Varium. Cú Chulainn's battle-scars: a new interpretation of a quatrain in Aided Guill meic Carbada 7Aided Gairb Glinne Rige

Abstract

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3318/ERIU.2020.70.7 Ériu LXX (2020) 171–176 Royal Irish Academy VARIUM Cú Chulainn’s battle-scars: a new interpretation of a quatrain in Aided Guill meic Carbada 7 Aided Gairb Glinne Rige* DIL s.v. forrind ‘point (of a weapon), barb’ provides three examples.1 One of these is taken from a quatrain preserved in the late Middle Irish­prosimetric tale Aided Guill meic Carbada 7 Aided Gairb Glinne Rige (hereafter AG), edited by Stokes (1893). The word in question is found in the final line of the second couplet: ni ḟail díb ar talmain tend / crecht arna fagbaim fairrend, ‘Of them on the firm earth there is none for which I do not leave a spearpoint’, LL 12881 (trans. Stokes 1893, 423).2 Stokes’s translation of ­ fairrend as ‘spearpoint’ suggests he understood it as a word consisting of for- + rind ‘a point, tip, apex’ (DIL 1 rind), an i-stem. The editors of the Dictionary suggested emending tend … fairrend to tind … fairrind,3 presumably on the basis that a palatalised final -nd would be expected for an acc. sg. i-stem and therefore emendation to tind would also be needed to fulfil the requirement for deibide rhyme. In this note I revisit this proposed emendation in the Dictionary and provide a new analysis and interpretation of the second couplet in AG, suggesting that fairrend has a more nuanced meaning than forrind ‘barb, spearpoint’ and that perhaps no emendation is needed. AG recounts Cú Chulainn’s violent encounters with and the subsequent deaths of Goll mac Carbada and Garb Glinne Rige. After having slaughtered Goll mac Carbada, Cú Chulainn returns to Emain only to discover that it is abandoned. While Cú Chulainn was away, Conchobar and the Ulaid had gone to visit Dún Colptha at Cúailnge, at the invitation of the hospitaller Conall mac Gleó Glaiss. When Cú Chulainn learns of * This varium arose from an example and brief observation originally included in a note on n-stems which I submitted to Celtica 30 (2018). I am grateful to that journal’s peer-reviewer who suggested I should expand it for another publication. I am indebted to the editors of Ériu as well as to Liam Breatnach for their many helpful suggestions, comments and corrections , and to Nike Stam for reading an earlier draft. I, of course, am solely responsible for any remaining errors. 1 Two examples are from the LL recension of the Táin Bó Cúailgne: gen. pl. tríchu farrindi ,‘thirty barbs’ (O’Rahilly 1967, ll 3345–7, trans. 228–9); dat. pl. dá ḟorrindib,‘with its barbs’ (O’Rahilly 1967, ll 3359; trans. 229). In both instances, forrind refers to the ‘barbs’ that protrude from the gáe bolga cast by Cú Chulainn at Fer Diad. 2 There are two extant independent copies of AG, namely, Book of Leinster (TCD MS 1339 (H 2.18); hereafter LL), fol. 107b24–111b45; NLS Adv. MS 72.1.40 (hereafter K), fol. 29a1–37b25. LL was edited, with variant readings from K, and translated by Stokes (1893); for a diplomatic edition and translation of the LL text, accompanied by a diplomatic transcription of the Edinburgh text, see Hannan (1987). Fogarty (2005) provided a critical edition, with LL serving as the base-text, and a translation. For a discussion of the tale’s date of composition, see Fogarty (2005, 6–13). According to Fogarty (2005, 2–4) the copies of AG derive from a shared exemplar. I provide Stokes’s translation throughout this discussion, as this is the most easily accessible edition available. 3 See DIL s.v. forrind. 172 VARIUM Conchobar’s whereabouts, he sets out in pursuit of him. Cú Chulainn’s charioteer, Láeg mac Ríangabra, gives him a choice of two routes: a long and easy path or a short and difficult path. Láeg warns Cú Chulainn that he will encounter Garb of Glenn Rige on the short path, but Cú Chulainn states that no warrior will deter him.4 Cú Chulainn meets Garb and the two engage in battle, attacking each other violently with spears.5 Cú Chulainn...