Cattle Raid: An Analysis

Two immortal bulls of Sidhe, had been transformed from several other forms before, including ravens, water creatures, human champions and eventually eels. They were Kings at first, who were in rivalry with each other, and had changed shape to end their quarrel. Eventually the Kings had morphed into eels, and swam into the River Cruind in Cualgne in Ulster where they had both been swallowed by cows. One cow was belonging to Daire of Cualgne, and the other had belonged to Queen Medb, hence forth becoming the Brown Bull of Ulster, and the White Horned Bull of Connaught. The white horned bull had, not wanting to be property of a woman, wandered into the herd of Medb’s husbands. Queen Medb wanting to be equal to her husband had determined to get …show more content…
Medb thought that taking the bull would be easy since all the men of Ulster had been cursed by Macha, to experience the pains of labour at certain times of the year. Cú Chulainn because of his divine heritage was not affected by the curse of Macha resulting in him having to single-handedly defend Ulster from the army of Connaught at the age of seventeen. Cú Chulainn had placed geis and ambushed scouts in order to slow down Medb’s army and Cú Chulainn had managed to kill any of the warriors of Connaught that came against him in duels, and many more from a distance with his sling. Before one fight the Morrigan visits him in the form of a beautiful young lady and offers him her love, but her rejects her. She reveals herself and threatens to interfere in his next fight, which she does. She appears as an eel and trips him, then as a wolf who stampedes cattle, and finally as a heifer at the head of the stampede, but in each form Cu Chulainn manages to wound …show more content…
After defeating his opponent, the Morrigan appears again as an old woman milking a cow, with the same wounds that Cu Chulainn had given her in her other forms; she offers him three drinks of milk and with each drink he blesses her, and the blessings heal her wounds. After a particularly difficult fight, Cu Chulainn is visited by his father Lugh. Lugh puts Cu Chulainn to sleep for three days while he heals him, during this time the younger men of Ulster come to his aid, but are all slaughtered. When Cu Chulainn awakes, his body undergoes a distortion where his body twists in his skin making him an unrecognisable monster that avenges the young men and attacks the Connaught camp. After this incident, the single combat continues and eventually Medb sees how the duels were going and wanted to meet Cú Chulainn face to face. Medb was amazed to be faced with this young man, and had offered her friendship and sex with great honor and possessions if he would leave Ulster and to go work for her, but he refused her offer. Eventually he offered her terms of battle that as long as he was in combat with one of her warriors, her army was allowed to move forward, but as soon as the combat ended they were to stop where they were. Medb had agreed, and her warriors were able to distract Cú Chulainn long enough so that she could steal the Brown Bull and head back to