Irish Druid Tain Section - "Morregan's Warning" 600's CE

(November 6, 2024) This is a part of the longer story called Táin Bó Cúailnge or just the Tain. It is also called the "Cattle Raid of Cooley." The traditional Christian translation tells of a conflict between the Irish provinces of Ulster and Connaught over possession of the brown bull of Cooley. The Táin has been influential on Irish literature and culture. It is often considered Ireland's national epic.

The Táin is traditionally set in the 1st century in a pagan heroic age, and is the central text of a group of tales known as the Ulster Cycle. It survives in three written versions (recensions) in manuscripts of the 12th century and later, the first recensions is largely written in Old Irish, the second a more consistent recension was written in Middle Irish, and the third an Early Modern Irish version.

The first recension consists of a partial text in Lebor na hUidre (the "Book of the Dun Cow") and another partial text called the "Yellow Book of Lecan." These two sources overlap and so form a complete text.  This recension was constructed from various earlier versions as indicated by the number of duplicated episodes and references to "other versions" in the text. Many of the episodes are superb, written in the characteristic terse prose of the best Old Irish literature but others are cryptic summaries. Parts of this recension can be dated from linguistic evidence to the 8th century, and some of the verse passages may be even older.

Lebor na hUidre is a late 1100's CE manuscript compiled in the monastery at Clonmacnoise. The "Yellow Book of Lecan." come from a manuscript dating to the 1300's.

The second recension is found in the 12th-century manuscript known as the Book of Leinster. This appears to have been a syncretic exercise by a scribe who brought together the Lebor na hUidre materials and unknown sources for the Yellow Book of Lecan materials to create a coherent version of the epic. While the result is a satisfactory narrative whole, the language has been modernised into a much more florid style, with all of the spareness of expression of the earlier recension lost in the process.

The Book of Leinster version ends with a colophon in Latin which says:

The story of the Táin relies on a range of independently transmitted back-stories, known as remscéla ('fore-tales'). Some may in fact have been composed independently of the Táin and subsequently linked with it later in their transmission. As listed by Ruairí Ó hUiginn, they are:

1. De Faillsigud Tána Bó Cuailnge (How the Táin Bó Cuailnge was found), recounting how the story of the Táin was lost and recovered.
2. Táin Bó Regamna (The cattle raid of Regamain)
3. Táin Bó Regamon (The cattle raid of Regamon)
4. Táin Bó Fraích ('The cattle Raid of Froech'): Froech mac Idaith is a Connacht warrior, killed by Cú Chulainn in the Táin; this tale gives him some back-story.
5. Táin Bó Dartada (The cattle raid of Dartaid)
6. Táin Bó Flidhais ('The cattle raid of Flidais'), a relatively late story drawing on older material
7. Echtrae Nerai ('The Adventure of Nera')
8. Aislinge Oengusa ('The Dream of Oengus'). Oengus Mac ind Óc, son of the Dagda has no part in the Táin Bó Cúailnge as we have it, but this tale relates how the otherworld woman Caer Ibormeith came to him in a vision how Oengus found her through the aid of Medb and Ailill. According to the story, this is why he helped them in their cattle-raid.
9. Compert Con Culainn ('The Conception of Cú Chulainn')
10. De Chophur in Dá Mucado (Of the cophur of the two swineherds)
11. Fochann Loingsi Fergusa meic Róig (The cause of Fergus mac Róich's exile), only the beginning of which survives, apparently explaining how Fergus came to be part of the army of Connacht
12. Longas mac nUislenn ('The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu'), explaining how Fergus and various other Ulster exiles came to be in the army of Connacht
13. Tochmarc Ferbe (The wooing of Ferb).
14. Ces Ulad (The debility of the Ulstermen), not actually considered one of the remscéla, but providing an important account of why Macha curses the Ulaid: they made her race against the king's horses while she was pregnant. The tale's primary purpose, however, is to provide an etiology for the place-name Emain Machae.

The first English translation was provided L. Winifred Faraday in 1904, based on the Lebor na hUidre and the Yellow Book of Lecan. 

References

Lebor na hUidre (recension 1) Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 23 E 25. Online at: https://codecs.vanhamel.nl/Dublin,_Royal_Irish_Academy,_MS_23_E_25

Olmsted, Garrett (1982) Morrigan's warning to Donn Cuailnge. Etudies Celtiques. Online at: https://www.academia.edu/83157459/Morrigans_warning_to_Donn_Cuailnge

Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A1in_B%C3%B3_C%C3%BAailnge