Cuckoldy

“ In Serglige Conculaind, "Cúchulainn's Sickness," the goddess Fand, deserted by Manannan, offers herself to the hero if he will help her sister's husband Labraid against his enemies in Mag Mell. Labraid lives in an island frequented by troops of women, and possessing an inexhaustible vat of mead and trees with magic fruit. It is reached with marvellous speed in a boat of bronze. After a preliminary visit by his charioteer Laeg, Cúchulainn goes thither, vanquishes Labraid's foes, and remains a month with Fand. ”

“ Then Cuchulain returned to his wife; and "Thou art enraged," said he to her. "I am in no way enraged," answered Ethne, "for I deem it as being by me that the distribution was made. And thou hast done what was fitting," she said, "for there is not one of these woman but loves thee; none in whom thou hast no share; but for myself none hath any share in me except thou alone." "Be not angry," said Cuchulain, "if in the future any birds come to the Plain of Murthemne or to the Boyne, the two birds that are the most beautiful among those that come shall be thine." ”

“ Cuchulain is the breath of returning life, Spring, symbolised in the Cuckoo, that ‘child of air’ as the old northland poet calls his dream. Blathmaid is the awakening world: Blossom. Curoi is the wind of autumn, the fierce and silent magician Winter. The milk is but the emblem of melting streams, of the fluent sap.
But now, as I write, already midsummer is gone. The cuckoo is silent. The country-folk still think it is become a hawk. The old Cymric Gwalchmei (the cuckoo-son of Arthur and twin brother of Modred) is, Professor Rhys tells us, but an analogue of the Hawk of May. ”

“ Cúchulainn was still ill and sent Loeg to tell Emer, his wife, how women of the síde had destroyed his strength; but when she reproached him for his weakness, he arose and went to the enclosure (the pillar-stone of the first part) . There Liban appeared, singing of Labraid's prowess and of his need for Cúchulainn, and striving to lead the hero to the dwelling of the síde or to Labraid's home on a lake where troops of women came and went. Cúchulainn refused to go at a woman's call, whereupon Liban proposed that Loeg should bring tidings of Labraid's land. ”

“ Laeg answered, “That is the dun of the sons of Nectan.”
“Let us now leave Slieve Modurn,” said Cuculain, “and guide thither my horses, for I shall lay waste that dun, and burn it with fire, after having slain the men who dwell there.”
Then Laeg clasped his comrade’s knees, and said, “Take the road, dear master, against the royalest dun in all Meath, but pass by that dun. The men are not alive to-day who at any time approached it with warlike intent. Those who dwell there are sorcerers and enchanters, lords of all the arts of poison and of war.” ”

“ Then the watchman cried out again—
“Yea, the charioteer is the son of the King of Gabra, and it is Cuculain, the son of Sualtam, who sits in the fighter’s seat. He has Concobar’s own shield on his breast, and his two spears in his hand. Over Bray Ros, over Brainia, they are coming along the highway, by the foot of the Town of the Tree; it is gifted with victories.”
“Have done, O talkative man,” cried Conall, “whose words are like the words of a seer, or the full-voiced intonement of a chief bard.” ”

“ I was brought up in ancient virtues, in lawful behaviour, in the keeping of chastity, in rank equal to a queen, in stateliness of form, so that to me is attributed every noble grace among the hosts of Erin’s women.” In more boastful strain Cuchulainn tells of his own birth and deeds. Not like the son of a peasant had he been reared at Conchobar’s court, but among heroes and champions, jesters and druids. When he is weakest his strength is that of twenty; alone he will fight against forty; a hundred men would feel safe under his protection. ”

“ We praise the man who rushes into a burning mansion and brings out its greatest treasure. So ought we to praise this man who rescued from the perishing Gaelic tradition its darling hero and restored him to us, and I think now that Cuculain will not perish, and he will be invisibly present at many a council of youth, and he will be the daring which lifts the will beyond itself and fires it for great causes, and he will also be the courtesy which shall overcome the enemy that nothing else may overcome. ”

“ For it was customary with him, when his flame of valour sprang in him, that his feet would go round behind him, and his hams before; and the balls of his calves on his shins, and one eye in his head and the other out of his head; a man's head could have gone into his mouth. Every hair on him was as sharp as a thorn of hawthorn, and a drop of blood on each hair. He would not recognise comrades or friends. He would strike alike before and behind. It is from this that the men of Connaught gave Cuchulainn the name Riastartha. ”

“ His countenance was long, broad above and narrow below, his nose eminent, his beard bipartite, curling and auburn in hue, his form without any blemish or imperfection.
Cuculain came forth from the palace. He wore that day a short mantle of pale-red silk bordered with white thread and fastened on the breast with a small brooch like a wheel of silver. The hues upon that silk were never the same. His tunic of fine linen was girt at the waist with a leathern zone, stained to the resemblance of the wild-briar rose. It descended to but did not pass his beautiful knees, falling into many plaits. ”

“ Laeg did that and he answered their challenge with a voice that rang, striking fear into the hearts of those who heard him. Forthwith, then, Fenla, wearing sword and shield, sprang at a bound over the rampart and foss, and his course thence to the Boyne was like a flash of blue and white and he plunged into the dark stream like a bright spear, and diving beneath the flood he emerged a great way off, and cried aloud for his foe.
“I am here,” cried Cuculain, at his side. “Cease thy shouting and look to thyself, for it is not my custom to take advantage of any man.” ”

“ O storm-footed steeds, great is my love for you, and inexpressible my pride in your might and your beauty, your speed and your terror, and sweet docility and affection.”
“Nevertheless, O Laeg,” said Cuculain, “slacken now their going, for that Champion will be an impediment to us in our challengings and our fightings; for when we stop for that purpose he will overtake us, and, be our feats what they may, his and not ours will be the glory. Slacken the going of the horses, for we must rid ourselves of the annoyance and the pursuit of these gadflies.” ”

“ On fragments of these folk-tales the poet Macpherson reared his Ossianic epic, in imitation of the Iliad and Paradise Lost.
The "Death of Cuchullin" is a rendering in verse of an Irish prose translation of a fragment of the Cuchullin Cycle, which moves in the Bronze Age period. Cuchullin, with "the light of heroes" on his forehead, is also reminiscent of Achilles. One of the few Cuchullin tales found in Scotland is that which relates his conflict with his son, and bears a striking similarity to the legend of Sohrab and Rustum. ”

“ Your wives and your sons and your children, your steeds and your stock of horses, your herds and your flocks and your droves of cattle have been carried away. Cuchulain all alone is checking and staying the hosts of the four great provinces of Erin at the gaps and passes of the land of Conalle Murthemni. Fair fight is refused him, nor is he granted single combat, nor comes any one to succour or aid him. ”

“ Cuchulain's life and love and death entranced the ears of the great for many centuries, and into hundreds of bright eyes tears of pity had for a thousand years been conjured up by the pathetic tones of bards reciting the fate of her who perished for the son of Usnach. The wars of Mève and of Conor mac Nessa were household words in the hall of Muirchertach of the leather cloaks, and in the palace at the head of the weir—Brian Boru's Kincora. ”

“ It is very curious that in all the romantic tales in which Cuchulainn figures, and in spite of his incredible strength and prowess, there does not seem to be a passage in any tract that has been translated about him up to the present where anything is mentioned about his size or stature. We are left under the impression that he was no bigger than ordinary men; and it may have been that he was not. Size and strength do not always go together. ”

“ Down to her seventieth year she had never found it absurd to beseech God to make her "a good girl"; nor did she find it so as the Workhouse gate opened, and she began a new life.
CUCKOO VALLEY RAILWAY
This century was still young and ardent when ruin fell upon Cuckoo Valley. Its head rested on the slope of a high and sombre moorland, scattered with granite and china-clay; and by the small town of Ponteglos, where it widened out into arable and grey pasture-land, the Cuckoo river grew deep enough to float up vessels of small tonnage from the coast at the spring tides. ”

“ I have met people who do not like to hear the cuckoo for the first time before they get up from bed in the morning. To see the bird coming to the door is also regarded as an evil omen by some. A woman in North Cardiganshire informed me that a cuckoo came to the door before her father died. The cuckoo is supposed to be accompanied by the wryneck known in Welsh as Gwas-y-Gwcw.
If we are to believe an old legend, the cuckoo in former times used to begin to sing at Nevern, in Pembrokeshire, on the 7th of April, patron day of that parish ”

“ The apotheosis of great men went forward, tirelessly; the hero of one epoch becoming the god of the next, until the formation of the Tuátha De Danan, who represent the gods of the historic ages. Had the advent of exact genealogy been delayed, and the creative imagination of the bards suffered to work on for a couple of centuries longer, unchecked by the historical conscience, Cuculain's human origin would, perhaps, have been forgotten, and he would have been numbered amongst the Tuátha De Danan, probably, as the son of Lu Lamfáda and the Moreega, his patron deities. ”

“ Cuchulainn thrust at him with the spear over the shield, so that it broke the shaft of his ribs and went through Fer Diad's heart.
[Fer Diad:] 'Strong is the ash from thy right hand! The —— rib breaks, my heart is blood. Well hast thou given battle! I fall, O Hound.'
[Cuchulainn:] 'Alas, O golden brooch, O Fer Diad! ——, O fair strong striker! Thy hand was victorious; our dear foster brotherhood, O delight of the eyes! Thy shield with the rim of gold, thy sword was dear. Thy ring of white silver round thy noble arm. Thy chess-playing was worthy of a great man. ”

“ Said Laeg, “This man, O dear Setanta, is far more terrible than the first, for he is said to be altogether invulnerable and proof against any weapon that was ever made.”
“It is not altogether thus,” said Cuculain, “but if the man escapes the first stroke he is thenceforward invincible, and surely slays his foe. Therefore give into my hand Concobar’s unendurable and mighty ashen spear, for I must make an end of him at one cast or not at all.” ”

“ The particular gens of cuckoo which inherited and transmitted the habit of depositing in the nest of any particular species of bird eggs having more or less resemblance to the eggs of that species would prosper most in those members of the gens where the likeness was strongest, and the other members would (ceteris paribus) in time be eliminated. As already shown, it is not to be supposed that all species, or even all individuals of a species, are duped with equal ease. ”

“ Cuculain did so.
“Thou art as cold as ice,” said Laeg.
“Nay, I am hotter than fire,” said Cuculain.
“Thou art ice, I say,” said Laeg, “and thy teeth are clattering like hailstones on a brazen shield. Ay, and thine eyes shine terribly.”
Laeg started from the couch. He struck flintsparks upon a rag steeped in nitre, and waved it to a flame, and kindled a lanthorn. He flung his own mantle upon the bed and went forth in his shirt. The storm raged terribly; the stars were dancing in high heaven. He came to the house of the Chief Leech and beat at the door. ”

“ Bees school, whose learning, after due consideration of the case, suggested that the good man should draw his feet out of his shoes: when to the joy of his family he was restored to his occupation and to liberty. But the story of the Cuckoo has made its local name the "Gowk" synonymous with an inhabitant of the vale. There the Spring was very charming, and the voice of the bird rare and gladsome. It occurred to the natives that a wall built across the entrance of their valley, at Grange, if made high enough, would keep the cuckoo among them, and make the cheerful Spring-days last for ever. ”

“ How the young Cuckoo may act as soon as able to provide for itself is also an interesting matter, for in the case under notice the surroundings are those typical for Red Grouse. The young Cuckoo in this case soon ejected all the other occupants of the nest, and became very fierce, making a dart with its bill at one's fingers with all the combativeness of an infuriated male Turkey. ”

“ Then said Concobar: “We have this night toasted many heroes who are gone, and, as it is not right that we should praise ourselves, I propose that we drink now to the heroes that are coming, both those unborn, and those who, still being boys, are under tutors and instructors; and for this toast I name the name of my nephew Setanta, son of Sualtam, who, if any, will one day, O Culain, if I mistake not, illustrate in an unexampled manner thy skill as an artificer of weapons and armour.” ”