The otherworld, druids and prophecy

The síd and its people

Kinsella's note on Lug mac Ethnenn says the síde were a divine race said to have inhabited Ireland in earlier times, associated later with the fairies. The word applies primarily to the mound-dwellings in which they were believed to live. Síd is the singular.

In "The Quarrel of the Two Pig-keepers," Ochall Ochne is king of the síd at Cruachan and Bodb is king of the síd on Femen Plain in Munster. Their two pig-keepers are friends, practised in the pagan arts, able to form themselves into any shape, like Mongán mac Fiachna. Kinsella's note calls Mongán the Shape-changer and a re-birth of the sea-god Manannán. They wither each other's pigs with spells, spend years as birds, sea creatures, stags, warriors, phantoms and dragons, and end as two maggots. Each is swallowed by a cow, and the cows bear the two bulls.

Cúchulainn's father is Lug mac Ethnenn. In "How Cúchulainn was Begotten" a flock of birds leads the Ulstermen to a house by the Brug on the Boann river, and by morning the house is gone. Deichtine swallows a tiny creature in a drink, and in a dream a man tells her he is Lug and the boy is planted in her again. Kinsella's note says the Brug is the famous Brug na Bóinne, associated with the river goddess Boann and the tomb at Newgrange.

Lug comes back in the war. He walks unseen through the camp and tells Cúchulainn he will stand against the armies while Cúchulainn sleeps three days and three nights. He cleans each wound and drops healing herbs into them. Cúchulainn wakes to learn that the boy-troop died in the meantime. Lug will not stay, because the glory of anything done in Cúchulainn's company goes to Cúchulainn.

When Fraech drowns, women in green tunics gather about his body and bear it into the síd, and the hill is Síd Froich ever after. Kinsella's note says his mother Béfinn was a woman of the síde, sister of Boann.

War goddesses

Kinsella's note says Nemain (Panic) is one of three goddesses of war, with Badb (Scald-crow), haunter of battle-fields, and Morrígan (Great Queen or Queen of Demons). Nemain and the Badb are named as wives of the war-god Nét. The note adds that "the war-spirit" is not in the text. Nemain stirs the armies at night and a hundred warriors fall dead of fright, on more than one night. In Fergus's story of the boyhood, the Badb calls out among the corpses.

The Morrígan settles in bird shape on a standing stone and speaks to the Brown Bull. Later she comes to Cúchulainn as a king's daughter with treasure and cattle. He turns her down, so she promises to trip him as an eel, stampede cattle as a wolf and trample him as a heifer. He promises to break an eel's ribs, burst a wolf's eye and shatter a heifer's leg. All of it happens in his fight with Lóch. Afterward she appears as an old woman milking a cow with three teats. She gives him milk from each, and his blessing on each draught heals one of her wounds. He says if he had known it was her he would not have done it. Kinsella's note says this meeting belongs to a separate preparatory tale, Táin Bó Regamna, and is interpolated in the Táin.

Druids

Cathbad is the druid. Nes asks him what the present hour is lucky for, and he answers that it is lucky for begetting a king on a queen. Conchobor is the result. Cathbad also speaks over the unborn Derdriu, and names the evils she will bring. Teaching his pupils, he says a warrior who takes up arms for the first time that day will be famous for ever. Cúchulainn overhears, claims his weapons, and when Cathbad adds that the life will be short, calls it a fair bargain.

The army at Cruachan waits a fortnight for a sign from its sages and druids. When Fergus gives the druids the spancel-hoop to read, Kinsella's note says the phrase "The druids answered" is not in the text. A parenthesis in the text says that in Ulster no man spoke before Conchobor, and Conchobor would not speak before the three druids.

Poets and prophecy

On the day the army marches Medb meets Fedelm, a woman poet of Connacht, home from learning verse and vision in Alba. Kinsella's note says "filidecht" means simply poetry in modern Irish, but the ancient poet's functions included prophecy. Medb asks whether Fedelm has the imbas forasnai, the Light of Foresight. A note says it is some form of divination or supernatural enlightenment, perhaps by the palms or simply "great knowledge." Fedelm holds a weaving-rod, which the note ties to prophecy.

Medb asks four times how Fedelm sees the host. Each time Fedelm answers "I see it crimson, I see it red." Medb objects that Conchobor is helpless in his pangs, then that Celtchar and Fergus are on her side, then says red wounds are common when armies gather. Fedelm then describes a blond man with a hero-halo and four short swords in each hand. Scáthach is also a prophetess, and chants Cúchulainn's future to him through the imbas forasnai.

Plainer spells run through the story. Cúchulainn speaks into a fistful of grass and everyone believes he has a beard, and Kinsella's note says the original suggests a spell. Healers lay amulets and spells on the wounds of Cúchulainn and Ferdia.