Noínden Ulad
Noínden Ulad [ 'Noinʴdʴen' ulað ], also called Ces (s) Ulad (both: "The weakness / the state of weakness of the Ulter") is the title of a Remscéla (prehistory) of the Táin Bó Cuailnge ("The cattle robbery of Cooley "). It belongs to the Ulster cycle of Irish mythology and has been handed down in three almost identical versions: in Leabhar Buidhe Lecain ("The Yellow Book of Lecan"), in Lebor Laignech ("The Book of Leinster") and in another manuscript.
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In the story of the cattle robbery of Cooley, the cause of the weakness ( noínden, ces ) of the Ulter in this war between Ulster and Connacht is assumed to be known.
The large farmer ( briuga ) Crunnchú is widowed, but one day a beautiful woman asks him to take her in. The woman is Macha ingen Sainrith meic Imbaith ("Macha, daughter of the peculiar of the son of the sea"?), A sidhe (fairy). She makes sure that his property grows, sleeps with him and becomes pregnant, but forbids him to ask or speak of her depending on her name. When Crunnchú is called to the annual festival meeting ( oenach ) at the royal court of Ulster, Macha warns him not to tell about her, because that would mean the end of their life together. But Crunnchú brags at a horse race that his wife can run faster than all of the king's victorious horses. The latter then has him locked up and threatens to execute him if his wife cannot prove this insult. The king has Macha fetched, forces her to give her name and although Macha is heavily pregnant, she has to obey the order and actually wins the race with the horses. But then, with great pain, she gives birth to a pair of twins, a boy and a girl. In one version of the legend, a child is said to have been a foal, Cú Chulainn's favorite horse Liath Macha . For this crime committed against her she curses the Ulter and prophesies that the male descendants of Ulster would have to endure the weakness of labor for five days and four nights at the moment of greatest need and danger and would therefore be just as helpless as a woman giving birth. Then Macha dies of exhaustion.
The seat of the kings of Ulster was therefore called Emain Macha ("Macha's Twins") (now Navan Fort in County Armagh ).
See also
literature
- Helmut Birkhan : Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7001-2609-3 .
- Bernhard Maier : Lexicon of Celtic Religion and Culture (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 466). Kröner, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-520-46601-5 .
- Ingeborg Clarus : Celtic Myths. Man and his otherworld. Walter Verlag 1991, ppb edition Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf, 2000, 2nd edition, ISBN 3-491-69109-5 .
Web links
- Chapter Macha, wife of Cruinniuc in the article Macha of the English language Wikipedia
- Marketing Apocalypse: Eschatology, Escapology and the Illusion of the End . In: Stephen Brown, Jim Bell, David Carson (Eds.): Routledge advances in management and business studies . tape 2 . Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-17356-6 , pp. 151 ff . (English, 291 p., limited preview in Google book search).