Macha
The woman forced to race the king's horses while heavy with child, who curses the men of Ulster with her labour pangs.
Overview
Macha tells Crunniuc to watch his tongue at the fair, and when he boasts she is sent for, full with child, and is told he will die unless she comes. In the crowd she pleads that a mother bore each of them and asks them to wait until her child is born, and when she cannot move them she says a long-lasting evil will come on the whole of Ulster, and gives her name when the king asks. She races the chariot, gives birth to twins beside it at the end of the field, and screams that all who hear it will have the same pangs in their hour of greatest difficulty. Only the young boys of Ulster, the women and Cúchulainn are free of them, and Emain Macha, the Twins of Macha, takes its name from the birth.
A long-lasting evil will come out of this on the whole of Ulster.
Connections
Related characters
- Crunniuc mac Agnomain (the man she lives with, whose boast gets her dragged to the fair)
- Cúchulainn (free of the pangs, with the women and the young boys)
Places
- Emain Macha (named for her twins)
- Fair of Macha
- Ulster (cursed with her pangs)
Appears in chapters
Appears in
- Macha gives birth to twins beside the royal chariot and curses the men of Ulster with her pangs, and the place is called Emain Macha, the Twins of Macha. At Emain Macha. In The Pangs of Ulster.
- Macha raced the king's chariot at the fair, gave birth beside it, and screamed out that all who heard her would suffer the same pangs. At Fair of Macha. In The Pangs of Ulster.
- Macha curses the men of Ulster at the fair with the pangs, from which only the young boys, the women and Cúchulainn go free. At Ulster. In The Pangs of Ulster.