Quips and Cranks of the Ancient Irish

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QUIPS AND CRANKS OF THE ANCIENT IRISH

"Three accomplishments of Ireland," saith the Yellow Book
of Lecan, 1 — "a witty stave, a tune on a harp, shaving a face."
Which being interpreted, is simply to say that the Irish are
exceeding dexterous in mind and soul and body. The anti-
climax you relish in proportion to your strain of Celtic blood ;
"thirdly" is just a bit of Irish banter, the way it would set a
neat finish to the triad. You have here a whimsical summary of
Irish traits which is in itself an illustration. A witty stave and
a tune on a harp are the two dexterities of that exuberant and
prolific thing, the Irish temperament, — a thing "unchainable as
the dim tide."

"Three requisites of a harper," pursues the Yellow Book, —
"a tune to make you cry, a tune to make you laugh, a tune to
put you to sleep." 2 Since Macpherson and Yeats and Synge
have modernized the sweetest and saddest cullings from Ancient
Irish lore, we are wont to sense those old folk as "titanically
melancholy," mystic and ghostly-melodious. All the olden
tunes seem tunes to make you cry, harp-echoes from a world of
wandering Deirdres, tragic Naisis, lost Etains. William Carleton 3
says of his native tongue that it has "the finest and most copious
vocabulary in the world for the expression of either sorrow or
love." But under the glamorous gray mist that Yeats and Synge
have cast over the primitive stories, we find that multitudinous
vocabulary spilled as plentifully in imprecations and puns and
quirks and satires, as in keenings. The Ancient Irish were as
sensitive to absurdity as to melting pathos. The world they
sketched in their old volumes of the quaint titles is not merely a
weird and magic land, but a material country of thoroughly and
delightfully human people. There is an abundance of "tunes
to make you laugh," —

*A vellum of the fourteenth century, compiled from much older traditional
proverbs, edited and translated by Kuno Meyer, Todd Lecture Series, Vol. 1 3,
"Triads of Ireland," p. 11.

2 1 bid., p. 17.

* Traits and Stories of the Irish, Vol. 1, Int.

314 The Sewanee Review

" Music foaming up out of the house
Like wine out of the cup." *

Alongside the folk of enchanted lives and tragic deaths are
purely human comedy characters. Queen Medb of Connaught,
for example, — "passionate Maev," in Yeats, "with a long, pale
face," — in the Book of the Dun Cow is scheming Medb, and
meddling Medb, and sometimes Medb the shrew. She is sung
to a jolly tune by her rival provincemen, the Ulsterites. There
is blundering Fergus of the hearty loyalty, an exiled Ulsterman,
Falstaffianly simple and the butt of practical jokes ; and Bricriu
the Poison-tongued, who for his too sharp wits got from Fergus
blows about the head that "were a lasting hurt to him." * There
is humor painted with a camel's-hair brush, and humor laid on
with a broad and lavish hand, — a little too broad, sometimes,
for our prudish modern tastes. If you look for wit and humor
amongst the Ancient Irish sagas, you will find —

" Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles," —

and eye-twinkles, and Irish shrugs, and chuckles, and guffaws.

The stock of Ancient Irish literature is truly vast; scholars
will delve for years before they make over the last of it into
modern tongues. But, at that, the written compositions form
hardly a skeleton of the enormous bulk of Irish imaginative
creation. The Ancient Irish wrote down no more of their tales
and songs, in proportion, than you or I would jot on the back
of a calling-card for an after-dinner speech ; and their expatiations
on a given outline, I venture to say, would double or treble
ours. They were a people of exceeding fertile fancy, gloriously
untrammeled by the "despotism of fact," gifted beyond nature
with what some deem a dangerous gift, improvisation. Alfred
Nutt says, "In life he [the Celt] has neglected fact; in art he
transcends fact. The distinguishing note of Celtic art is fancy."
The Irish temperament is a rollicking unharnessed river of

4 Yeats, Deirdre, in Works, Vol. 2, p. 137.

5 "Adventures of Nera," an introductory tale to the great Ulster cycle, The
Cattle-raid of Cualnge, edited and translated by Kuno Meyer, Revue
Celtique, Vol. 10, p. 227.

Quips and Cranks of the Ancient Irish 315

laughter and tears, tumbling down the ages ; a few sparkling
drops have splashed onto the leaves of books, and the rest goes
singing its bubbly way in the sunny hearts of the people. If,
therefore, we can find even hints of sprightly jests on the yellowed
pages, we can credit those primitive people with blithe and
merry hearts.

"Sentimental," said Matthew Arnold, 6 "if the Celtic nature is
to be characterized by a single term, is the best word to take.
An organization quick to feel impressions, and feeling them very
strongly; a lively personality therefore, keenly sensitive to joy
and sorrow; this is the main point. If the downs of life too
much outnumber the ups, this temperament, just because it is so
quickly and nearly conscious of all impressions, may no doubt
seem shy and wounded ; it may be seen in wistful regret, it may
be seen in passionate, penetrating melancholy ; but its essence is
to aspire ardently after life, light and emotion, to be expansive,

adventurous, and gay The Celt is often called sensual;

but it is not so much the vulgar satisfactions of sense that attract
him as emotion and excitement."

"Like the Japanese," says Kuno Meyer,' "the Celts were
always quick to take an artistic hint ; they avoid the obvious and
the commonplace; the half-said thing to them is dearest."

These are modern critics' conceptions of the folk of Old Erin.
The nimble Celts themselves, some six hundred years ago, in
the Speckled Book, described them to the same point. Here is
their sketch of an Irishman in that precocious age : 8 —

"A youngster of deep lore, entertaining and delightful.
And he must be well served ; for he is melancholy, passionate,
impetuous, violent, and impatient; and he is eager, fond of
eating early ; and he is voracious, niggardly, greedy ; and yet
he is mild and gentle, .... and easily moved to laughter.
And he is a man great in thanksgiving and in upbraidings.
And no wonder ; for he has wit both to censure and to praise
the hearth of a well-appointed, gentle, fine, mirthful house
with a mead-hall."

' 'Works (Macmillan, 1903), Vol. 5, p. 84.
''Ancient Irish Poetry. Introduction, xiii.

8 Vision of MacConglinne, edited and translated by Kuno Meyer, from a
g Hum compiled in the fourteenth century, p. 86.

316 The Sewanee Review

If it seems to us that this description is somewhat more than
"half-said," we may remember that the narrator with no effort
at all could have reeled off as much again. Celtic descriptions
are a "series of pictures," as Doctor Meyer says, "light and
skilful"; but the series is infinite. The well of an Irishman's
fancy never runs dry.

In brief, the makers of staves and tunes were naively paradox-
ical; they were a lavish accumulation of unorganized traits.
They were keen and impractical ; devout and unmoral ; gallant
and pugnacious ; evanescent and earthy ; delicate and indelicate.
They had all qualities in abundance and none in proportion.

Such were the people who fathered the thing we call Irish
humor. Personality and works are so inextricably entangled
in the Irishman, that we can only say of them as King Cormac
said of women in a ninth-century dissertation on the subject :
"I distinguish them but I make no difference between them."
Which is equivalent to saying that there is no dealing with Irish
humor without rambling over all things Irish, and there is no
defining Irish humor save in terms of its infinite variety. And
so, foregoing the scholarly habit of defining terms, let us be
Irish and get at conclusions by the pleasantest road, by wander-
ing down the primrose path of Celtic waggery.

A triad classification of the types of humor, as inclusive and
careless as a real Irish triad, might be something like this: Puns,
pure facetiousness, and satire.

The puns alone would fill a volume. But, as MacConglinne
the poet said of the virtues attending his song, "a few of them
are enough for an example." 9 Redg the satirist met his death
with as execrable a pun on his lips as elicits groans from modern
audiences. It was during the Cattle-raid of Cualnge, in the
glamorous ages, when Queen Medb of Connaught sent the
satirist on the strategic errand of unarming the hero Cuchullin.
He was to demand of the hero his spear ; and whoever denied a
satirist a gift ran the horrible risk of being satirized. When
Redg threatened Cuchullin with such a revenge, Cuchullin
threw the javelin at him, and it went right through his head.

* Vision of MacConglinne, op. cit., p. no.

Quips and Cranks of the Ancient Irish 317

"This gift is overwhelming," said the satirist; and he dropped
down dead. 10

At another time during the same raid, there came a rash and
reckless youngster to Cuchullin, aching for a fight "Etarcomol
remains looking at Cuchullin," runs the story. 11 " 'What are
you looking at?' said Cuchullin. 'You,' said Etarcomol. 'The
eye soon compasses it indeed,' said Cuchullin. 'That is what
I see,' said Etarcomol." He got his fight.

There is an American type of jest which runs something like
this: '"Here comes Cy.' 'Cy who?' 'Cy-clone.'" The Ulster
cycle of Celtic sagas contains a number of such shifted meanings.
Here is one, again from the Cattle-raid of Cualnge. The sons
of Catalin attacked King Conchobar. One of them seized
Conchobar's spear, and brandishing it cried, "Who will fall by
this spear?" "A king will fall by it," chorused the sons of
Catalin. Lugaid hurled the spear at Conchobar, but it struck
only the charioteer. A little later his brother Ere tried a throw
with the same spear. "Who will fall by this spear?" he howled.
"A king will fall by it," chorused the gallant sons again. "So
you said when Lugaid threw," objected Ere. "That is true,"
said they, "and the king of chariot-drivers fell!""

Another anecdote, of these same Catalinians, leads us through
puns into a bit of quiet irony. They attacked Cuchullin in
unequal fight, and Fiacha, an exiled Ulsterman who was fighting
on the Connaught side, could not bear to see his own country-
man so unfairly beset. He pulled out his sword and "hit the
nine and twenty hands off Catalin and his sons with one blow." ls

"'That was done quiet and easy, my good comrade," said
Cuchullin. 'You may think it quiet and easy I was,' said
Fiacha, 'but if what I did is heard of in the camp, the reward
that will fall on me will not be quiet and easy.'

w Cattle-raid of Cualnge, edited and translated by Farraday, p. 60. The
Cattle-raid is the chief story of the heroic cycle of Ulster, dealing with King
Conchobar (who lived at the opening of the Christian era) and his illegiti-
mate fairy-son Cuchullin. The translation is from the Book of the Dun
Cow (1100), the Book of Leinster (n6o),and the Yellow Book of Lecan
(fourteenth century) . lx Ibid., p. 52.

^Cuchullain of Murthemne, by Lady Gregory, p. 238. A modern version
and secondary source, based on translations and folk stories. The later
spelling of Medb is Maev. n Ibid., p. 221 .

3i 8 The Sewanee Review

"'I give you my word,' said Cuchullin, 'that now I have
lifted my head and got my breath again, unless you tell tales on
yourself, none of these men will tell tales on you.' "

Then Cuchullin attacked them and killed all but one. "Glas
the son of Delga got away and ran, but Cuchullin rushed after
him and gave him a great blow. But he got as far as Ailill and
Maev's tent, and all he could say was, Fiacha ! Fiacha ! before
he fell dead.

"Fergus and Maev said, 'What debts are those he called out
about?' — for 'fiacha' is the word for a debt in Irish. 'I do not
know indeed,' said Fergus, 'unless it might be someone in the
camp owed him a debt and that it was on his mind.' 'That
must have been so,' said Ailill. 'By my word,' said Fergus,
'however it was, all his debts are paid now.' "

The play of meaning in "fiacha" leading into the ironic
platitude is delicious ; unless you object to taking your puns and
ironies from deathbed scenes.

But speaking of irony, here is a little touch of it, as dry and
ingenious as George Eliot's own. It comes from the story of
MacDathds Boar. 1 * The plot itself is humorous : MacDatho of
Leinster had a wonderful hound, which was desired by Medb of
Connaught and by Conchobar of Ulster. When the ambassadors
came from those provinces making official request for the dog,
MacDatho, knowing the peppery temper of his countrymen,
trembled to offend either party by giving the animal to the
other. In the quandary his wife — Strategy, thy name is
woman! — offered the delicate solution of promising the dog to
both sides and then stirring up a quarrel between them to fight
it out. Accordingly, they planned to have the Connaughtmen
and the Ulstonians arrive at the same time ; which would mean
a feast of the two armies together; which would necessitate
deciding the awarding of the "hero's portion" of meat (the first
choice) ; which would inevitably precipitate a battle royal. So
far the story-teller relates with naive biuntness ; and then comes
this exquiste touch of irony :

"Then they slaughtered for them MacDatho's boar; for seven

"Leahy, Heroic Romances of Ireland^ o\. i, p. 41.

Quips and Cranks of the Ancient Irish 319

years had that boar been nurtured upon the milk of fifty cows,
but surely venom must have entered into its nourishment, so
many of the men of Ireland did it cause to die."

Of ironic raillery there is a rich specimen, more obvious and
twinkling than this subtle bit, in the Old Irish wonder-tale, The
Vision of MacConglinne, — written down in the Speckled Book
of the fourteenth century and translated in 1 892 by Kuno Meyer.
Someone has called it "a veritable cockayne." A little dabbling
in it will show the sparkle of its airy persiflage.

Upon a time the poet MacConglinne — he tells it himself —
made a journey, after the fashion of poets, to Cork. He found
the guest-house in horrible shape, and no one to visit him or
honor him. He began reciting his poetry at the top of his voice ;
but everyone in Cork thought it was his neighbor singing, and
paid no attention. "This came of original sin," says the poet, in
neat sarcasm. "And of MacConglinne's hereditary sin ; and of
his own plain- working hard luck !"

About bedtime it occurred to the old Abbot of Cork that a
guest was with them, and he ordered rations sent to him. The
portion consisted of a cup of church whey- water. "Ah!" said
MacConglinne when he saw the repast, —

" My boy,
Why should we not have a duel in quatrains?
A quatrain compose on the bread,
And I will make one on the relish ! "

The abbot was wroth at his impudence, and had him stripped
and scourged and locked in the guest-house overnight ; for Sunday
eve's portion must not be mocked at, quoth the abbot, when
there is the comfort of the morrow's psalms and preaching and
alms-giving to look forward to !

MacConglinne took from his satchel two wheaten cakes and
a slice of old bacon which he had brought with him. He pro-
ceeded to the comfort of almsgiving. He cut off the tenth part
of each cake, "decently and justly." "Here are tithes, ye
monks of Cork," he said; "to him who is poorest, let them be
fed." And therewith he ate the tithes himself, and afterward
the rest of his meal.

For this additional impudence the monks vowed to crucify

320 The Sewanee Review

him; the last request that he said he wished to make was "my
fill of generous juicy food and of tasty intoxicating ale, .... a
gorging feast of a fortnight for me before going to the meeting
with death!"

The monks left him alone overnight to repent of his sins.
And "thereupon he shaped a little rhyme of his own," and in
the morning he desired politely to relate a "vision" which had
appeared to him. This is the rhyme he then recited : —

" Bless us, cleric, famous pillar of learning,
Son of honey-bag, son of juice, son of lard,

Son of stirabout, son of pottage, son of fair speckled fruit clusters,
Son of smooth clustering cream, son of buttermilk, son of curds,
Son of beer (glory of liquors ! ) , son of pleasant bragget," —

and so on through twenty-two lines, reciting the abbot's pedigree
through all the foods that be, up to "son of Cain, son of Adam."

"That slander hurts me not, MacConglinne," said the monk.
"It is not slander at all, O cleric !" said MacConglinne, politely,
"but a vision that was manifested to me last night. And that
is only the prelude !"

So the story goes rollicking on, lingering with fulsome wordi-
ness over the impudent antics of MacConglinne. And at last he
relates a fable of the Land of Food. He was invited to that
place by a phantom who announced himself by warning the poet
"not to let the gravy drown him !"

"What is your name, if we may ask," MacConglinne asked

the sprite.

" Not hard to tell," said the phantom.
" Wheatlet, son of Milklet,
Son of juicy Bacon,

Is mine own name.
Honeyed Butter-roll
Is the man's name

That carries my bag.
Haunch of Mutton
Is my dog's name
Of lovely leaps.

" Lard, my wife,
Sweetly smiles

Across the kale top.
Cheese-curds my daughter
Goes across the spit,

Fair is her fame.
Corned Beef my son
Whose mantle shines

Over a big tail."

Quips and Cranks of the Ancient Irish 321

This story has swept us into the great bulk of facetiousness
which is neither subtle nor vulgar, but just pure Irish. Half its
charm comes from mere exaggeration of expression, and half of
it comes from style. Examples of it occur in spurts throughout
the literature ; and there are several sustained burlesques, such
as the Vision just reviewed, Bricriu's Feast, MacDatho's Boar,
and The Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institution. Such
exaggerations appeal especially to Americans, who revel in
producing that very thing. But apt as Americans may be, their
take-offs bungle a bit when compared with the flavorous Irish
style. Compare, for example, "The sky's the limit ! " or "We'll
make Waterloo look like a Quaker meeting," with "Skin a flea
for its hide and tallow and never bury the bones!"

Cuchullin, the Ulster hero, once upon a time, in the presence
of admiring ladies performed the feat of setting up his spear,
leaping into the air, and alighting nonchalantly in mid-air, his
breast on the tip of the spear. And, says the story-teller, 16 "he
deemed it a trifling matter if that were his place of rest for the
whole of the fair day."

In The Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institution, which is a
comical "satire on the satirists," occur luscious bits of extrav-
agant expression. Seanchan the leader of the poets, for in-
stance, decided to partake of the excellent hospitality of Guaire,
who had never been satirized; but, he said, "I will not take all
that are here to him to spoil Connaught, for I shall consider it
enough to take the two thirds of them and let one third remain ;
and he did not take to Guaire but thrice fifty of the professors,
thrice fifty students, thrice fifty hounds, thrice fifty male attend-
ants, thrice fifty female relatives, and thrice nine of each class of
artificers." This modest assembly arrived at Guaire's court in the
character of unexpected guests, prepared to stay a year or so. If
they did not receive sufficient welcome and attention, they could
satirize the host and thus ruin him forever. No wonder that Guaire
rushed out to meet them with open arms and rattled off the fol-
lowing incoherent and almost maudlin welcome :

^Training of Cuchullain, translated by Whitley Stokes from a paper
manuscript of 1715, Revue Celtique, Vol. 29, p. 118. A modern version of
the story.

322 The Sewanee Review

"My regards to you ; my regards to your nobles and your
ignobles ; I have great welcome for you all, both professors and
poets ; both scientific men and students ; both sons and women ;
both hounds and servants ; only you are so numerous, but not
that I deem you too numerous, I would give you each a separate
welcome ; however, my respects to you on every side."

And after they had received so voluminous and cordial a re-
ception, and had been waited on hand and foot for months, and
had been granted all the ridiculous requests that they could con-
coct, and had finally been given a sumptuous feast, Seanchan the
leader became peevish because the servants seemed to be eating
a great deal (out of the same generous larder from which Sean-
chan had gorged himself for many a meal ! ) and he refused to eat
of the magnificent feast. He would not accept any specially pre-
pared dainties, either ; first because the servant who brought them
had a grandfather who was chip-nailed ; and then because the
grandmother of the maid who coOked them had rendered her
index finger unclean by pointing the way to lepers. Finally he
felt that he might be able to relish a hen's egg ; but the mice had
nibbled at the only one left, and Seanchan got rid of his spleen
by satirizing the mouse.

For further example of the ludicrous situation aptly described,
witness the following : —

"Bricriu the Poison-tongued held a great feast of the Ulster
nobility, for the sole and avowed purpose of stirring up an
entertaining quarrel. Not satisfied with getting the men to
fighting, he incited the women. Flattery was his weapon ; he
told three ladies, separately, wives of heroes, that she and she
alone was the queen of the women, and all she had to do to
prove it was to return to the banquet hall and enter it before
the others.

"The three companies thereupon went out till they met at
one spot, to wit, three ridges from the hall. None of them wot
that Bricriu had incited them one against another. To the hall
they straightway return. Even and graceful and easy their
carriage on the first ridge ; scarcely did one of them raise a foot
before the other. But on the ridge following, their steps were
shorter and quicker. Moreover, on the ridge next the house it

Quips and Cranks of the Ancient Irish 323

was with difficulty each kept up with the other ; so they raised
their robes to the rounds of their limbs to compete in the attempt
to go first into the hall. For what Bricriu had said to each of
them regarding the other was, that whosoever should first enter
should be queen of the whole province. The amount of con-
fusion then occasioned by the competition to enter the hall first
was as if it were the noise of fifty chariots approaching. The
whole palace shook, and the warriors sprang to their arms and
made essay to kill one another within.

" 'Stay,' quoth Sencha, 'they are not enemies who have come ;
it is Bricriu who has set a-quarreling the women who have gone
out. By the God of my tribe, unless the hall be closed against
them the dead will outnumber the living." I6

And indeed a hairpulling almost ensued; and "each woman
went out under the protection of her spouse, and there followed
the Ulster women's war-of- words," " with the three fair ladies (to
use O. Henry's modern expression) "calling each other syno-
nyms," until even the old Iago Bricriu had enough and implored
them to desist until the feast was over.

For the "light touch" I know of no terser, pithier description
of a practical joke than the following extract from the Cattle-
raid of Cualnge. The style of the telling is peculiarly appropri-
ate to the chief actor in it, for laconic King Ailill was a dry and
sagacious old chap, much like a canny Scotchman. Toward
the beginning of the Cattle-raid, Queen Medb, with her usual
impetuous and strong-willed manner, decided to divide her army
and approach the enemy from two directions ; but the real object
of her feminine stratagem was to send Ailill one way while she
and the attractive Fergus, with whom she had become enamored,
were to go the other. Medb was a passionate and artful lady.

"It is there, then," says the story, 18 "that Ailill said to his
charioteer Cuillius, ' Find out for me to-day Medb and Fergus.
I know not what has brought them to this union. I shall be
pleased that a token should come to me by you.'

w Bricriu's Feast, translated by George Henderson, Irish Texts Society,
Vol. 2, p. 21. v Ibid., p. 23.

w Cattle-raid of Cualnge, op. cit., p. 44.

324 The Sewanee Review

"Cuillius came where they were in Cluichre. The pair re-
mained behind, and the warriors went on. Cuillius came to them,
and they heard not the spy. Fergus' sword happened to be
beside them. Cuillius drew it out of its sheath, and left the
sheath empty. Cuillius came to Ailill.

"'So?' said Ailill.

'"So indeed,' said Cuillius. 'There is a token for you.'

'"It is well," said Ailill.

" Each of them smiles at the other."

That crafty exchange of smiles marked the beginning of a
convulsing series of taunts and teasings of the blunt and awkward
Fergus. The incident continues : —

"As you thought," said Cuillius, 'it is thus that I found them,
in one another's arms.'

"'It is right for her,' said Ailill; 'it is for help in the Foray
that she has done it. See that the sword is kept in good con-
dition,' said Ailill. 'Put it under your seat in the chariot, and
a cloth of linen around it'

"Fergus got up for his sword after that.

"'Alas!' said he.

"'What is the matter with you?' said Medb.

"'An ill deed have I done to Ailill,' said he. 'Wait here
while I go into the wood,' said Fergus, 'and do not wonder
though it be long till I come.'

"It happened that Mebd knew not the loss of the sword. He
goes thence and takes the sword of his charioteer with him in
his hand. He makes a wooden sword in the wood. Hence
there is Fid Mor Drualle in Ulster (Great Wood of the Sword
Sheath).

'"Let us go on after our comrades,' said Fergus. All their
hosts meet in the plain. They pitch their tents. Fergus is
summoned to Ailill to play chess. When Fergus went to the
tent, Ailill began to laugh at him."

To show how shrewdly Ailill understood his wife, let us quote
one of numerous curtain-lectures in which Ailill's dry sarcasms,
while amusing him, passed as wasted words upon literal-minded
Medb. During the Cattle-raid, she had, for expediency's sake,
plied the ancient and honorable art of bribe-giving; and the

Quips and Cranks of the Ancient Irish 325

prize she offered to each and every combatant who would enter
single combat with Cuchulin was her fair daughter Findabair.
Fer Diad was finally induced by this means to enter the fight,
but he was nervous and fearful, and he rose in the wee sma'
hours to set out. In courtesy he drove his noisy chariot around
to Medb and Ailill's tent for a morituri salutamus.

"'Does Ailill sleep now,' 19 said Medb, when she heard the
greeting.

'"Not at all,' said Ailill.

'"Do you hear your new son-in-law greeting you?'

"'Is that what he is doing?' said Ailill.

"'It is indeed,' said Medb, 'and I swear by what my people
swear, the man who makes the greeting yonder will not come
back to you on the same feet'

'"Nevertheless we have profited by the good marriage con-
nection with him,' said Ailill. ' Provided Cuchulain fell by him,
I should not care though they both fell. But we should think
it better for Fer Diad to escape.' " That is neat irony; for little
was Medb's solicitude with the welfare of her ' new son-in-law ' !

Medb herself is one of the richest comedy characters of liter-
ature. Her philosophy of action was to cut the Gordian knot.
Dilemmas exhilarated her vigorous and pliant imagination.
"The end justifies the means," was her creed; and no moral
scruples as to veracity and masculine conceptions of honor ever
lay heavy on her conscience to interfere with brilliant strategies.
"Woman's weapons" of tears and flattery, scolding and cajolery
she used abundantly ; and the promises she made to achieve her
ends were flamboyant. The wilder and more ridiculous her
schemes, the more confidently she pushed them to completion.
And she was brave, — dear, yes ! She led the army. This is
how she rode in her war-chariot : —

"Chariots in front of her, at her sides, and behind, the way no
sod from the feet of the horses of the army or foam from their
mouths would touch her clothing."

And when she walked from tent to tent on inspection she
always had a body-guard of fifty soldiers or more to make a roof

19 'Cattle-raid of Cualnge, op. cit., p. 107.

326 The Sewanee Review

and walls of their shields, in order that her courageous body might
be protected.

Here is a sample of her bold and spicy war manceuvers : —

"Medb came, after looking at the host, and she said it were
folly for the rest to go to the hosting, if the cantred of the
Leinstermen went. 20

"•Why do you blame the men?' said Ailill.

'"We do not blame them,' said Medb; 'splendid are the
warriors ; when the rest were making their huts, they had finished
thatching their huts and cooking their food; when the rest were
at dinner, they had finished dinner, and their harpers were
playing to them. It is folly for them to go,' said Medb; 'it is
to their credit the victory of the hosts will be.'

"'It is for us they fight,' said Ailill.

"'They shall not come with us,' said Medb.

"'Let them stay then,' said Ailill.

" 'They shall not stay,' said Medb ; they will come on us after
we are gone,' said she, 'and seize our land against us.'

"'What is to be done to them,' said Ailill, 'will you have
them neither stay nor go ? '

'"To kill them,' said Medb.

Here is another of her charmingly unorthodox but efficient
plans : —

King Ailill was chosen arbitrator to award the supremacy to
one of the three contending Ulster heroes. "He neither ate
nor slept till the end of three days and three nights. 21 'Coward,'
Medb then called him. 'If you don't decide, I will!' 'Diffi-
cult for me to adjudge them,' Ailill said. 'It is a misfortune for
one to have to do it' 'There is no difficulty,' quoth Medb, 'for
Loigaire and Conall Cernach are as different as bronze and
findrinni (white bronze), and Conall Cernach and Cuchullin as
different as fiindrinni and red gold.'"

Thereupon she called each of the three heroes in succession
to private audience to her, and bestowed upon him a loving-cup
in token of his supremacy among the Ulster heroes : a bronze cup

m Cattle-raid of Cualnge, op. cit., p. 7.
' 1 Bricriu's Feast, op. cit., p. 75.

Quips and Cranks of the Ancient Irish 327

to Loigaire, a white bronze one to Conall, and a gold one to
Cuchullin. And to each flattering speech of presentation she
appended the sweet and womanly request that the true leader
of the Ulster heroes return home quietly and without boasting,
as she could not bear to witness in her court the jealousy and
disappointment of the two rivals.

In this, as in most situations, Medb's scheme was successful, from
her point of view. The battle between the three rivals when
they discovered the ruse was the fiercer for Medb's interference,
but it did not occur in her territory.

Once upon a time her overweening vanity and her love of the
dramatic led her into a wild plan which was almost the death of
her. The anecdote does not appear in the old manuscripts but
has come down by word of mouth among the Irish peasants.
Lady Gregory incorporates it into her compilation of Cuchullin
lore. 23

'"Let us make some good plan now,' said Medb, 'for I am
sure it is that hot rude man Conchobar, king of Ulster, that is
coming to attack us. Let us make a pen before him,' she said,
' of all the army standing on three sides and thirty hundred men
ready to shut the mouth of it on him when he comes in. For
we must take these fellows alive and not kill them, for it would
be unworthy of our name to do more than make prisoners of
them, and they so few.' Now this was one of the most laughable
things that was said in the whole course of the war," continues
the story. "Conchobar and his thirty hundred of the best men

of Ulster to be taken alive." Conchobar was wroth

and rose in his majesty to attack the Connaughtmen when he
heard of Medb's boast.

"But for all that," it goes on, "Medb did make a pen of the
army of Ireland to shut up Conchobar, and she had men ready
to close it up when once he would be in. But it is what Con-
chobar did, he never so much as looked for an opening, but
when he saw the army before him, he went straight through it,
and he broke open a gap of two hundred on the right hand and
two hundred on the left hand, and went through them all and

1% Cuchullain of Murthemne, p. 257.

328 The Sewanee Review

cut them down in the very middle, so that eight hundred of
them were killed."

But for all that, Medb survived, and managed to place herself
in many such a ludicrous situation, before, at a ripe old age, the
joy of life and romance burned out in her adventurous soul, and
she passed from an amorous and Amazon existence to the Other-
world of milk and curds and honey.

The tempestuous Irish did not confine themselves, by any
means, to such good-natured raillery and badinage as is shown
in the examples cited. The keenness of their wit and the
quickness of their temper led them readily into a humor which
is often too tart and abusive to be called humor, — the satire.
The Irish satire is peculiar to the Celts : it is a hybrid of derisive
humor and superstition. "The Irish exhibit very clearly," says
Mr. F. N. Robinson in an article on the subject, "the close con-
nection between the poetry of magic malediction and the poetry
of mockery and abuse." Owen Conellan, in his introduction to
the translation of Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institution,™
remarks: "The old conception of the destructive satirist, the
poet with superior power, whom it is dangerous to displease, has
never disappeared among the Gaels of either Ireland or Scot-
land." Cuchullin, the hot-headed warrior-hero of the Ulster
cycle, delicately avoided a satire on himself by letting the
satirist have the spear he requested in the back of his head ; but
few persons found it possible with one blow to grant a request,
refuse a request, and kill the satire, all with such literalness and
dispatch ; hence they held the satirist in great awe, and tried
themselves to the utmost to please him. It took very slight
displeasure to change the bard's tune from the succulent "white
satire" of flattery to the "black satire" of lampoonery, and
thence to the "speckled satire" of magic warning.

It was only the bards, the professional poets, who attained
supremacy in the art of satire. They had formal schools of
learning, where they lived on the fat of the land, attended and
waited on by all the country-side, just like our university stu-
dents of the Middle West to-day, while they learned the rules

23 Edited in Transactions of the Ossianic Society, 1857, Vol. 5.

Quips and Cranks of the Ancient Irish 329

of poesy, memorized the sagas, and composed their satires in
the dark. The two desirable attributes of the satire were keen-
ness and ambiguity : in order that the satirized might know that
he was jeered at, and yet be unable to understand how virulent
were the epithets.

Dalian the leader of the poets once made the following satire,
a beautiful example, on a king who refused him a gift : 24 —

" Oh, Hugh, son of Duach the Dark,
Thou pool not permanent ;
Thou pet of the mild cuckoo ;
Thou quick chafferer of a blackbird ;

"Thou sour green berry ;
Swarms of bees will suck the herbs ;
Thou green crop like fine clothes ;
A candlestick without light.

" Thou cold wooden boat ;
Thou bark that will give dissatisfaction ;
Than a black disgusting chafer
Thou art more disgusting, O Hugh ! "

We dull moderns would all be obliged to say with Hugh, "We
do not know whether this is better or worse than the first poem
you composed [the one in praise of him]." And we should get
the reply that Hugh got from the bard : "No wonder for a man
of your intellect to say so. And as it was I that composed the
satires, it is I that will interpret them." He proceeded to do so,
with voluptuous unction, expanding his cryptic phrases into
extremely pointed and insulting explanations, until King Hugh
cried out: "Be done, O Dalian! Do not satirize me any more
in my presence, for I will now excuse you from further pro-
fessional attendance."

Evidently the fever for satirizing got into the blood as power-
fully as the Wanderlust, for Seanchan, the successor to Dalian,
after a long sojourn with the hospitable Guaire, almost went mad
in his struggle to find something of his host's to satirize ; and
finally he cried out in desperation that he would "rather that
Guaire be satirized than that I should live and he be not
satirized !"

"In Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institution (op. cit), — a story "in
which is explained how the Tain bo Cualnge (Cattle-raid of Cualnge) was
first discovered." Probably composed in the seventh century. Translated
by Owen Conellan from the Book of MacCarthy Riagh, a fourteenth-century
vellum.

22

330 The Sewanee Review

The two examples given are of course exaggerated, coming
from the "satire on the satirists," but they show the tendency
of the times. The Ancient Laws of Ireland stand witness to the
prominence of satire as a form of slander. Seven shades of
satire were worthy of an honor-prize in retribution : 25 —

"A nickname which clings; recitation of a satire of insults in
his presence ; to satirize to the face ; to laugh on all sides ; to
sneer at his form ; to magnify a blemish ; satire which is written
by a bard who is far away and which is recited."

Such "crimes of the tongue" were punishable by imprison-
ment or payment of damages; libel cases seem to have been
frequent in that land of sprightly tongues. The money retri-
bution varied with the rank of the complainant, and the imprison-
ments were as follows : —

"Three days for ordinary satire, slander, etc.

"Five days for blemish of nickname, satirizing a man after his
death ; and satire of exceptional power."

A Celt would not be a Celt, even to-day, who would not
. boast and preen himself and receive homage over an indictment
on the last-named flattering charge.

In all Irish humor, from the puns to the satires, there is a
certain distinctive charm. The secret of the juiciness of Irish
humor and the poignance of Irish pathos, lies just in that
evanescent quality called 'style.' "Three hateful things in
speech," the Irish say, — "stiffness, obscurity, a bad delivery."
And whether the Irish story is pulling for laughter or tears, the
art of the telling is the sauce of the tale. As I browse through
the fascinating humorous-tragic concoctions of the Ancient and
Mediaeval Irish, this modern Gaelic saying keeps running through
my mind: "Well, — the life of an old hat is in the cock of it!"

Lucile Needham.
University of Illinois.

Editor's Note. — This study of Irish humor was prepared in connection
with a course in Irish literature at the University of Illinois and was awarded
the fifty-dollar St. Patrick's Day prize for 1916.

25 Quoted from Ancient Laws by F. N. Robinson, Satirists and En-
chanters in Early Irish Literature.