Book 15 — APPENDIX E NOTES ON BOOKS VI AND VII

It is necessary to know the story of Cucullin’s training to arms, in order that we may understand his relationship to his fellow-pupils in Books X and XII.

Most writers who in recent times have touched upon this story have assumed that the place of his training was the Isle of Skye, in Scotland. The treatment of the subject which I present in Book VII will, therefore, be regarded by some readers as a new departure, and one which requires justification.

The story of his training is found in two quite different versions. One version forms a part of the Tochmarc Emire [T.E.], “The Wooing of Emer.” An account of the various MSS. in which the Tochmarc Emire has come down to us is given to us by Dr. Kuno Meyer, Rev. Celt., vol. xi. I have used chiefly the Harleian text, printed by Dr. Meyer in the Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, vol. iii. The other version of his training is found in the Foghlaimh Conchulaind [F.C.], “The Education of Cucullin,” a tract which, so far as I know, has not yet been edited. I have worked from a copy which is in the R.I.A. This version exists now only in rather modern MSS.; but its substance is ancient. It represents the version of Cucullin’s training which is presupposed both in the L.L. and L.U. recensions of the Táin; it is the version which tells of the solemn binding together of her pupils by their teacher, Scawtha.

Now, in F.C. Cucullin is trained, not in Skye, but in the east of Europe—in Scythia, and in “Great Greece” [san nGréig mhóir]. Scythia was a vague term for a region extending from what is now Hungary, eastward, far into Asia. In Ptolemy Scythia is made to cover a vast expanse. The name occurs frequently in our old Irish literature. “Great Greece,” I think, was an equally vague term for the countries in which Greek was spoken, and which bordered on Scythia. It is to be remembered that at the time of the Táin the Celts were found over a great part of central Europe, and probably in “Scythia”; and they still spoke their own language. That there should have been frequent intercourse between them and the Celts of Ireland, and that our young nobles should have gone from Ireland to get a warlike training amongst the Celts of the Continent, is only what we might have expected. Compare various passages in Professor Bury’s “Life of St. Patrick,” concerning the frequency of intercourse in early times between Ireland and the continent of Europe. The tradition of this intercourse has never died out in Irish literature.

In T.E., which contains the first-named version of Cucullin’s training, if we look closely into it, we find the same continental tradition. Owing to their close likeness, it was very easy to confuse the Gaelic words for Scotland and for the Alps. I believe that the Alpi of T.E. means the Alps. The land of Scawtha was fri Alpi allaanoir, “eastward from Alpi.” That would not answer to the position of Skye with regard to Scotland; but it would answer very well to the position of Scythia with regard to the Alps.

In the text of the Táin itself we have references to Cucullin’s training in the East. One of these is at L.L. 69ᵃ6, where he is said to have gone to the mountains of Armenia, and also to have brought slaughter amongst the Cichloiste (read -loiscthe). Cichloiscthe is the Irish word for Amazons. It occurs in Middle-Irish translations from the classics, and it means “Burnt-breasts.” The classical “myths” concerning the Amazons, and the apparently quite independent Irish tradition of warrior-women in Scythia and “Great Greece,” are interesting in relation to each other. Why should we suppose that such warrior-women did not really exist?

Other references in the text of the Táin are in the Germanus poem, L.L. 88ᵃ4-88ᵇ24. At Y.B.L. 37ᵇ51-2 we are told that the fortress of Germanus was above the edge-borders of the Muir Toirrian, which, following Dr. Stokes and others, I have rendered by “the Tyrrhene Sea.” But the Muir Toirrian really meant the whole Mediterranean. (Compare L.L. 3ᵃ23-28, where Bráth, starting from somewhere in the East, sails along the length of the Muir Toirrian to Crete and Sicily, and finally to Spain.)

As to the whereabouts of Lind Format I can offer no suggestion. In the Isles of the Athisech we might suspect an allusion to Athens; but it seems doubtful whether the n would have disappeared.

Did the later statements that Scawtha lived in the Isle of Skye arise from a double confusion between the Irish words for Skye and for Scythia on the one hand, and for Scotland and for the Alps on the other hand? Or was there really an early and independent Scotland-tradition? Perhaps some Scottish Gael will work out the subject.

The sources for Books VI and VII, besides the texts mentioned above, are the L.L. text of the Táin, and “The Fer Diad episode of the Táin Bó Cuailnge,” by Dr. M. Nettlau, in Rev. Celt. x. and xi.

I have chosen Faerdeeah as the teller of this tale in order that he may become known to us as the friend of Cucullin. From the artistic point of view the great defect in the account of the combat between Cucullin and Faerdeeah, as it occurs in both the recensions of the Táin, is that in one of the pair of combatants we have no previous interest.

I had completed the writing of Books VI and VII, and prepared my notes on them, before I had the gratification of seeing that on the question of the geography implied in T.E., Dr. Windisch is in agreement with me. See his Táin, pp. 436-437.

Dr. Whitley Stokes allows me to have the great pleasure of saying that he hopes some day to give us an edition of the Foghlaimh Conchulaind.