Pictish Mystic · Lore · Ulster Cycle
The Cattle-Raid of Fráech: the Ring, the Salmon and the Dark Pool
Táin Bó Fraích is one of the "fore-tales" told before the great Táin Bó Cúailnge. It survives in the Book of Leinster and other manuscripts. This is myth, not recorded history.
The Hero From the Síd
Fráech, son of Idath of Connacht, was the son of Bé Find from the síd, sister of Boand of the Boyne. The tale calls him the most beautiful hero of Ériu and Alba, "but he was not long-lived." Findabair, daughter of Ailill and Medb, loved him from the stories told about him.
Otherworld Splendour
Boand gave him gifts from the síd: dark-blue cloaks, silver shields, spears that lit the night like sunlight, grey horses with golden bits, seven hounds on silver chains. When his company rode onto the plain of Crúachan, sixteen men were crushed in the crowd pushing to see them.
The Three Strains
His harpers played the three strains named from Uaithne, the Dagda's harp: sorrow, joy and sleep. Twelve of Ailill and Medb's people died of weeping. Fráech played chess with Medb for three days and nights, and the jewels lit the hall so brightly that nobody noticed the nights passing.
The Ring
At a stream at dawn, Fráech asked Findabair to elope. She refused, because she was the daughter of a king and a queen, but she gave him a ring as a token. Ailill named a bride-price: sixty black-grey steeds, twelve milch cows with white, red-eared calves, and Fráech's whole force to come on the raid of Cúailnge. Fráech said he would not give that even for Medb. So the king and queen plotted his death.
The Dark Pool
While Fráech swam, Ailill found the ring in his purse and threw it into the river. Fráech saw a salmon leap and swallow it, then caught the fish and hid it on the bank. Ailill sent him for rowan berries across the water. Findabair had never seen anything half as beautiful: Fráech over the black pool, the red berries against his white face. Then a water-monster seized him. No one dared hand him a sword except Findabair, who leapt in with one. Her father hurled a five-pronged spear that passed through her tresses. Fráech caught it, threw it back through Ailill's robe, and cut off the monster's head. The tale says this is how Dub-linn Fráech got its name.
The Women of the Síd
That night a lament rose at Crúachan: three times fifty women in crimson and green, mourning the "boy-pet of the king of the síd". "This is the cry of my mother and of the women of Boand," said Fráech. They carried him into the Síd of Crúachan. The next day he came back whole, without a blemish.
The Salmon on the Dish
At the feast Ailill demanded the ring from Findabair on pain of death. Her maid brought in a broiled salmon dressed with honey, with the gold ring on top. Ailill admitted he had thrown it away. Findabair said she would never give her mind to another youth in Ériu. Fráech pledged to bring his cattle to the Raid of Cooley, and they would wed when he returned.
The Second Part
Then the tale turns strange. Suddenly Fráech has a wife and three sons, carried off with his cattle to the mountains of Elpa, with three cows held among the Cruthnechi, the Picts of northern Alba. Fráech and Conall Cernach go overseas and bring them home. The text never explains the change.
His End
The opening words come true. In the Táin, Fráech wrestles Cú Chulainn in a river and drowns. Women in green tunics carry his body into the síd, ever after called Síd Fráich.
These are legends from medieval manuscripts, not recorded history.
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