Medb
Medb | |
---|---|
Ulster Cycle character | |
In-universe information | |
Occupation | Queen |
Spouse | Ailill mac Máta |
Nationality | Irish |
Medb (Old Irish:
Medb is strong-willed, ambitious, cunning and promiscuous, and is an archetypal warrior queen.[2] She is believed by some to be a manifestation of the sovereignty goddess.[3][4][5] Medb of Connacht is probably identical with Medb Lethderg, the sovereignty goddess of Tara.[4]
Name
In Old Irish her name is Medb; in Middle Irish, Meḋḃ; in Early Modern Irish, Meadhbh or Meaḋḃ; and in modern Irish Méabh(a) or Méibh. This is generally believed to come from the Proto-Celtic *medu- ("mead") or *medua ("intoxicating"), and the meaning of her name has thus been interpreted as "mead-woman" or "she who intoxicates".[6] This is thought to reflect her role as sovereignty goddess. In ancient and medieval Ireland, the drinking of mead was a key part of a king's inauguration ceremony. In myth, a supernatural woman representing the sovereignty of the land chooses a king by offering him an alcoholic drink, thus bestowing sovereignty upon him.[7] However, it is also suggested that the name comes from Proto-Celtic *medwa ("the ruler").[6]
The name has been Anglicised as Maeve, Maev, Mave or Maiv. There are several
Description
Medb is described as a fair haired wolf queen, whose form was so beautiful that it robbed men of two-thirds of their valor upon seeing her.[12]
Marriages and rise to power
How Medb came to power in
Eochaid deposed the then-king of Connacht, Tinni mac Conri, and installed Medb in his place. However, Tinni regained a share of the throne when he and Medb later became lovers. Conchobar raped Medb after an assembly at
Medb's 7 Sons
Medb and Ailill had seven sons, all called Maine. They originally all had other names, but when Medb asked a druid which of her sons would kill Conchobar, he replied, "Maine". She did not have a son called Maine, so she renamed all her sons as follows:
- Fedlimid became Maine Athramail ("like his father")
- Cairbre became Maine Máthramail ("like his mother")
- Eochaid became Maine Andoe ("the swift") and was also known as Cich-Maine Andoe or Cichmuine[15]
- Fergus became Maine Taí ("the silent")
- Cet became Maine Mórgor ("of great duty")
- Sin became Maine Mílscothach ("honey-speech")
- Dáire became Maine Móepirt ("beyond description")
The prophecy was fulfilled when Maine Andoe went on to kill Conchobar, son of Arthur, son of Bruide – not Conchobar, son of Fachtna Fathach, as Medb had assumed the druid meant.[13]
Medb's 2 Daughters
Medb and Ailill also had a daughter Findabair[16] and another daughter called Cainnear or Cainnear Dearg (Red Cainnear) who was killed violently with a spear in the Tain Bo Flidais.[17][18]
Cattle Raid of Cooley
Medb insisted that she be equal in wealth with her husband, and started the Cattle Raid of
An army was raised including contingents from all over Ireland. One was a group of Ulster exiles led by Conchobar's estranged son Cormac Cond Longas and his foster-father Fergus mac Róich, former king of Ulster and one of Medb's lovers. It is reported that it took thirty men to satisfy her, or Fergus once.[19] Medb's relationship with Fergus is alluded to in the early poem Conailla Medb míchuru ("Medb has entered evil contracts") by Luccreth moccu Chiara (c. 600); it asserts that Medb wrongly seduced Fergus into turning against Ulster "because he preferred the buttocks of a woman to his own people".[20]
Because of a divine curse on the Ulstermen, the invasion was opposed only by the teenage Ulster hero
Also, throughout the Táin Bó Cúailnge Medb has several encounters with Cúchulainn in which he kills either her pets or handmaidens and the place in which they were killed is then named after them, which illustrates the importance of landscape throughout the text of the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Examples of this occur when Cúchulainn "slung a stone and killed a pet stoat as it sat on Medb's shoulder by her neck, south of the ford. Hence the name Meithe Togmaill, Stoat Neck"[21] and when he kills Medb's handmaid: "He slung a stone at her from the heights of Cuincu and killed her on the flat place that bears her name, Reid Locha, Locha's Level, in Cualinge".[21] Medb's behaviour further illustrates the importance of the landscape when she goes to great lengths to permanently alter it to show her contempt for Ulster. "She preferred to cross the mountain by leaving a track that would show forever her contempt for Ulster… to make the Pass of the Cualinge Cattle".[22]
Later years
Out of jealousy for his affair with Medb, Ailill had Fergus killed.[23] In his old age, after Conchobar's death, the Ulster hero Conall Cernach came to stay with Ailill and Medb, as they were the only household capable of supporting him. Medb tasked him to keep an eye on Ailill, who was seeing other women. Finding Ailill in flagrante, she ordered Conall to kill him, which he was happy to do in revenge for Fergus. However, the dying Ailill sent his men after him, and he was killed while trying to escape.[19]
Death
In her later years, Medb often went to bathe in a pool on Inchcleraun (Inis Cloithreann), an island on Lough Ree, near Knockcroghery. Furbaide sought revenge for the death of his mother. He took a rope and measured the distance between the pool and the shore, and practised with his sling until he could hit an apple on top of a stake Medb's height from that distance. The next time he saw Medb bathing he put his practice to good use and killed her with a piece of cheese. She was succeeded to the throne of Connacht by her son Maine Athramail.[14]
According to legend, Medb is buried in
Interpretations
The name "Connacht" is an apparent anachronism: the stories of the Ulster Cycle are traditionally set around the time of Christ, but the Connachta, after whom the province is named, were said to have been the descendants of Conn Cétchathach, who is supposed to have lived several centuries later. Later stories use the name Cóiced Ol nEchmacht as an earlier name for the province of Connacht to get around this problem. But the chronology of early Irish historical tradition is an artificial attempt by Christian monks to synchronise native traditions with classical and biblical history, and it is possible that the cycle has been chronologically misplaced.[32]
In Popular Culture
- In the adult superhero satire Dynamite Entertainment comic book series The Boys by Northern-Irish writer Garth Ennis and artist Darrick Robertson, "Queen Maeve" is the name and persona of a character parodying the DC Comics heroine Wonder Woman. Marketed by the corporate conglomerate Vought-American as a humanitarian warrior and a feminist role model for girls around the world, she is actually a bitter, apathic shadow of the hero she once was following the Seven's (an analogue for the Justice League) disastrously failed rescue mission of a hijacked airplane during the September 11th attacks in the events of this universe. She is typically found heavily drinking and smoking throughout the headquarters of the Seven, while on occasion enjoying sexual liaisons with male bodybuilders.
See also
- Maeve (Irish name)
- Irish mythology in popular culture
References
- ^ Ua Laoghaire, Peadar (1915). Táin Bó Cuailnge. p. 2.
- ISBN 0-1400-8517-3.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location (link - ^ Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. Myth, Legend & Romance: An encyclopaedia of the Irish folk tradition. Prentice Hall Press, 1991. pp. 294–295
- ^ a b Monaghan, Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore. Infobase Publishing, 2004. p.319
- ^ Koch, John T. Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2006. p.1282
- ^ a b c Irslinger, Britta. "Medb 'the intoxicating one'? (Re-)constructing the past through etymology". Ulidia 4: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, 2013.
- ^ Monaghan, Patricia. Goddesses in World Culture. ABC-CLIO, 2011. pp. 226–227
- ^ Bearna Mhéabha/Barnavave. Placenames Database of Ireland.
- ^ Bovevagh. Place Names NI.
- ^ Meascán Mhéabha. Placenames Database of Ireland.
- ^ Millín Mhéabha/Milleen Meva. Placenames Database of Ireland.
- ^ The Metrical Dindsenchas "Fert Medba" Poem 128
- ^
- ^ a b Vernam Hull, "Aided Meidbe: The Violent Death of Medb" Archived 29 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Speculum vol. 13 issue 1, Jan 1938, pp. 52–61
- ^ "Revue celtique". Paris. 1870.
- ^ A. H. Leahy (ed. & trans.), "Tain Bo Fraech" Archived 30 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Heroic Romances of Ireland vol. II, 1906.
- ISBN 9798397900447.
- ^ "Táin Bó Flidhais", Wikipedia, 27 October 2020, retrieved 5 July 2023
- ^ a b Kuno Meyer, "The Cherishing of Conall Cernach and the Deaths of Ailill and of Conall Cernach", Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie vol. 1, 1897, pp. 102–111
- ISBN 9783823354178– via Google Books.
- ^ a b Carson, Ciaran. "Guerilla Tactics." The Tain. New York: Penguin Group, 2007. 56–58. Print.
- ^ Carson, Ciaran. "Guerilla Tactics." The Tain. New York: Penguin Group, 2007. 59–60. Print.
- ^ Kuno Meyer, "The Death of Fergus mac Róich" Archived 22 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine, The Death-Tales of the Ulster Heroes.
- ^ Carey, John, "Medb Chruachna", in Dictionary of Irish Biography, published October 2009, Last revised April 2021
- ^ T. Ó Máille, "Medb Chruachna", Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, XVII (1928), pp. 129–46
- ISBN 9780786460052. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
- ^ Byrne, Francis John, Irish Kings and High-Kings. Four Courts Press, Dublin. 2nd edition, 2001
- ISBN 0-85105-178-2
- ^ Dexter, Miriam Robbins. "The Brown Bull of Cooley and Matriliny in Celtic Ireland" in From the Realm of the Ancestors: Essays in Honor of Marija Gimbutas: 218–236. Joan Marler, ed. Manchester, Connecticut: Knowledge Ideas and Trends, 1997.
- ^ Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala, "Rogha Dánta/Selected Poems", Raven Arts Press, 1988
- ^ Monaghan, Patricia, "The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog," New World Library, 2003, pp. 75–106
- ^ Francis J. Byrne, Irish Kings and High Kings, Four Courts Press, 2001, p. 50.
External links
- Ghosts between the Pages: The Devolution of Medb from Sovereignty Goddess to Comic Book Villainess and the Potential Dangers of the Transcription of Oral Tales
- Medb's Men, or the Battle of the Boyne
- Carn Furbaide from the Metrical DindshenchasVol 4
- Bricriu's Feast
- The Dream of Óengus
- The Cattle Raid of Fráech
- The Cattle Raid of Regamon
- The Raid for Dartaid's Cattle
- The Driving of Flidais's Cattle
- The Adventures of Nera
- The Cattle Raid of Cooley, recension 1
- The Cattle Raid of Cooley, recension 2
- The Death of Fergus mac Róich
- The Death of Cú Chulainn
- The Violent Death of Medb
- Ancient Goddess and Sovereign Queen Of the Celtic People, The White Moon Gallery