The Quarrel of the Two Pig-keepers, and how the Bulls were Begotten

Summary

Bad blood

The tale begins by asking what made the two pig-keepers quarrel, and says it is soon told. There is bad blood between Ochall Ochne, king of the síd in Connacht, and Bodb, king of the Munster síd. Bodb's síd is the Síd ar Femen, on Femen Plain, and Ochall's is the síd at Cruachan. Each has a pig-keeper. Friuch is named after a boar's bristle and keeps Bodb's pigs. Rucht is named after its grunt and keeps Ochall's. They are good friends, practised in the pagan arts, and able to form themselves into any shape, like Mongán mac Fiachna.

When there is a mast of oak and beech nuts in Munster, the keeper from the north brings his pigs down. When the mast falls in the north, the keeper from the south travels northward.

The test of power

Some try to make trouble between them. People in Connacht say their pig-keeper has the greater power, and people in Munster say theirs has. One year a great mast falls in Munster and the northern keeper comes south with his pigs. His friend makes him welcome and says men there are saying that his power is greater than the northerner's. Ochall's keeper says it is no less, anyway. Bodb's keeper proposes a test. He will cast a spell over the northern pigs so that they do not grow fat on the mast, while his own will.

That is what happens. Ochall's pig-keeper has to take his pigs home so lean and wretched that they hardly get there, and everybody laughs at him as he enters his country. They tell him it was a bad day he set out, and that his friend has greater power. He says it proves nothing and that he will play the same trick on the other when the mast falls in the north.

The next year Bodb's keeper comes north with his pigs, and Ochall's keeper does the same to them, and they wither. Everybody agrees the two have equal power. Bodb dismisses his keeper from pig-keeping, and his friend in the north is dismissed too.

Birds, water creatures and the rest

They spend two full years in the shape of birds of prey, the first year at the fort of Cruachan and the second at the síd on Femen Plain. At Femen the men of Munster have gathered, and they say the birds have been babbling and quarrelling for a full year. Fuidell mac Fiadmire, Ochall's steward, comes up the hill and says they sound like the same two birds the north had last year. Then the birds turn into the two pig-keepers. Bodb and the Munstermen welcome them, and the southern keeper says:

We bring you only war-wailing and a fullness of friends’ corpses.

He says that from the day they left they have spent two years together as birds, one year at Cruachan and one at the síd on Femen Plain, so that all men north and south have seen their power. Now they will take the shape of water creatures and live two years under the sea.

One enters the Sinann river and the other the Siuir. They spend two years under water, and one year they are seen devouring each other in the Siuir and the next in the Sinann. Next they become two stags, and each gathers up the other's herd of young deer and makes a shambles of his dwelling place. Then they become two warriors, gashing each other, then two phantoms, terrifying each other, then two dragons, pouring down snow on each other's land.

The maggots and the bulls

They drop out of the air and become two maggots. One gets into the spring of the River Cronn in Cuailnge, where a cow belonging to Dáire mac Fiachna drinks it up. The other gets into the well-spring Garad in Connacht, where a cow belonging to Medb and Ailill drinks it. From them spring the two bulls, Finnbennach, the white-horned, of Ai Plain, and Dub, the dark bull of Cuailnge. Kinsella's note says this bull is called either Dub, the Black, or Donn, the Brown.

The tale then gives the names of each pair in each shape. They were Rucht and Friuch as pig-keepers, Ingen and Eitte, Talon and Wing, as birds of prey, Bled and Blod, Whale and Seabeast, as undersea creatures, Rinn and Faebur, Point and Edge, as warriors, Scáth and Sciath, Shadow and Shield, as phantoms, and Cruinniuc and Tuinniuc as maggots. They were Finnbennach Ai, the White, and Donn Cuailnge, the Brown, as bulls. The text does not say which name in each pair belongs to which keeper, or which keeper became which bull. The stags and the dragons are given no names.

The two bulls

The tale ends with a verse for each bull. The Brown Bull of Cuailnge is dark brown, haughty and full of young health, with a curly-browed head cocked high, a thick strong neck and eyes glaring. Thirty grown boys could take their place from his rump to his nape. He is a hero to his herd in the morning, foolhardy at the head of it, beloved of his cows and a prop to the husbandmen.

The Bull Finnbennach has a white head and white feet and a red body, the colour of blood, as if bathed in blood or dyed in the red bog. He is the beloved of the cows of Ai, with a stallion's breast and a salmon's snout, and he romps in rut, born to bear victory and bellowing in greatness. The verse calls him the idol of the ox herd and the prime demon Finnbennach.