Early Celtic people were surrounded on all sides by the natural world. They were continually aware of its presence, and their utter dependence on its balance and fertility for their basic nurture and comfort. Even for the most powerful king a harsh winter or a blight on the soil was a serious and sometimes life-endangering issue. Although Ireland’s mythology did not completely survive the conversion into Christianity, a large part of it was preserved in Irish literature. 70 Originally it was recorded in oral form and passed down through the centuries by the Druids, an intellectual religious group, not unlike the Christian monks. The oral traditions recorded history, mythology, and sometimes a combination of both. [...]
Táin Bó Cúailnge – it’s all about cattle!
Early Celtic people were surrounded on all sides by the natural world. They were continually aware of its presence, and their utter dependence on its balance and fertility for their basic nurture and comfort. Even for the most powerful king a harsh winter or a blight on the soil was a serious and sometimes life-endangering issue.Although Ireland’s mythology did not completely survive the conversion into Christianity, a large part of it was preserved in Irish literature.
Originally it was recorded in oral form and passed down through the centuries by the Druids, an intellectual religious group, not unlike the Christian monks. The oral traditions recorded history, mythology, and sometimes a combination of both.
Besides the large number of other, mostly folk-tales, the so-called „Táin Bó Cúailnge” or “The Cattle Raid of Cooley” is the most famous and central tale of the Ulster Cycle. Together with the Mythological Cycle, the Fenian Cycle and the Historical Cycle it makes up the four great cycles that form the surviving corpus of Irish mythology:
The Cattle-Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cúailnge) is the central epic of the Ulster cycle. Queen Medb of Connaught gathers an army in order to gain possession of the most famous bull in Ireland, which is the property of Daire, a chieftain of Ulster. Because the men of Ulster are afflicted by a debilitating curse, the seventeen-year-old Cuchulain must defend Ulster single-handedly.
But there is more to it than the bull stolen by Queen Medb of Connaught.
Because of the fact that they are living, moving, and growing, animals in Celtic and Welsh mythology are seen as symbols for fertility and vitality. They also provide vitality and continued life for the tribes through their meat, skins, and bones. In addition, they are a connection to the realm of spirits and the gods. This connection is seen through their use in the hunt, search for secrets and wisdom. The spiritual reflex to this state of affairs has produced a distinctive universal pattern of beliefs, known to anthropologists today under the name of “animism”. Put simply, this is a recognition of the essential aliveness of nature, not just in a biological sense but as a community of sentient entities, of which the human world was an integral part.
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- Michael Krause (Autor), 2006, Táin Bó Cúailnge - it's all about cattle!, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/67419
