As I said before, I'm interested in all of these ancient folklore Irish stories*.
All stories seem to lead to our teenage Ulster hero Cú Chulainn, and this one does not disappoint! It is an ancient epic story. Some of the language and forms of the manuscript suggest that it may have first been written down as early as the 7th century.
Essentially the story is this. There is a queen, Maeve (or Medb in Irish) and her husband Ailill who ruled in Connacht (a western province of Ireland). Hubby was bragging about his great white-horned bull and she got jealous ("went green") so she did a bit of research and found one bull that was, according to her messenger, Mac Roth, "twice as good."
This bull was named the "Brown Bull of Cooley" and belonged to the Daire of Cooley in Ulster.
Maeve sent her messanger and a few others to Daire to make a deal and borrow the bull for a year in return for a gift of cows. Daire agreed but the messangers got drunk and braggadocios and told him that had he not given them the bull, they would have taken it by force.
Daire pulled the deal and told them to BRING IT!
Hence a huge battle between Queen Maeve and Daire (the great Cattle Raid of Cooley**).
Maeve invaded Ulster to steel this bull. Cu Chulainn defended Ulster single-handedly because all of the Ulster warriers were sick (with the Curse of Macha***).
Maeve got the bull in the end, but get this... When she brought it home to show it off to her husband, the two bulls fought and killed each other.
Served her right.
* Here is a list of popular references to Irish Mythology.
** Apparently there is a place in the Cooley Mountains called Maeve’s Gap and it’s told this is where she passed through with her army.
***This is yet another thread to this story... One of probably a hundred.
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