide who they will marry. Men must pursue them and gain their approval. It is simply a fundamentally different relationship to the gender roles Christianity brought to this country.
A couple of times men make harsh statements about women in general, but it's always born out of a frustration with the fact that, e.g. Medb wont stop sending warriors to kill them. Bloody women!
It is a minor embarrassment that I had not read The Táin until last week. When my sister found out she made me, which is fair enough. We are quite immersed in many of the stories surrounding the Ulster cycle during our education: the young Cúchulainn, Medb and Ailill. We are even told a vastly simplified version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, mostly focusing on the two bulls and not the war going on around them.
My first shock was how blood-thirsty the epic is. They certainly excised that aspect of the tales in school. My second was how funny it was. And I'm still not sure if the humour is intentional. There's a section where Cathach comes back after riding his chariot off into battle alone, and he's been ripped to bits. Cúchulainn sends for healers and 15 (some say 50) of them come and each says he's done for, and every time one of them says that Cathach kills them with a fierce punch. Eventually Cúchulainn says "Come on Cathach, you can't be killing healers."
A healer eventually comes and agrees to treat Cathach, and he begins describing each wound, and each awful wound he mentions Cathach describes the man or men who inflicted them, and Cúchulainn says "Oh! I know them! That's the brothers so-and-so, they're the son of this guy and have killed that guy." This goes on for three pages, in exactly the same repetitive structure. And it's so long and elaborate that it seems like it must be comic, but I'm just not sure.
These tales were written down by monks in the 12th century from spoken stories that had been passed down for hundreds of years, since perhaps around 0AD. So they are very like Homer's works, and that you can see the repetition and exaggeration that would be characteristic of such stories. So much of Irish storytelling shows its roots in this work.
Also: the depiction of women in these stories is really interesting. There are warrior queens. Strong women. Girls decide who they will marry. Men must pursue them and gain their approval. It is simply a fundamentally different relationship to the gender roles Christianity brought to this country.
A couple of times men make harsh statements about women in general, but it's always born out of a frustration with the fact that, e.g. Medb wont stop sending warriors to kill them. Bloody women!
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The Táin.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
September 4, 2008
– Shelved
