Fedelm

Fedelm (sometimes spelled Feidelm; modern Fidelma) is a female prophet and

Though the name is not unique, it is not impossible that the Fedelm of the Táin is the same character as the Fedelm Foltcháin ("of the Lovely Hair") who appears in a brief and difficult Irish text known as Fedelm and Cú Chulainn or Ces Ulad ("The Affliction of the Ulstermen").[1] The transmitted text, preserved only in the 16th-century (London, British Library, Harley MS 5280), is imperfect and the translations attempted by Vernam Hull and John Carey therefore differ on a number of counts. It tells that one day (before the invasion), Cú Chulainn and his charioteer Láeg come to the River Boyne to learn imbas (as Carey translates) or to obtain "riches" (Hull). The search for imbas would be appropriate as in early Irish narrative, the banks of rivers could serve as liminal places subject to the risk of flooding and in a positive sense, to the attainment of poetic wisdom.^[7] The text Immacallam in Dá Thuarad, for instance, states that "the bank of a body of water was a place where knowledge was always revealed for poets".^[7]

On the opposite bank stands Fedelm and her husband Elcmaire, who notice the intruders and their chariot laden with items of fidchell and búanbach and with Cú Chulainn's catch of birds. When Cú Chulainn manages to catch a speckled salmon with his spear, Elcmaire goes into the ford and flings a pillar stone towards the chariot, but Cú Chulainn cuts off both his thumbs and both his big toes. Fedelm then utters the prophecy (Hull has "promised") that she would appear naked to the Ulstermen and become Cú Chulainn's lover. This she does after a year and a day. The text ends by suggesting that her appearance to the Ulstermen is what caused their aforesaid debility.^[8] This explanation of the Debility of the Ulstermen differs considerably from that given by Noinden Ulad and related texts.

Fedelm's name and a connection with the Boyne also occur in the second, Middle Irish recension of the Tochmarc Emire. When Cú Chulainn travels southwards to woo Emer, he comes across the so-called "Marrow (Smir) of the woman Fedelm", explained as another name for the River Boyne. The origin of the name is not explained, however, and the accompanying mythological story focuses on the drowning of Boann instead.^[9]

References

Sources

Primary sources

• Táin Bó Cuailnge (Recension I), ed. Cecile O'Rahilly, Táin Bó Cúailnge Recension I
  . Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies Dublin, 1976.
• Cú Chulainn and Fedelm (also Ces Ulad), ed. Kuno Meyer, "Mitteilungen aus irischen Handschriften (Fortsetzung)."
  ZCP
  29 (1962–64); tr. John Carey, The Celtic Heroic Age, ed. J.T. Koch and J. Carey. 3d ed. Andover et al., 2000. pp. 67–8.
• A.G. van Hamel (1933). Compert Con Culainn and Other Stories. Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 3. Dublin: DIAS.; tr. Kuno Meyer (1888). "The Wooing of Emer"
  . Archaeological Review. 1: 68–75, 150–5, 231–5, 298–307.