Fedelm
Also spelled: Feidelm, Fedelm the Prophetess
The woman poet of Connacht who meets Medb's army on the road and tells her three times that she sees the host crimson.
Overview
Fedelm stands in front of Medb's chariot on the day the army sets out, a young woman with yellow hair, a gold weaving-rod and triple irises in each eye. She is a woman poet of Connacht, home from learning verse and vision in Alba, and Medb asks her four times how she sees the host. Each time she says crimson, until she gives a long verse about a blond man in a red tunic who colours the whole host with blood, and says he reminds her of Cúchulainn.
I see it crimson, I see it red.
Connections
Related characters
- Cúchulainn (the man she describes, without knowing his name at first)
- Medb (questions her three times and does not like the answer)
Places
- Connacht
- Cruachan (where she meets Medb on the day the army sets out)
- Emain Macha
- Fid Dúin
- Murtheimne Plain
Appears in chapters
Appears in
- Fedelm, a woman poet of Connacht, looks at the army as it leaves and says she sees it crimson, she sees it red. At Connacht. In Chapter II: The Táin Bó Cuailnge Begins.
- Medb says Conchobor is suffering his pangs in Emain with the rest of the Ulster warriors, as her messengers have told her. At Emain Macha. In Chapter II: The Táin Bó Cuailnge Begins.
- Other books say that the forest was cut down after the prophetess Fedelm told Medb that she could not see the army in it. At Fid Dúin. In Chapter III: The Army Encounters Cúchulainn.
- Fedelm the prophetess sees a blond man in a looped red tunic, and the vision recalls Cúchulainn of Murtheimne. At Murtheimne Plain. In Chapter II: The Táin Bó Cuailnge Begins.