Pictish Mystic · Lore · Ulster Cycle
The Pillow Talk of Medb and Ailill: How the Táin Began
Ulster Cycle myth from the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the Cattle Raid of Cooley. This opening is found in the Book of Leinster version (Recension II, 12th century). The older Recension I skips the pillow talk and begins with the army gathering at Crúachan.
The Royal Bed
In Ráth Crúachan in Connacht, Ailill and Medb lay on their pillows. "She is a well-off woman who is the wife of a nobleman," said Ailill, because Medb was better off now than when he married her. Medb would not have it. She was the daughter of Eochu Feidlech, High King of Ireland, and the noblest of his six daughters: the most generous and the best in battle. She had a warband of her own, and her father had given her a province. She had asked for a bride-gift no woman had asked before: a husband without meanness, without jealousy and without fear. Ailill was that man. And it was Medb who paid his bride-price, so she called him a man living on a woman's wealth. Ailill answered that his brothers were kings of Tara and Leinster, and that he had come to Connacht through his mother's right.
The Counting
"My property is greater than yours," said Medb. So everything was brought out: cups and vats, iron pots, rings and gold, cloaks of every colour. Then the flocks from the fields, the horses from the paddocks, the swine from the woods and glens. They came out equal. Ram matched ram, horse matched horse, boar matched boar.
The White-Horned Bull
Then came the cattle, and in Ailill's herd stood Finnbennach, the White-Horned. He had been born to one of Medb's cows, but he would not be counted as a woman's property and had gone over to the king's herd. Without a bull to match him, it was to Medb as if she owned not a penny.
Mac Roth's Errand
She asked her herald Mac Roth where his equal could be found. He knew of a better bull in Cúailnge in Ulster, in the house of Dáire mac Fiachna: the Donn Cúailnge. Medb sent him with nine messengers. Her offer: fifty heifers for a year's loan of the bull, with the bull sent back at the end. If Dáire brought the bull himself, he would also get land in the plain of Mag Aí equal to his own, a chariot worth thrice seven cumals, and Medb's own intimate friendship. Dáire was so pleased that he shook until the seams of the cushions under him burst. He agreed.
The Drunken Boast
The messengers were feasted until they were merry. One said it was a great gift, since it would have taken the four great provinces of Ireland to carry the bull off. Another added that if the bull had not been given freely, it would have been taken by force. Dáire's steward heard them and told his master. Dáire swore by the gods he worshipped that, unless they took the bull by force, they would never get him by fair means. In the morning Mac Roth was refused.
The Muster
Back at Crúachan, Mac Roth told Medb what had happened. There was no need to smooth it over, she said. It was always known that if he was not given freely he would be taken by force, and so he would be. Messengers rode out, and the hosts of Ireland began to gather at Crúachan for the great raid on Ulster.
The Swineherds' Quarrel
A related tale, De Chophur in Dá Muccida, says the bulls were never ordinary cattle. Friuch and Rucht were swineherds to the Otherworld kings of Munster and Connacht. Their rivalry carried them through shape after shape: birds, water-beasts, stags, warriors, phantoms and dragons. At last they became two tiny creatures in the water. Two cows drank them, one of Dáire's in Cúailnge and one of Medb's in Connacht. So the Donn Cúailnge and Finnbennach were born, the same old quarrel in the bodies of two bulls.
These are legends from medieval manuscripts, not recorded history.
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