How Cúchulainn was Begotten

Summary

The birds

Conchobor and the nobles of Ulster are at Emain. A flock of birds comes to Emain Plain and eats all the plants and grasses out of the ground, and the very roots. The men of Ulster are practised hunters of birds, and the same day they get nine chariots ready. Conchobor rides in one with his sister Deichtine, who drives for him. Conall and Laegaire and the other Ulster warriors come in their own chariots, and Bricriu with them.

The birds fly at will across Sliab Fuait, across Edmonn and across Breg Plain. There are no dikes or fences or stone walls in Ireland at that time, only the open plain. The flight is pleasant and so is the song. There are nine scores of birds, with a silver chain between each couple, and they go in nine flights, with two birds out in front of each flight and a silver yoke between them. Toward nightfall three birds separate from the rest.

The house at the Brug

The Ulstermen press on until they reach the Brug on the Boann river, and night overtakes them there. It snows heavily. Conchobor tells his people to unyoke the chariots and look for shelter. Conall and Bricriu find a solitary house, newly built, with a couple inside who make them welcome.

On the way back to the others Bricriu says it is useless to go there unless they bring their own food and set the table themselves, and that even so it will be meagre. They go anyway, all of them with all their chariots, and crowd into the house with difficulty. They find the door of the store-room. By their usual mealtime the men of Ulster are drunk with their welcome and in good humour.

Later the man of the house tells them his wife is in her birth-pangs in the store-room. Deichtine goes in and helps her bear a son. At the same time a mare at the door of the house gives birth to two foals. The Ulstermen take charge of the baby and give him the foals as a present, and Deichtine nurses him.

In the morning there is nothing to be seen eastward of the Brug, no house and no birds. There are only their own horses, the baby and the foals. They go back to Emain and rear the baby until he is a boy.

The tiny creature

The boy catches an illness and dies. The Ulstermen make a lamentation for him, and Deichtine's grief at the loss of her foster-son is great. She comes home from lamenting, grows thirsty and asks for a drink. It is brought in a cup. She sets it to her lips, and a tiny creature slips into her mouth with the liquid. She takes the cup away and has swallowed it, and it has vanished.

That night she dreams that a man comes to her and says she will bear a child by him. He says it was he who brought her to the Brug to sleep with her there, that the boy she reared was his, and that he is planted in her womb again and is to be called Sétanta. He says he is Lug mac Ethnenn, and that the foals are to be reared with the boy.

She grows heavy with child, and the people of Ulster make much of not knowing the father. They say it might have been Conchobor himself, in his drunkenness, on the night she stayed with him at the Brug.

Conchobor gives his sister in marriage to Sualdam mac Roich. She is ashamed to go pregnant to bed with her husband and gets sick when she reaches the bedstead. The living thing spills away in the sickness, so she is made virgin and whole, and goes to her husband. She grows pregnant again and bears a son, and calls him Sétanta.

The boy therefore has three fathers on offer, and the text does not choose between them: Lug mac Ethnenn by his own word in the dream, Sualdam by marriage, and Conchobor by the guess of the Ulstermen. Kinsella's note says that anomalies of timescale are ignored in the interests of giving Cúchulainn a triple birth.

Who will rear him

The men of Ulster are assembled in Emain Macha when her son is born. They argue over which of them should rear the boy and go to Conchobor for a decision. He tells his sister Finnchaem to take the boy. Finnchaem looks at him and says her heart is full of love for him already, as though he were her own Conall Cernach. Bricriu says it is only a little different for her: one is her own son, the other her sister's son.

Conchobor tells Finnchaem again to take the boy. Then the claims come in.

• Sencha says he is strong and skilful, a judge of all combats before Conchobor, and that no one but Conchobor can equal him as a fosterfather.
• Blai Briuga, a landed man, says the boy will be safe from harm and neglect with him. He could take all the men of Ireland into his house and feed them for a week, or ten days.
• Fergus asks whether they have no respect, says the boy's wellbeing is his concern, and says he was made to mind fosterlings.
• Amargin says he is worthy to bring up a king and can kill any chariot-fighter.

Conchobor says there is nothing to gain from this. Finnchaem is to keep the boy until they reach Emain, and the judge Morann can decide. Kinsella notes that the text has already put them in Emain at this point.

At Emain, Morann gives judgment. The boy should be given to Conchobor, for he is Finnchaem's kin. Sencha can teach him eloquence and oratory, Blai Briuga can provide for him, Fergus can take him on his knee, Amargin can be his teacher, with Conall Cernach as foster-brother, and Finnchaem can supply the teats of a mother. So he will be formed by all of them, as chariot-fighter, prince and sage. That is what is done. He is given to Amargin and Finnchaem and reared at Imrith Fort on Murtheimne Plain.