Echtra Cormaic

Manannán mac Lir sculpture by John Sutton at Gortmore, Magilligan, County Londonderry (2014).^[1]

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Echtra Cormaic or Echtra Cormaic i Tir Tairngiri (Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise) is a tale in Irish mythology which recounts the journey of the high-king Cormac mac Airt to the Land of Promise resided by the sea-god Manannán mac Lir.

Texts[]

The tale bears the full manuscript title "(Scel na Fir Flatha,) Echtra Cormaic i Tir Tairngiri ocus Ceart Claidib Cormaic in the text edited by Whitley Stokes, translated as "The Tale of the Ordeals, Cormac’s Adventure in the Land of Promise, and the Decision as to Cormac’s Sword". This edition uses the Book of Ballymote as base text, with readings from the Yellow Book of Lecan.^[2] The two texts exhibit only minor differences, and are together classed as the first recension, whose composition 1150–1200 on linguistic evidence, based on some earlier exemplar which is thought to have existed.^[3][4]

A second recension of the Echtra is found in the Book of Fermoy, edited and translated by Vernam Hall.^[5][4] Eugene O'Curry also translated an excerpt from it.^[6]

The story is also known as Fagháil Chraoibhe Cormaic,^[7] and has been edited by Standish H. O'Grady, and translated as "How Cormac mac Airt Got his Branch".^[8] This belongs in the third recension, in late Middle Irish. The manuscript used by O'Grady is unknown, but there are altogether 9 other paper MSS. in existence, none earlier than 1699.^[3][4]

O'Grady's translation was condensed and reprinted in one of Joseph Jacobs's anthologies.^[9] The chapter "His Three Calls to Cormac" is a retelling of the narrative by Lady Augusta Gregory in her book, Gods and Fighting Men.^[10]

Summary[]

Summaries have been provided by Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville^[11] as well as by Alfred Nutt.^[12] 　

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The story begins on an early May morning when King Cormac, standing upon Tara's ramparts, "saw an armed man coming towards him, quiet, with high looks, and having grey hair; a shirt ribbed with gold thread next his skin, broad shoes of white bronze between his feet and the ground, a shining branch having nine apples of red gold."^[10] Such peace and beauty emanated from this man that the King flung open his gates and welcomed him to his court, speaking with him for many long hours. During this time the warrior told the King of his homeland. "I come," he said, "from a country where there is nothing but truth, and where there is neither age nor withering away, nor heaviness, nor sadness, nor jealousy, nor envy, nor pride."^[10]

Cormac delighted in this and the two avowed friendship, but not before the King asked for the warrior's silver branch as a token of the bond between them. The man accepted and gave the branch to the King, but on the condition that he in turn must be granted three wishes – a bargain that Cormac is quick to accept. That being done, the mysterious warrior left Tara as quickly and as quietly as he had come. As to the silver branch, "'delight and amusement to the full was it to listen to the music of that branch, for men sore wounded, or women in child-bed, or folk in sickness, would fall asleep at the melody when that branch was shaken.'" In short, it's music – haunting and beautiful – provided sleep and healing and the King used it for both healing and entertaining his court.

A year passed before the mysterious warrior returned quite suddenly and with no forward warning. "I have come so that you may grant me my first wish," he said in grave and ominous tones. The King, though nervous, promised to grant it. "Give me your daughter!" the warrior demanded, and as Cormac handed Aille, his bright and only daughter, to him, they both vanished in a swirl of mist. "So he brought away the girl with him, and the women of Ireland gave three loud cries after the king's daughter. But Cormac shook the branch at them, until it put away sorrow from them, and put them all into their sleep".^[10]

A month later the warrior returned and, in like manner, demanded King Cormac's only son, Carpre Lifeca; then, several days later, returned to have his third and final wish fulfilled, that being Ethne, Cormac's wife and Queen. This was too much for Cormac, and so the grief-stricken King mustered and marched forth with a great host from Tara, his intention being to find and rescue his family. What he found, and his manner of finding it, was not what he expected however. For "in the middle of the Plain of the Wall, a thick mist came on them, and when it was gone, Cormac found himself alone on a great plain. And he saw a great dun in the middle of the plain, with a wall of bronze around it, and in the dun a house of white silver, and it half thatched with the white wings of birds. And there was a great troop of the Riders of the Sidhe all about the house, and their arms full of white bird's wings for thatching. But as soon as they would put on the thatch, a blast of wind would come and carry it away again".^[10]

Then he saw a man kindling a fire, and he used to throw a thick oak-tree upon it. And when he would come back with a second tree, the first one would be burned out. "I will be looking at you no longer," Cormac said then, "for there is no one here to tell me your story, and I think I could find good sense in your meanings if I understood them," he said.

Then he went on to where there was another dun, very large and royal, and another wall of bronze around it, and four houses within it. And he went in and saw a great king's house, having beams of bronze and walls of silver, and its thatch of the wings of white birds. And then he saw on the green a shining well, and five streams flowing from it, and the armies drinking water in turn, and the nine lasting purple hazels of Buan growing over it. And they were dropping their nuts into the water, and the five salmon would catch them and send their husks floating down the streams. And the sound of the flowing of those streams is sweeter than any music that men sing.

Cormac then entered the mystical palace, finding there waiting for him a man and a woman, very tall, and having clothes of many hues. The man was beautiful as to shape, and his face wonderful to look at; and as to the young woman that was with him, she was the loveliest of all the women of the world, and she having yellow hair and a golden helmet. And there was a bath there, and heated stones going in and out of the water of themselves, and Cormac bathed himself in it.

"Rise up, man of the house," the woman called out upon the end of his bath, "for this is a comely traveler is come to us; and if you have one kind of food or meat better than another, let it be brought in." The man rose up then and he said: "I have but seven pigs, but I could feed the whole world with them, for the pig that is killed and eaten to-day, you will find it alive again to-morrow."

Then entered another man, this one bearing an axe in his right hand and a log in his left with a pig following behind him. "It is time to make ready," said the man of the house, "for we have a high guest with us to-day." Then the man struck the pig and killed it, and he cut the logs and made a fire and put the pig on it in a cauldron.

"It is time for you to turn it," said the master of the house after a while. "There would be no use doing that," said the man, "for never and never will the pig be boiled until a truth is told for every quarter of it." "Then let you tell yours first," said the master of the house.^[10]

"One day," said the man, "I found another man's cows in my land, and I brought them with me into a cattle pound. The owner of the cows followed me, and he said he would give me a reward to let the cows go free. So I gave them back to him, and he gave me an axe, and when a pig is to be killed, it is with the axe it is killed, and the log is cut with it, and there is enough wood to boil the pig, and enough for the palace besides. And that is not all, for the log is found whole again in the morning. And from that time till now, that is the way they are."

"It is true indeed that story is," said the man of the house.

They turned the pig in the cauldron then, and but one quarter of it was found to be cooked. "Let us tell another true story," they said. "I will tell one," said the master of the house. "Ploughing time had come, and when we had a mind to plough that field outside, it is the way we found it, ploughed, and harrowed, and sowed with wheat. When we had a mind to reap it, the wheat was found in the haggard, all in one thatched rick. We have been using it from that day to this, and it is no bigger and no less."^[9]

Then they turned the pig, and another quarter was found to be ready. "It is my turn now," said the woman. "I have seven cows," she said, "and seven sheep. And the milk of the seven cows would satisfy the whole of the men of the world, if they were in the plain drinking it, and it is enough for all the people of the Land of Promise, and it is from the wool of the seven sheep all the clothes they wear are made." And at that story the third quarter of the pig was boiled.

"If these stories are true," said Cormac to the man of the house, "you are Manannan, and this is Manannan's wife; for no one on the whole ridge of the world owns these treasures but himself. It was to the Land of Promise he went to look for that woman, and he got those seven cows with her."

They said to Cormac that it was his turn now. So Cormac told them how his wife, and his son, and his daughter, had been brought away from him, and how he himself had followed them till he came to that place.

And with that the whole pig was boiled, and they cut it up, and Cormac's share was put before him. "I never used a meal yet," said he, "having two persons only in my company." The man of the house began singing to him then, and put him asleep. And when he awoke, he saw fifty armed men, and his son, and his wife, and his daughter, along with them. There was great gladness and courage on him then, and ale and food were given out to them all. And there was a gold cup put in the hand of the master of the house, and Cormac was wondering at it, for the number of the shapes on it, and for the strangeness of the work. "There is a stranger thing yet about it," the man said; "let three lying words be spoken under it, and it will break into three, and then let three true words be spoken under it, and it will be as good as before." So he said three lying words under it, and it broke in three pieces. "It is best to speak truth now under it," he said, "and to mend it. And I give my word, Cormac," he said, "that until to-day neither your wife or your daughter has seen the face of a man since they were brought away from you out of Teamhair, and that your son has never seen the face of a woman." And with that the cup was whole again on the moment. "Bring away your wife and your children with you now," he said, "and this cup along with them, the way you will have it for judging between truth and untruth. And I will leave the branch with you for music and delight, but on the day of your death they will be taken from you again." "And I myself," he said, "am Manannan, son of Lir, King of Tír na nÓg, and I brought you here by enchantments that you might be with me to-night in friendship.

"And the Riders you saw thatching the house," he said, "are the men of art and poets, and all that look for a fortune in Ireland, putting together cattle and riches. For when they go out, all that they leave in their houses goes to nothing, and so they go on for ever.

"And the man you saw kindling the fire," he said, "is a young lord that is more liberal than he can afford, and every one else is served while he is getting the feast ready, and every one else profiting by it.

"And the well you saw is the Well of Knowledge, and the streams are the five streams through which all knowledge goes. And no one will have knowledge who does not drink a draught out of the well itself or out of the streams. And the people of many arts are those who drink from them all."

And on the morning of the morrow, when Cormac rose up, he found himself on the green of Teamhair, and his wife, and his son, and his daughter, along with him, and he having his branch and his cup. And it was given the name of Cormac's Cup, and it used to judge between truth and falsehood among the Gael. But it was not left in Ireland after the night of Cormac's death, as Manannan had foretold him.^[10]

References[]

Citations

Bibliography

External links[]

• http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/gafm/index.htm
• http://www.manannan.net/library/Lady%20Gregory/His%20Three%20Calls%20to%20Cormac.htm
• http://www.luminarium.org/mythology/ireland/index.html