Pictish Mystic · Lore · Red Branch
The Driving of the Cattle of Flidais
Flidais was the wife of Ailill Finn, the Fair-haired, in the district of Kerry, which Leahy places in the west of the present county of Roscommon. She loved Fergus son of Róg "on account of the glorious tales about him", and at the end of each week her messengers went to him. Fergus, then in exile from Ulster, laid the matter before Ailill and Medb of Connacht, and Medb said that Fergus himself should go to Ailill Finn: "the gift will be all the better for that!" So Fergus set out with thirty men, Fergus mac Oen-laimi and Dubhtach among them, to the Ford of Fenna. But Ailill Finn would not have him: "Thou shalt not stay, it has been told me that my wife loves thee!" Fergus asked instead for a gift of cows to feed his troop in exile. Ailill offered one ox and some bacon. "I will eat not thy bread," said Fergus, "because I can get no present of honour from thee!" "Out of my house with you all, then!" said Ailill.
Fergus called for a man to fight him beside a ford at the gate of the castle, and Ailill would not hand the strife over to another: "I will go myself." Dubhtach went against him, "I am younger and keener than thou art!", and thrust a spear through both of Ailill's thighs, but Ailill drove a javelin right through Dubhtach. Fergus threw his shield over Dubhtach, and Ailill drove his spear through it; Fergus mac Oen-laimi held his own shield in front of him, and Ailill forced his spear through that too. Then Flidais came out from the castle and threw her cloak over the three. The rest of Fergus' people fled, twenty of them were slain, and seven escaped to Cruachan Ai to tell the whole story to Ailill and Medb. Meanwhile Flidais cared for the wounded men in the castle and undertook their healing.
Ailill and Medb marched with the nobles of Connacht and the exiles from Ulster as far as the Ford of Fenna. Ailill Finn would not come out to parley with Ailill mac Mata, for "the pride and arrogance of that man there is great." The wounded were carried out of the castle on hand-barrows, and for a full week the host stormed it and could get no hold on it, and seven score heroes of the nobles of Connacht fell. Then Bricriu mocked the Ulstermen: "long is the length upon the ground of my Papa Fergus, since one man in single combat laid him low!" The champions of Ulster rose, naked as they were, and in their rage forced the outer gateway into the midst of the castle. In the wild, pitiless battle that followed, Ailill the Fair-haired fell with thirty of his sons and seven hundred warriors. The castle was laid waste, Flidais was taken, and the victors drove off the treasures and the cattle: a hundred milch-cows, a hundred and forty oxen and thirty hundred of little cattle.
Flidais went to Fergus by the decree of Ailill and Medb, and every seventh day, from the produce of her cows, she fed the men of Ireland during the Raid of the Cows of Cualnge. "This then was the Herd of Flidais." Afterwards Fergus received the lordship of Mag Murthemni, and Flidais went home with him. When she died at Trag Bàli, the state of Fergus' household was none the better, for she had supplied all his needs; and Fergus himself died later in Connacht, through the jealousy of Ailill. The tale is counted among the preludes of the Táin Bó Cúailnge.
These are legends from medieval manuscripts, not recorded history.
Source: "The Driving of the Cattle of Flidais" (Táin Bó Flidais), translated by A. H. Leahy (Heroic Romances of Ireland, vol. II, 1906), on Mary Jones's Celtic Literature Collective.
Read in the Pictish Mystic app · Draw a free Pictish rune reading