Here upon this pillow, made of reed and willow...

Does anyone else here happen to listen to the Decemberists? For those who don’t, they’re known for making a lot of music with historical and folklore references. So of course, naturally they have a 5 part, 20+ minute long song entitled....The Tain! The music video is a simple stop motion recreation of the major events that unfolded throughout the epic. I’ll include the link here for anyone who is interested: https://youtu.be/UOYZuaLg0J0

I found the imagery to be quite helpful in understanding the overall story, and I noticed in the comments that some students even had to watch this for assignments in their own classes that were studying The Tain. (This is good because now I can be sure it’s valid and relevant to share..)

Anyway, this brings me to the topics of discussion that I want to set up: First, use of imagery is an important way to better understand literature. This is probably part of why we must include it as an aid to our posts. I thought about this as we’ve read this story, because on its pages we can see a number of very basic brush stroke illustrations of figures that accompany the text. They appear ancient, although they are not, but were purposefully done this way as a less is more approach. Did you find them effective or ineffective aids which contributed to your ability to picture the events? Would you have preferred more detailed illustrations or do you agree with the translator and illustrator that it would have taken away from it and not allowed enough room for imagination?

Second: Like the Inanna Cycle, The Ulster Cycle is another case of several fragments of ancient text that a translator had to work incredibly hard to make into a cohesive and coherent piece of literature. So my final question is, although of course it’s wonderful that we have these translations, we must also accept that there is a great deal lost with each one. Do you ever think about how many of the pieces of the puzzle we’re missing when reading works like this? Whether in regard to certain language itself and it’s inability to be directly translated, fragments of the events that weren’t found or had to be filled in with each translator’s personal discretion, or even what changes when an epic goes from oral to written: is what we gain worth what must be given up when something is modernized? At what point does it just become a new story? In what ways do you think The Tain in particular differed when it first came about compared to now?

To Relate or to not relate.. That is all up to you.

Through my journey into reading The Tain, I found multiple situations in the story that were so similar to the previous stories read in this class that I couldn't help but to bring them all to your attention. It is always a fun little joy of mine to find things while reading that relate to another piece of literature or related to something in real life. Especially when they are such different pieces of work, like these.

To begin, the scene in which Ailill sends a "fool" to trick the opposing warriors into thinking it was him was unbelievably similar to Achilles's story with the death of Patroclus. I found myself with my mouth wide open at how funny it was to see the parallel to the stories. Of course these two scenes did have important differences though. For example, Patroclus stole Achilles's armor without him knowing and the fool was forced to dress up in the disguise by Ailill. Along with that, although they both died in the end, Patroclus successfully passed as Achilles and was killed because he was thought to be Achilles. The fool was killed because the plan failed and they knew that Ailill was trying to pull a fast one on them. Better luck next time Ailill.


Another parallel that I found from The Tain was with Inanna's Decent to the Underworld. In Inanna's story, we go through a long description of the stages Inanna took in order to enter the underworld. We followed her through every gate and watched her take off another piece of clothing or accessory. I see two scenes in The Tain that reminded me of that through description of Inanna's undressing. For example, we read a long and thorough section just devoted to Cuchulainn getting dressed for his battle. We know that Inanna's undressing was symbolic and important, that makes me wonder how important this preparation for battle was? The other scene that reminded me of Inanna was the death of Etarcomol. The author found it important to point out every little part of his death. First he cut off his clothes, then hair, then right in half. I think what makes me want to relate both these scenes back to Inanna is the attention to the small details. It makes me, and probably some of you, feel the need to pay attention because it seems so important.

My question for all of you would be, have you found anything in the story that can be related to another piece of writing you have ever read? Can you agree with my ideas or disagree?

The Pangs of Ulster!?!?

Now Crunniuc’s wife was the one to curse anyone within ear shot, with the pangs for four nights and five days, or five nights and four days. I understand that people had to with stand this event and afterwards were perfectly alright. The question I have is that, was this a once a year event, once in a lifetime, or perhaps more often?

Cuchulainn said that he had not slept for almost six months, while defending Ulster from the four provinces of Ireland. The entire time Cuchulainn was defending, Ulster did not produce any sort of army. Except, the boy troop that charged in while Cuchulainn was sleeping for three days. Why did Ulster not send forth the men they could, to help Cuchulainn fight? The pangs only lasted for four days and five nights? So how could Ulster not have not one man, to help Cuchulainn?

Was Ulster taking advantage of the honorable Cuchulainn? Letting him fight their entire battle for them, without bringing anyone, except all of the younger generation of boys. I think that Ulster was being a little greedy, letting their “hound” do all of the work in order to keep them safe.