The Worth of an Epic Wes Howard12/15/2010

Bards have been entertaining audiences for millennia, and the most powerful piece in

the performance arsenal of the bard was the epic poem. According to Webster, an epic is “a

long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero”1.

This definition can be easily applied to the Iliad and the Táin Bó Cúailnge, poems from Greece

and Ireland which center on the events of two legendary wars. The similarities continue farther

than that for these two stories; both were obviously entertaining and exciting, both were

designed to play to their audiences, both were reflective of their respective cultures, and it is

because of these common elements that both were popular enough to survive for centuries in

the oral tradition before being recorded on paper, and have continued to survive as classics.

In both the Greek and Irish traditions, the bard was required to maintain an immense

amount of knowledge, since the bard performed songs in both cultures completely from

memory. This meant that being a bard required years and years of practice and training, and

could be quite a powerful profession. Bards were valuable to cultures and societies alike

because they spread acts of repute across the land; many powerful individuals owed their

reputations to the praises or satires of a poet. For these reasons, a bard was considered a very

valuable commodity for any King’s court. In fact, in early medieval Ireland, a poet was

considered to be of nemed status, which granted him privilege, rank, and honor price which

could even equal that of a king2. There were several classes of poets, an in order to achieve the

1 Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Web. <http://www.merriam-webster/dictionary/epic?show=1&t=1292377643>.2 Handy, Amber, "Nemed Class," lecture, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, September 21, 2010.

higher ranks of fili and ollamh, an individual had to study for many years and be raised in a

family of poets. In Ireland at that time, the community was very self-sufficient, and people

generally stayed in their own tuath for fear of violent repercussions from neighboring

communities, but poets were allowed to freely cross boundaries between tuatha and

kingdoms, spreading their poetry and song about the recent deeds of note from other lands. In

addition to bringing word of the recent goings-on of the world, and with more relevance to this

topic, the bards enjoyed the role of storyteller, which was a very important role in those times

before more diverse methods of entertainment. It was through the need to entertain their

audience that bards developed the epic poem, which came to have great cultural importance

due to the prevalence and influence of the poet.

At the time, an epic poem was a device which would be instantly recognizable by many

member of society, comparable to today’s pop culture iconography. Homer’s epics were often

quoted by scholars and masters of rhetoric such as Socrates3. The fact that the epics, which are

both hundreds of pages long in written form, survived through centuries of spoken-word

transference is in itself testament to their cultural power and influence. In order for them to be

remembered for so long, it was of course necessary that they be exciting.

The Táin is the story of a cattle raid, performed in prose rather than verse. While that

may not sound as amazing or exciting as the Iliad, it is important to remember that this Irish

epic follows the exploits of one Cú Chulainn, a teenage boy who single-handedly fights an army

of thousands, halting their progress and killing countless men. The poem opens with a dispute

between the High (most powerful) King of Ireland, Ailill, and his wife, Medb. The two are

3 Plato. “The Republic.” The Internet Classics Archive. Web. 13 Dec 2010. <http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.3.ii.html>.

arguing over which of the two of them was better off before they married. This was actually a

worthy argument in that culture; if an individual entered into a marriage as a member of a

higher socioeconomic class than their spouse, they would have significantly more legal power

to make decisions and to possess mutual goods should a divorce occur. They compared

possessions, and found each other equal in everything save one; Ailill possessed an almost

unnaturally magnificent and fertile bull named Finnbennach, which Medb simply could not

match. There was a bull which could match or even surpass him, called the Donn Cúailnge,

which Medb decided that she simply must have, but which was in the possession of the

Ulsterman Dáire Mac Fiachna4. Naturally, when he refused to trade it to Medb, she decided to

lead Connacht in a campaign against Ulster, the northernmost region of Ireland.4

The Ulstermen are in terrible shape to meet the men from Connacht on the field of

battle. Not long before the lovers’ tiff, a curse had fallen over Ulster, which left all of the men

of Ulster sick and unable to do battle. There was only one man immune to the curse; the

teenage warrior Cú Chulainn. He rode out with no company save his charioteer Láeg, and

waged a guerilla war against the men of Connacht, killing dozens of them, before holding his

position at a certain ford. At this location, he was convinced by his foster-father? Fergus to only

fight and kill members of the army in single combat, because Fergus and Medb were convinced

that this would limit the number of casualties their men would sustain. Even with the

implementation of this strategy, Cú Chulainn managed to hold off the army single-handedly for

many months. He was even forced to fight his foster brother and best friend, Fer Diad, and the

two were so evenly matched that Cú Chulainn only won by using his gae bolga, and after he

4 Ciaran Carson, trans. The Táin (New York: Penguin Classics, 2007).

won, he was too badly injured to continue. As he recovered, the men of Ulster who were

recovered from the curse rose up and met the men of Connacht in combat, winning the battle

but losing the bull Donn Cúailnge. The poem ends with Donn Cúailnge killing Finnbennach in

single combat, then wandering the countryside before collapsing and dying of exhaustion.

The Iliad is the story of the last year of the legendary decade long Trojan War, fought

outside the walls of Troy between an assembled army of Greeks under Agamemnon and the

Trojan army under King Priam. The story goes that the war was started by a beautiful woman

named Helen, said to be half divine, who was married to a Greek king named Menelaus. A

prince of Troy named Paris fell madly in love with her, and she in turn fell madly in love with

him. She left her husband, and the two of them fled to Troy together. They were followed by

an entire army of Greeks, assembled from all the nations of Greece, led by dozens of heroes.

The war goes back and forth for nine years, until a conflict arises between Agamemnon, the

leader of the Greeks, and Achilles, the most powerful Greek warrior who ever lived.

Agamemnon stole his favorite slave girl, so he refused to fight. Without his strength, the

Trojans began to overwhelm the Greeks, driving them all the way back to their ships, and it

seemed that an end to the war was finally in sight. The warrior’s cousin and closest companion,

Patroclus, whom he had trained to fight, stole Achilles’ armor and weapons and led his soldiers,

the Myrmidons, into battle. The rest of the Greeks rallied around their supposed leader, and

successfully drove the Trojans back, almost to the walls of Troy. During the battle, Patroclus

was slain by Hector in single combat. Achilles discovered what had happened, went to Troy,

and killed Hector in a raging fury. The poem ends with the funeral of the Prince of Troy.

Obviously, both of these stories were very exciting when told properly. If they hadn’t

been exciting, neither one of them would have survived as long as they did. If the Táin hadn’t

been engaging to the audience, poets would have stopped telling it by the 11th century, because

their audience would have lost interest, and they would have stopped being paid for their

services. Likewise, if the people didn’t find the Iliad appealing, they would have stopped paying

bards to sing it. A poet was responsible for more than just singing the praises of the noble or

satirizing the unjust; the most important thing that a poet needed to do was entertain his

audience. That was what separated a good poet from a bad one. According to the Irish law

codes, because there are different classes of poet, a poet’s honor price was based off of a

combination of his training and his skill.5

Additionally, both of these stories are made to be performed rather than read, in a

fashion. What I mean by that is that when all the versions of both epics were compiled until

there was a complete version of each yarn, it became apparent that each story made an effort

to actively engage, and to a greater extent appeal to, potential differences in the audience.

Each work of literature spends an inordinate amount of time listing individuals who were

present at the battle which will be described, many of whom will have absolutely no significant

role to play in the upcoming events. Half of the second book of the Iliad consists of a listing of

all the princes and chiefs of both the Greeks and the Trojans, the regions they came from, and

the quality and characteristics of the forces that they commanded. While some of these

princes are chief players in the story to come, many are simply placeholders, seemingly there to

preserve historical accuracy. In the Táin Bó Cúailnge, there are several instances in which an

5 Handy, Amber, "Nemed Class," lecture, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, September 21, 2010.

occurrence or happening is described simply to explain why the place at which it happened is

currently called what it is. To a draw a more striking parallel, there is a passage near to the end

of the epic, specifically in part XII, which describes all of the kings of Ulster (almost all of whom

will not be mentioned later in the story) who rose up against the forces of Connacht, down to

the details of the armor and equipment they wore. These passages, which are often painfully

long, do little to advance the plot or the development of the principal characters whatsoever,

so why do they exist?

Remember that bards and poets of both the ancient Greek and early medieval Irish

cultures performed all of their pieces from memory, and that their livelihood depended on

successfully entertaining their audience. It is a basic principle of perception that attention will

be more focused on something when it is personally relevant to the viewer.5 Therefore, some

people have suggested that rather than cite every king or every prince or every warrior that

was present at the battle, the poet or bard might simply select a name from the list which

would resonate with the audience, possibly an individual from that community. For example,

instead of describing every one of the kings who followed Conchobar into battle against Medb,

the poet might simply state “and so it was that among the men of Ulster, there was one Eoghan

Mac Durthacht, King of this very land of Fernmag”6. The same would be said in Book 2 of the

Iliad, where the bard might instead only mention the warriors of the land he is currently

performing in, in addition to the principal players of the epic.

6 Ciaran Carson, trans. The Táin (New York: Penguin Classics, 2007).

This tactic would be especially effective in Ireland, because Irish society at that time was

so thoroughly based on familial ties. Binchy described early medieval as “familiar”7. Homes

were too far apart from each other for families to not be a huge part of daily life. Family was

everything at that time; Kingship was always passed within the derbfine, or extended family

within four removals, and only the continued success of a family through three generations

would enable a member of that family to move up to a higher socioeconomic class.8 The basic

idea was that for a family to move up in the world, the living memory of the community had to

be such that the family had always been that successful. Because relatives were so close at that

time, a reference to an ancestor in an epic poem would have had much more effect on an

audience than it would today. In fact, it was probably a big contributing factor to the consistent

popularity of the Táin throughout the Dark Ages.

There is a trend in the Táin Bó Cúailnge which does not appear in the Iliad; the

explanation of place names. Dozens of times throughout the book, events occur at certain

places, which are then named for those events. For example, after Donn Cúailnge killed

Finnbennach, he wandered the countryside, creating six separate place names before he

eventually collapsed of exhaustion.9 Oftentimes, the event makes no difference in the story

whatsoever, literally none. For example, we’ll use one of the place names created by the

wandering Donn Cúailnge: “Then he went by the Midluachair Road to Cuib, where he used to

dwell with the dry cows of Dáire, and he tore up the ground there. Hence the name Gort

mBúraig, Trench Field.”10 There are two possible reasons for this technique: the poet could be

7 Welch, Robert. Irish Writers and Religion. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble Books, 1992.8 Handy, Amber, "Professional Class" lecture, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN.9 Ciaran Carson, trans. The Táin (New York: Penguin Classics, 2007).10 Ciaran Carson, trans. The Táin (New York: Penguin Classics, 2007).

trying to explain common known Irish names using mythology, or he could be trying to engage

the audience by making references to familiar landmarks. The first seems somewhat less likely,

given that many Irish stories are concerned with conveying societal and moral guidelines than

explanation, contrary to many other genres of myth, such as Aesop’s fables or Native American

mythology. The second seems relatively likely, given the importance of the performer needing

to relate to and appeal to his audience, as discussed above.

There is a definite difference between the Táin Bó Cúailnge and the Iliad with regard to

the number of references addressed to the audience. In all likelihood, this was because Greeks

were more appreciative of art, and needed less additional motivation to enjoy a poetic

performance. The Iliad is thought to have been composed sometime in the 8th century BC11, in a

time when Greece was coming out of the Dark Ages and art, poetry, and theater were

becoming increasingly popular. In a time where different types of art were being expressed and

explored, it must have been refreshing to return to the oldest art form of all – storytelling.

Conversely, the entirety of Europe had just entered into the Dark Ages at the time when the

Táin Bó Cúailnge was thought to have been composed. That is something of a misnomer, given

that Ireland wasn’t a part of the general lack of cultural and technological progress during this

time, but it didn’t develop too thoroughly as far as art forms. Therefore, it was important for

poets to spice up the material they did have somewhat, to ensure it wouldn’t get too stale or

familiar. This shows us one of the first differences between the Táin and the Iliad; the cultures

from which they originated.

11 Vidal-Naquet, Pierre. Le monde d’Homère (The World of Homer), Perrin (2000), p. 19

The final reason that these two epic stories have survived for literally thousands of years

is that they are both good reflections of the cultures that they come from. Obviously the two

cultures were very different from each other, and this is reflected in the epics, but they were

both conducive to the generation of a very exciting and engaging tale. More important than

being exciting however, being reflections of their respective cultures meant that these pieces of

literature were very important to developing scholars’ understanding of each culture,

particularly in the case of Ireland.

The Iliad is a tale of gods, war, and honor. These values were very important to the

ancient Greeks. They made sure to honor the gods daily, for fear that they would be struck

down by lightning, or cursed with a poor harvest. They built giant temples and altars to these

gods, burning animal sacrifices in their honor. The Iliad is completely filled with the actions and

deeds of the gods; they are represented just the same as a human character, with emotions

tangible actions. For example, Aphrodite swoops down from Mt. Olympus to carry her favored

warrior Aeneas away from a losing battle with the Greek hero Diomedes.12 War was also a

common part of Greek life; there was no Greece at the time. Back then, Greece was a

collection of independent city-states who all spoke Greek and were constantly fighting amongst

each other, so being a powerful warrior was a very valuable character trait. The entire Iliad is

about war, and centers on the most prolific warrior in the history of Greece. Honor was

everything in the Iliad and in Greece; the entire structure of Greek society rested on the

warrior’s code.13 Honor is also featured prominently in the Iliad; it is in fact the reason that the

story exists at all; without honor, Achilles would not have stopped fighting when his slave was

12Homer. “The Iliad.” The Internet Classics Archive. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec 2010.13 Johnston, Ian. “The Heroic Code.” Web. 15 Dec 2010. <http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/homer/iliadessay4.htm>

stolen, the Greeks would have stormed the walls, and the war would have ended. Additionally,

were it not for honor, the Greeks would never have chased Helen all the way across the

Mediterranean Sea. The acts of the characters of the Iliad certainly reflect the values of Greek

culture at the time.

Early medieval Ireland has been described as hierarchical, tribal, and familiar.14 The Táin

Bó Cúailnge certainly shows Irish culture in those lights, as well as providing us a few other

insights into Irish life at the time. As with any piece of fictional literature, many aspects of the

story cannot be accepted as conventional happenings in the daily life of the time, so we will

obtain more intellectual value from the piece when we examine the values and ideals of

character that are consistent throughout the story. Additionally, we can examine the

relationships between characters, which will give us context in which to experience

relationships that would have occurred in Ireland at the time, such as client relationships.

These will give us a close look into what people in early medieval Ireland really valued, and how

they interacted with each other.

The Táin clearly shows the importance of hierarchy in Irish culture of that period. Medb

and Ailill are a perfect example; they are powerful rulers, ruling over an army which is

composed of many kings, who in turn rule over their own forces. Parts II and III of the Táin tell

of the Kings whom answer the call of Medb to fight against Ulster, the men they brought with

them, and the equipment and characteristics of those men.15 Many answered her call, both

kings that were brothers to Ailill and kings scattered around the land of Connacht in general,

14 Welch, Robert. Irish Writers and Religion. Savage, MD: Barnes and Noble Books, 1992.15 Ciaran Carson, trans. The Táin (New York: Penguin Classics, 2007).

though they were not related to either Ailill or Medb. Although it says at the beginning of the

Táin, Ailill and Medb each tell of how powerful they are, and indeed they are quite powerful.

However, apart from maybe Brian Borumha13, there was never a high king of Ireland, so what

reason would the kings of Connacht have for risking their lives and the lives of their men in a

war? The answer is likely because they were clients of Medb or Ailill. Clientship was one of the

cornerstones of Irish society, and was a large part of what made the culture so hierarchical.

Clientship is similar in some respects to the feudal system; it is essentially a loan of some

form of capital that must be paid back with interest. Rather than paying this interest back in

coin, which was a Norse invention that wasn’t present in Ireland until the Viking invasion

towards the end of the Dark Ages, or solely in percentages of crops, as was the case in the

feudal system, Irish clients would pay back the capital in whatever their trade was, as well as

owe their lender periods of both military and conventional labor service, at his request. Unlike

the feudal system, this process was entirely voluntary, resembling more of a simple contract,

but as individuals with less capital came to owe individuals with more wealth with greater and

greater consistency and across more class distinctions, a multi-tiered hierarchy became more

and more prevalent throughout the culture. This persisted to the degree that there were three

separate grades of king, and seven distinct grades of noble beneath kings, specifically ranked

with decreasing honor prices, rights, and responsibilities.16 The call to arms of both the

Connachtmen and the Ulstermen in the Táin Bó Cúailnge, with its examples of clientship, was a

clear demonstration of the hierarchical nature of Ireland in the early medieval period.

16 Eoin MacNeill, “Ancient Irish Law: The Law of Status or Franchise.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 36C, pp. 269

The familiar and tribal aspects of Ireland in the Dark Ages were also illustrated clearly in

the Táin. The tribal aspects were shown in that all the people who lived in the land of Ulster,

even though they were ruled by different kings, and likely had little to no interaction with each

other, came together in a time of need as a unified force of Ulstermen. That is how they were

identified, not as a conglomerate led by Conchobar, but as an army (tribe) of Ulstermen. The

familial characteristics of early medieval Irish culture were even more prominently on display in

the Táin Bó Cúailnge, particularly with regard to fosterage.

Fosterage was a common practice in the culture of the time in which a father, typically a

noble, will send their son to live with another family for a few years. This allowed the child to

learn new skills from a different individual, make lifelong and irreplaceable bonds with his

foster-brothers, and gain a different point of view. It was said that the bonds of fosterage, both

with foster-fathers and foster-brothers, were stronger even than ties of blood.17 This can be

seen most clearly in Cú Chulainn’s fight with his foster brother Fer Diad, as well as in his

dealings with his foster father Fergus. Cú Chulainn payed Fer Diad enormous amounts of

respect, even though Fer Diad was sent by Medb to kill him. They fought during the day, and

then patched each others’ wounds and ate and lied down next to the same fire at night.18

Fergus, who was once Cú Chulainn’s foster father, and the warrior agreed to exchange

surrenders to each other so that they wouldn’t have to fight and kill each other. To bring some

perspective to that, this was the same man who had killed hundreds of men without mercy.

Based on these interactions, we can surmise that family was everything to the Irish of that

period.

17 Gerald. “The History and Topography of Ireland.” Parts 2 and 318 Ciaran Carson, trans. The Táin (New York: Penguin Classics, 2007).

Both the Iliad and the Táin were exciting, played to the audience, and were reflections

of the cultures that produced them. These characteristics helped them to survive through the

centuries, and be translated, published, and read today. The fact that they both played to their

audiences made them popular in the centuries when they were passed on by oral tradition

alone. Their excitement made them enjoyable to experience for everyone since they were first

written. Finally, and most importantly, the fact that they are both reflections of their respective

cultures makes them extremely valuable to scholars and historians, looking to examine and

understand the societies of the past. Because of these three characteristics, both of these epics

are now legends.