Uisnech. [Note:  1 Text in Windisch and Stokes’s Irische Texte; English translation in Miss Hull’s Cuchullin Saga.] The Ulster mischief-maker, Bricriu of the Poison-tongue, was also with the Connaught army.  Though fighting for Connaught, the exiles have a friendly feeling for their former comrades, and a keen jealousy for the credit of Ulster.  There is a constant interchange of courtesies between them and their old pupil, Cuchulainn, whom they do not scruple to exhort to fresh efforts for Ulster’s honour.  An equally half-hearted warrior is Lugaid Mac Nois, king of Munster, who was bound in friendship to the Ulstermen.

Other characters who play an important part in the story are Findabair, daughter of Ailill and Medb, who is held out as a bribe to various heroes to induce them to fight Cuchulainn, and is on one occasion offered to the latter in fraud on condition that he will give up his opposition to the host; and the war-goddess, variously styled the Nemain, the Badb (scald-crow), and the Morrigan (great queen), who takes part against Cuchulainn in one of his chief fights.  Findabair is the bait which induces several old comrades of Cuchulainn’s, who had been his fellow-pupils under the sorceress Scathach, to fight him in single combat.

The tale may be divided into:—­

1.  Introduction:  Fedelm’s prophecy.

2.  Cuchulainn’s first feats against the host, and the several
   geis, or taboos, which he lays on them.

3.  The narration of Cuchulainn’s boyish deeds, by the Ulster exiles to the Connaught host.

4.  Cuchulainn’s harassing of the host.

5.  The bargain and series of single combats, interrupted by
   breaches of the agreement on the part of Connaught.

6.  The visit of Lug Mac Ethlend.

7.  The fight with Fer Diad.

8.  The end:  the muster of the Ulstermen.

The MSS.

The Tain Bo Cuailnge survives, in whole or in part, in a considerable number of MSS., most of which are, however, late.  The most important are three in number:—­

(1) Leabhar na h-Uidhri (LU), ‘The Book of the Dun Cow,’ a MS. dating from about 1100.  The version here given is an old one, though with some late additions, in later language.  The chief of these are the piece coming between the death of the herd Forgemen and the fight with Cur Mac Dalath (including Cuchulainn’s meeting with Findabair, and the ‘womanfight’ of Rochad), and the whole of what follows the Healing of the Morrigan.  The tale is, like others in this MS., unfinished, the MS. being imperfect.

(2) The Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL), a late fourteenth-century MS. The Tain in this is substantially the same as in LU.  The beginning is missing, but the end is given.  Some of the late additions of LU are not found here; and YBL, late as it is, often gives an older and better text than the earlier MS.

(3) The Book of Leinster (LL), before 1160.  The Tain here is longer, fuller, and later in both style and language than in LU or YBL.  It is essentially a literary attempt to give a complete and consistent narrative, and is much less interesting than the older LU-YBL recension.