Kimbay and the Founding of Emain Macha
With Kimbay (Cimbaoth),about 300 B.C., we come to a landmark in history.
"All the historical records of the Irish, prior to Kimbay, were dubious
"- so, with remarkable critical acumen for his age, wrote the eleventh-century
historian Tierna of Clonmacnois ["Omnia monumenta Scotorum ante Cimbaoth
incerta erant."
Tierna of Clonmacnois, who died in 1088, was Abbot of Clonmacnois, a great monastic
and educational cantre in medieval Ireland. There is much that is dubious in
those that follow, but we are certainly on firmer historical ground. With the
reign of Kimbay one great fact emerges into light: we have the foundation of
the kingdom of Ulster at its centre, Emain
Macha, a name redolent to the Irish student of legendary splendour and heroism.
Emain Macha is now represented by the grassy ramparts of a great hill-fortress
close to Ard Macha (Armagh). According
to one of the derivations offered in Keating's "History of Ireland, "
Emain is derived from eo,a bodkin, and muin, the neck,
the word being thus equivalent to "brooch," and Emain Macha means
the Brooch of Macha. An Irish brooch was a large circular wheel of gold or bronze,
crossed by a long pin, and the great circular rampart surrounding a Celtic fortress
might well be imaginatively likened to the brooch of a giantess guarding her
cloak, or territory.
The legend of Macha tells that she was the daughter of Red
Hugh, an Ulster prince who had two brothers, Dithorba and Kimbay. They
agreed to enjoy, each in turn, the sovranty of Ireland. Red Hugh came first,
but on his death Macha refused to give up the realm and fought Dithorba for
it, whom she conquered and slew. She then, in equally masterful manner, compelled
Kimbay to wed her, and ruled all Ireland as queen. I give the rest of the
tale in the words of Standish O'Grady:
"The five sons of Dithorba, having been expelled out of Ulster, fled
across the Shannon, and in the west of the kingdom plotted against Macha.
Then the Queen went down alone into Connacht and found the brothers in the
forest, where, wearied with the chase, they were cooking a wild boar which
they had slain, and were carousing before a fire which they had kindled. She
appeared in her grimmest aspect, as the war-goddess, red all over, terrible
and hideous as war itself but with bright and flashing eyes. One by one the
brothers were inflamed by her sinister beauty, and one by one she overpowered
and bound them. Then she lifted her burthen of champions upon her back and
returned with them into the north. With the spear of her brooch she marked
Out on the plain the circuit of the city of Emain Macha, whose ramparts and
trenches were constructed by the captive princes, labouring like slaves
under her command."
Upon a son of Ailill's named Maon, about whom a number of legends
Maon, as a child, was
brought into Covac's presence, and was there compelled, says Keating, to swallow
a portion of his father's and grandfather's hearts, and also a mouse with
her young. From the disgust he felt, the child lost his speech, and seeing
him dumb, and therefore innocuous, Covac let him go. The boy was then taken
into Munster, to the kingdom of Feramorc, of which Scoriath was king, and
remained with him some time, but afterwards went to Gaul, his great-grandmother
Kesair's country, where his guards told the king that he was heir to the throne
of Ireland, and he was treated with great honour and grew up into a noble
youth. But he left behind him in the heart of Moriath, daughter of the King
of Feramorc, a passion that could not be stilled, and she resolved to bring
him back to Ireland. She accordingly equipped her father's harper, Craftiny,
with many rich gifts, and wrote for him a love-lay, in which her passion for
Maon was set forth, and to which Craftiny composed an enchanting melody. Arrived
in France, Craftiny made his way to the king's court, and found occasion to
pour out his lay to Maon. So deeply stirred was he by the beauty and passion
of the song that his speech returned to him and he broke out into praises
of it, and was thenceforth dumb no more. The King of Gaul then equipped him
with an armed force and sent him to Ireland to regain his kingdom. Learning
that Covac was at a place near at hand named Dinrigh, Maon and his body of
Gauls made a sudden attack upon him and slew him there and then, with all
his nobles and guards. After the slaughter a Druid of Covac's company asked
one of the Gauls who their Ieader was. "The Mariner" (Loingseach),replied
the Gaul, meaning the captain of the fleet - i.e., Maon. "Can
he speak?" inquired the Druid, who had begun to suspect the truth. "He
does speak"
(Labraidh),said the man; and henceforth the name "Labra the Mariner"
clung to Maon son of Ailill nor was he known by any other. He then sought
out Moriath, wedded her, and reigned over Ireland ten years.
From this invasion of
the Gauls the name of the province of Leinster is traditionally derived. They
were armed with spears having broad blue-green iron heads called laighne(pronounced
"lyna"), and as they were allotted lands inLeinster and settled
there) the province wascalled in Irish Laighin ("Ly-in")
after them-the Province of the Spearmen. [The ending ster in
three of the names of the Irish provinces is of Norse origin, arid is a relic
of the Viking conquests in Ireland. Connacht, where the Vikings did not penetrate,
alone preserve: its Irish name unmodified. Ulster (Ulaidh)
is supposed to derive its name from Ollav
Fola, Munster (Mumhan) from King Eocho Mumho, tenth in succesion
from Eremon, and Connacht was "the land of the children of Conn "-
he who was called Conn of the Hundred Battles, and who died A.D.157]
Of Labra the Mariner,
after his accession, a curious tale is told. He was accustomed, it is said,
to have his hair cropped but once a year, and the man to do this was chosen
by lot, and was immediately afterwards put to death. The reason of this was
that, like King Midas in the similar Greek myth, he had long ears like those
of a horse, and he would not have this deformity known. Once it fell, however,
that the person chosen to crop his hair was the only son of a poor widow,
by whose tears and entreaties the king was prevailed upon to let him live,
on condition that he swore by the Wind and Sun to tell no man what he might
see. The oath was taken, and the young man returned to his mother. But by-and-by
the secret so preyed on his mind that he fell into a sore sickness, and was
near to death, when a wise Druid was called in to heal him "It is the
secret that is
killing him," said the Druid, "and he will never be well till he
reveals it. Let him therefore go along the high-road till he come to a place
where four roads meet. Let him there turn to the right, and the first tree
he shall meet on the road, let him tell his secret to that, and he shall be
rid of it, and recover. So the youth did; and the first tree was a willow.
He laid his lips close to the bark, whispered his secret to it, and went home,
light-hearted as of old. But it chanced that shortly after this the harper
Craftiny broke his harp and needed a new one, and as luck would have it the
first suitable tree he came to was the willow that had the king's secret.
He cut it down, made his harp from it, and performed that night as usual in
the king's hall; when, to the amazement of all, as soon as the harper touched
the strings the assembled guests heard them chime the words, "Two horse's
ears hath Labra the Mariner." The king then, seeing that the secret was
out, plucked off his hood and showed himself plainly; nor was any man put
to death again on account of this mystery. We have seen that the compelling
power of Craftiny's music had formerly cured Labra's dumbness. The sense of
something magical in music, as though supernatural powers spoke through it,
is of constant recurrence in Irish legend.
