Pictish Mystic · Lore · Red Branch
The Black Exile: Cormac Conloinges and Dubthach Chafer-tongue
In the Ulster Cycle, three men gave their word for the sons of Uisnech, and when that word was broken, Emain Macha burned. Cóir Anmann, “The Fitness of Names”, tells how two of those three came by their names: Cormac Conloinges, chief of the Black Exile, and Dubthach Chafer-tongue.
The sureties. When the sons of Uisnech were called home to Emain Macha, three men went as their sureties: Fergus son of Róich, Dubthach, and Cormac the son of Conchobar, king of Ulster. But the sons of Uisnech were slain. The sureties heard what had been done, and they did great deeds: Dubthach slew the women of Ulster, and before the day dawned Fergus set Emain on fire. Then they went into exile, to the land of Connacht, to find shelter with Ailill and Medb.
Cormac Conloinges. Cormac was head of the exile, and chief of the Black Exile with Fergus son of Róich, when Fergus went in exile into the province of Connacht; for Cormac was one of the guarantors for the sons of Uisnech. Conn means “head” and loinges means “exile”. Of him the poet said: “He was head of the exile without disgrace. He caused woe to the Ulaid.”
The Champion of the Cairn. Cormac was afterwards called the Champion of the Cairn. At the White Cairn of the Watching he was champion, when the four other provinces were in warlike alliance against Conchobar and the province of Ulster. Some of the learned say that every place with five stones, or any other five things, or the five provinces of Ireland, may properly be called a cairn; so Cormac was Nia in Chairn, champion of the five provinces.
Dubthach Chafer-tongue. Dubthach was called Dael-tengthach, “chafer-tongued”, for he was virulent and bitter-worded in tongue. Even as the chafer seems black and virulent to everyone, so Dubthach was to everyone virulent and bitter-worded in speech. Some say he blackened the tongue in his head by his noisiness.
Dubthach, Chafer of the Ulaid. He was also called Dubthach Dael Ulad. As everyone deems it a horror to see the insect called the chafer, so the Ulaid held it a horror to see Dubthach, since he killed the maidens in Emain Macha. (Stokes leaves “Dael Ulad” untranslated; “Chafer of the Ulaid” is our rendering, using his own “chafer” for dael.)
These are legends from medieval manuscripts, not recorded history.
Story told by John. Sources: Cóir Anmann ("The Fitness of Names"), §§263–264 and 275–276, translated by Whitley Stokes (Irische Texte, Dritte Serie, 2 Heft, 1897), on Mary Jones's Celtic Literature Collective; and Deirdre, or The Exile of the Sons of Usnech, from the Book of Leinster (the page does not name its translator), on Mary Jones's Celtic Literature Collective.
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