The Tain

“‘What is the present hour lucky for?’

‘For begetting a king on a queen,’ he said.

The queen asked him if that were really true, and the druid swore by god that it was: a son conceived at that hour would be heard of in Ireland for ever. The girl saw no other male near, and she took him inside with her.”

Conchobor’s origins are linked to both legitimate authority and supernatural predestination. While his mother Nes is a queen of Ulster by birth, thus already elevating her son’s status, the druid Cathbad’s prediction gives his “begetting” a supernatural legitimacy and mythic status. The mythical origins of a king, whose blood is part royal and part magical, is a common trope in medieval literature.

“They decided, ‘What Fergus sold let it stay sold; what Conchobor bought let it stay bought.’” 

This moment marks the official transfer of power from Fergus to Conchobor as ruler of Ireland. It was accomplished through Nes’s cunning but maintained through Conchobor’s ability to gain the admiration of Ulster during his temporary rulership. It also sets up an ongoing conflict in the text, where two legitimate kings of Ulster must coexist, which ultimately results in Fergus’s exile and alliance with Ailill and Medb. This theme is also present in Fergus and Ailill’s tenuous alliance.

“Five days and four nights, or five nights and four days, the pangs lasted. For nine generations any Ulsterman in those pangs had no more strength than a woman on the bed of labor. Only three classes of people were free from the pangs of Ulster: the young boys of Ulster, the women, and Cúchulainn.” 

This is the curse of Macha who, despite serving her husband well, is betrayed by him and ignored by the whole of Ulster as she goes into labor while saving him from death. Because they abandon her, she curses them with her labor pains, and this curse prevents them from fighting