Cuib

Overview

Cuib is a district, and it is where Medb goes to look for the Brown Bull. Kinsella's text does not say where it lies, but it gives two clues. Medb goes into it with the plan of laying waste the lands of the Ulstermen and the Picts along the Midluachair road northward as far as Dún Sobairche, and the Brown Bull goes by the Midluachair road to Cuib at the end. The bull dwelt there once with the milkless cow of Dáire.

Medb takes a third of her force with her and Cúchulainn follows. He catches sight of Buide mac Báin at the head of sixty of Ailill's men, all in cloaks, coming from the direction of Sliab Cuilinn with the bull and fifteen heifers around him. Cúchulainn asks where they got the cattle, and they say from that mountain, where they found one herdsman and have him with them. Buide tells him his name is "One who neither fears nor favours you." Cúchulainn goes after them to the ford in three great strides and throws a short spear through his armpit, severing one of his livers in two. That ford is Ath Buide. They get the bull into the camp anyway.

Ailill's satirist Redg is sent to get Cúchulainn's javelin, since it is said he would be less trouble without it. Cúchulainn will give any gift but that. Redg will take no other, and threatens to take away Cúchulainn's good name. Cúchulainn throws the javelin and it shoots through Redg's head. "Now, that is a stunning gift!" the satirist cries. That is how Ath Tolam Sét got its name, the Ford of the Overwhelming Gift. The copper point comes to rest at a ford further east, Umarrith, Where the Copper Came to Rest.

Kinsella's text lists the men Cúchulainn kills in Cuib, each beside his own landmark: Nathcoirpthe near the trees named after him, Cruithen in his ford, the herdsmen's sons at their cairn, Marc on his hillock, Meille on his hill, Badb in his tower and Boguine in his marsh. Medb spends a fortnight harassing the province and takes fifty women from Finnmór, the wife of Celtchar, at the capture of Dún Sobairche. Wherever she rests her horsewhip in Cuib the place is called Bile Medba, and any ford or height where she stops is called Medb's Ford or Medb's Hill. Then she turns back, and they meet again at Focherd.

Cuib appears twice more. At Slemain Midi, Fergus names three men as fiery torches from Cuib and Midluachair, Fiachna's sons Rus, Dáire and Imchath, who have come to recover the bull. At the very end of the Táin the Brown Bull makes his own tour, and at Cuib he tears up the ground, which is called Gort mBúraig.