The Pangs of Ulster

Summary

The tale opens by saying it will tell what caused the pangs of the men of Ulster, and that it is soon told.

The woman in the house

There is a landlord of great wealth in Ulster, Crunniuc mac Agnomain, who lives in a lonely place in the mountains with all his sons. His wife is dead. One day, alone in the house, he sees a woman coming toward him, and she seems a fine woman in his eyes. She settles down and begins working at once, as though she were well used to the house. When night comes she puts everything in order without being asked. Then she sleeps with Crunniuc.

She stays with him a long while. There is never a lack of food or clothes or anything else under her care.

The boast

A fair is held in Ulster, and everyone goes, men and women, boys and girls. Crunniuc sets out in his best clothes and in great vigour. The woman tells him it would be as well not to grow boastful or careless in anything he says. He says that isn't likely.

At the end of the day the king's chariot is brought onto the field. His chariot and horses win, and the crowd says nothing could beat those horses. Crunniuc says, "My wife is faster."

The race

He is taken before the king at once, and the woman is sent for. She tells the messenger it would be a heavy burden to go and free him now, since she is full with child. The messenger says he will die unless she comes.

She goes to the fair and her pangs grip her. She calls out to the crowd that a mother bore each one of them, and asks them to wait till her child is born. She cannot move them.

She says that a long-lasting evil will come out of this on the whole of Ulster. The king asks her name. She says her name, and the name of her offspring, will be given to the place: she is Macha, daughter of Sainrith mac Imbaith.

Then she races the chariot. As the chariot reaches the end of the field she gives birth alongside it. She bears twins, a son and a daughter. The name Emain Macha, the Twins of Macha, comes from this.

The curse

As she gives birth she screams out that all who hear the scream will suffer the same pangs for five days and four nights in their times of greatest difficulty. The affliction seizes all the men of Ulster who were there that day, and nine generations after them. The pangs last five days and four nights, or five nights and four days. For nine generations any Ulsterman in the pangs has no more strength than a woman on the bed of labour.

Three classes of people are free of the pangs: the young boys of Ulster, the women, and Cúchulainn.

Ulster is afflicted from the time of Crunniuc, son of Agnoman, son of Curir Ulad, son of Fiatach mac Urmi, until the time of Furc, son of Dallán, son of Mainech mac Lugdach. The text adds, in brackets, that the province and people of Ulster, Ulaid, take their name from Curir Ulad.

Kinsella's notes

Kinsella says noinden means a period of nine days or other units, and that the Táin uses the phrase "the nine days' affliction" for a period lasting from autumn until the beginning of spring. He says scholars generally hold that there is some connection with the practice of couvade, and that it has also been suggested that a vegetation ritual is involved. He uses the word "pangs" throughout.