The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge the Cualnge Cattle-Raid
424 pages
|Published: 6 Nov 2000
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This edition
ISBN: 9781406550269
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Publisher: Dodo Press
Description
Tain Bo Cuailnge ("the driving-off of cows of Cooley," more usually rendered The Cattle Raid of Cooley or The Tain) is the central tale in the Ulster Cycle, one of the four great cycles that make up the surviving corpus of Irish mythology. It is recorded in Old and Middle Irish, and is written mainly in prose, with some verse sections, especially at moments of heightened tension or emotion. The tale relates a war against Ulster by the Connacht queen Medb and her husband Ailill, who intend to steal the stud bull Donn Cuailnge, and the efforts of the teenage Ulster hero Cuchulainn to oppose them.