Táin Bó Flidhais

Key takeaways: Táin Bó Flidhais is the Ulster Cycle’s great Mayo tale, set among the Gamhanraidh of Erris; Flidais is no passive prize but the raid’s prime mover, an otherworldly queen who betrays her husband for a man she knows only by reputation; her hornless cow the Maol could feed three hundred households from one night’s milk; and the whole story works as a prelude to the Táin Bó Cúailnge, which her herds provision every seventh night.

Fergus in exile

Mayo has its own Táin, and it begins with a queen who wanted a man she had never seen.

The Glenmasan Manuscript opens the Táin Bó Flidhais in the aftermath of Conchobar’s betrayal of the sons of Uisnech. When Conchobar had Naisi and his brothers murdered despite Fergus’s sworn protection, Fergus burned Emain Macha and fled west with three thousand followers, Cormac Conloinges, Dubthach Dóeltenga and the Dubloinges, to the hospitality of Ailill mac Máta and Medb at Cruachan in Connacht. Fergus became Medb’s lover; Ailill discovered the affair and in silent revenge stole Fergus’s enchanted sword one night, replacing it with a wooden blade, vowing to return the real weapon only at the great battle of the Táin.

Bricne’s satire

It is at Cruachan that the mischief igniting the Táin Bó Flidhais begins. One night at a feast of great splendour in the palace of Oilill and Medb, the satirist-poet Bricne mac Cairbre, “the most troublesome tongue in Ireland” in the Glenmasan text’s phrasing, sat opposite Fergus and composed a stinging satire on him. Fergus, he said, had promised his people sixty chariots and three hundred irnas of red gold yearly, and now he could not keep a single promise; all his valour had turned to submission for the gifts of Medb. Stung by this public shaming before the assembled chiefs of Connacht and Ulster, Fergus fell furious. The next morning Bricne went to Medb for permission to travel westward among the Gamhanraidh nobles of Erris to gather presents, and Medb gladly gave it, praising the Gamhanraidh as “the nobles of highest spirit and generosity in Ireland.” Fergus, for his part, desired that Bricne should go westward and find the wealth needed to restore his honour.

The short version preserved in the Book of Leinster and Lebor na hUidre tells it differently: there is no elaborate Bricne journey or satire episode. Instead Flidais has already been sending messengers to Fergus weekly because of the great tales she has heard of him, and Medb simply proposes that Fergus visit Ailill Finn to seek allied support.

Westward to the Gamhanraidh

Bricne and his fifty poets travelled west from Cruachan past Loch Con and Loch Cuilinn to Dún Átha Féan, the fortress of the ford of wagons, where Ailill Finn (Oilill Fionn), son of Domhnall Dualbhuidhe (“of the yellow locks”), king of the Gamhanraidh, was in residence.

At Dún Átha Féan the household was magnificent. Oilill Finn’s court included Ferdiad son of Daman (the same Fir Domnainn hero later to be Cú Chulainn’s foster-brother and tragic opponent in the Táin); Fraoch son of Fidach; Goll of Oilech and Acla; the seven Breslenns of Brefne; the three Fosgamuins of Erris; and hundreds of champions. Here Bricne sang his praise-poem to Oilill and the chiefs of the Gamhanraidh, and was loaded with gifts. He sowed his characteristic discord: during the three days he spent at Dún Átha Féan he set every pair of friends at deadly enmity before departing.

Then Bricne was sent westward with guides to Dún Morgan, Rathmorgan, at the foot of the Knocknascollop mountains overlooking Carrowmore Lake in Erris, where Flidais was staying with her legendary cow the Maol. It was at this western fort that she kept the Maol Flidais: a hornless (hummel) cow with miraculous milking, capable of yielding enough milk in a single night, it was said, to sustain three hundred men together with their women and children. Flidais was not present at Dún Átha Féan because, as Oilill explained to Bricne, she had “gone westward to visit the Maol.”

The wooing at Dún Morgan

At Dún Morgan, Flidais rose and kissed Bricne three times and feasted him for a week, as was the custom of that great house. Bricne sang her a song of praise and set the table talking of Fergus mac Róich. When Flidais asked “What sort of man is Fergus?” Bricne answered with what the text presents as one of the most extravagant eulogies in the Glenmasan Manuscript: though he had seven heads, each with seven mouths and seven tongues, he could not adequately praise the man; Fergus excelled Lugh of Moytura, Hercules of the Greeks, and Hector of Troy in valour, beauty, intellect, generosity, and fame. He recounted thirty battles Fergus had won.

Flidais declared herself: she lacked nothing on earth except a suitable husband, and she loved Fergus greatly. She instructed Bricne to return and “put Fergus under nine prohibitions” (geasa) so that he would come to carry her away from the Gamhanraidh, by consent or by compulsion. Bricne at first remonstrated, for Oilill the Fair was incomparable and Fergus had never kept a wife. But Flidais was resolute. She offered Bricne his choice of the treasures of Ireland and sang a love-poem. She promised that if Fergus brought his company west for a subsidy of horses, weapons, and armour, she would provide a wife for every man of them; and if she brought her cow and her herds, “Flidais shall feed the hosts every seventh night, should the campaign last for ever.”

Bricne left Rathmorgan laden with wealth, “never did an Ollamh carry away such wealth from women before”, pausing at Dún Átha Féan to tell Oilill Finn that Fergus would come to seek arms, and sowing discord at every stop on the road back to Cruachan.

The wooden sword

Back at Cruachan, Bricne told Medb and Fergus what he had seen and arranged. He praised Oilill Finn’s palace so extravagantly that Medb bristled with rivalry. Then, at the next feast, he told Fergus what Flidais had instructed: she would come with her herds and the Maol, to sustain all the men of Ireland every seventh night on the campaign for the cows of Cúailnge. “If you go on that expedition it will be an omen of great contests and the cause of disaster,” Bricne warned. Fergus insisted Bricne accompany him regardless. Bricne agreed and said he would rue it.

Fergus and his supporters marched west to Rathmorgan in Erris to claim Flidais. Oilill Finn met them at the ford and a conflict broke out. The two sides fought and over a thousand men were killed. Fergus reached for his great sword to turn the tide, but drew only the wooden replica Ailill mac Máta had placed there.

The true sword lay at Cruachan. The hand that had burned Emain Macha closed on wood.

Disarmed in effect, Fergus was overpowered. Oilill Finn took Fergus prisoner and held him in the fort.

The survivors returned to Cruachan and reported to Medb. She was furious that her lover was imprisoned and resolved to march west herself at the head of the army of Connacht.

The sleeping draught

Medb and Ailill mac Máta marched from Cruachan with the Ulster exiles and the nobles of Connacht through North Connacht toward Erris. As they advanced toward Rathmorgan on Carrowmore Lake, Medb’s forces fought a succession of skirmishes with bands of the Gamhanraidh. Medb offered the chieftains of Oilill Finn’s army the kingship of the Gamhanraidh to desert him; many accepted. Yet Oilill and his remaining warriors still held the fort and won some of the engagements.

Inside the besieged dún, Flidais had Fergus and the other prisoners. She acted as the tale’s principal agent of betrayal. When Oilill returned from a day’s fighting, she gave him a sleeping draught or potion; he fell into a deep sleep. Flidais then sent word to Medb’s forces outside to attack the fort. The gates were taken, Fergus and the prisoners freed. In the blood-strewn final battle Oilill and his surviving warriors, some accounts say ninety-seven were left, were overcome. Oilill Finn was killed. Fergus, once freed and victorious, took Oilill’s head and presented it to Flidais. Flidais was overcome with remorse at the sight of her husband’s severed head and ensured he received proper burial rites. Fergus, Flidais, the Maol, all the cattle and deer of the fort, its treasure, gold, silver, drinking-horns, and vats, were gathered up.

The short version differs substantially here. In that recension Oilill Finn maintains a dignified and principled defence; Bricriu (so spelled there, rather than Bricne) shames the Ulstermen into attacking; the champions fight naked in a battle fury; Ailill Finn is slain in the assault along with seven hundred warriors, thirty of his sons, and the assembled Gamanraidh, including the three Eochaid of Irross Donnan. After the sack, Flidais is taken out of the castle and awarded to Fergus. The short version also names the Clan Gamanrad of Irross Donnan as “the third race of heroes in Ireland,” beside the Clan Dédad of Temair Lochra and the Clan Rudraige of Emain Macha.

The retreat from Erris

As Medb’s army began the long march back to Cruachan, carrying Flidais, the Maol, and the spoil of Dún Flidhais, the remnant Gamhanraidh warriors harassed them from the hills. At Glenamoy in the Erris uplands the army faced a major counter-attack. Domhnall Dualbhuidhe, the old lord of Glencastle and Oilill Finn’s father, arrived with a force that included a vast pack of war-wolfhounds. The dogs tore through Medb’s soldiers, inflicting heavy losses across the whole army. Then Fergus and Domhnall came face to face and fought; Fergus killed Domhnall. Warriors from Croagh Patrick’s territory joined the field. When Muireadhach the Stutterer, Domhnall’s grandson, heard of his grandfather’s death he launched a further attack, recovered Flidais and the Maol, and drove them back toward Erris. After a long and punishing journey Medb, Ailill mac Máta, and Fergus eventually regained Cruachan, but the ending is equivocal and the Glenmasan text emphasises the heavy price paid.

The Glenmasan Manuscript also contains an episode concerning the treachery of Chiortán from Dún Chiortáin, a sub-betrayal during the campaign, attested in the manuscript’s section headings but not fully recoverable from the available electronic text.

The herd of Flidais

The resolution that matters most for the wider cycle is established at the point when Flidais, whatever the Glenmasan ending’s ambiguity about her ultimate fate, enters Fergus’s household. The short version is clear: according to Ailill and Medb’s decree, Flidais went to Fergus that together they might sustain the host during the Táin Bó Cúailnge. “As a result of this, Flidais was accustomed each seventh day from the produce of her cows to support the men of Ireland, in order that during the Raid she might provide them with the means of life. This then was the Herd of Flidais.” The Táin Bó Cúailnge itself confirms this: “Then came Flidais Fholtchaín, the wife of Ailill Find, who had slept with Fergus on Táin Bó Cúailnge, and it was she who every seventh night on that hosting quenched with milk the thirst of all the men of Ireland, king and queen and prince, poet and learner.” (This quotation follows the Book of Leinster recension of the Táin Bó Cúailnge in O’Rahilly’s translation; see the source note below.)

The Maol itself became a figure of folklore. In one tradition it refused to leave after Oilill Finn’s death; Fergus struck it and its groaning was heard across Ireland. Bricne had to coax it away with a verse. In a later tradition Flidais went with Fergus for a time, then took the Maol and her attendants to Lake Letriach and was never seen again, a return to the Otherworld consistent with her status as a woman of the sídhe.

Flidais of the Tuatha Dé

The Cóir Anmann identifies Flidais as one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, epithet Foltchaín, “of the beautiful hair.” Her son Nia Segamain had the power to milk wild does as well as cows, a gift from his mother, whose sovereignty extended over wild animals and domestic herds alike. She is described as “one who ruled over the beasts of the forests, the herds of Flidais,” mirroring Tethra’s dominion over the sea’s creatures. Her dual nature, tame herds and wild deer, milk and wilderness, is written into the Erris landscape itself: Carrowmore Lake, the Knocknascollop mountains, the Atlantic bogs of Irrus Domnainn.

The hillfort above Carrowmore Lake still carries her name: Dún Flidhais.