Medb- Celtic GodDeity"Queen of Connacht"

The Pillow Talk

Medb and Ailill mac Máta lay in bed at Cruachan and fell to comparing their possessions to determine which of them had brought more wealth to the marriage. They sent servants to count everything: flocks and herds, jewelry and land. Item by item, they were precisely equal in every category except one. Ailill possessed the great white-horned bull Finnbennach, which had been born into Medb's herds but had departed of its own will, refusing to remain among a woman's cattle.

This single imbalance was intolerable. To be less wealthy than Ailill would make her a dependent wife rather than an equal queen. Medb resolved to acquire the only comparable bull in Ireland: the Donn Cúailnge, the Brown Bull of Cooley, grazing in the pastures of Ulster.

The March North

Medb sent messengers to Dáire mac Fiachna, the bull's owner, offering fifty heifers, the best land in the plains of Connacht, a chariot worth thrice seven bondmaids, and her own "friendly thighs" besides. Dáire was inclined to accept until Medb's envoys, drunk at his feast, boasted that she would have taken the bull by force had he refused. Dáire withdrew his consent.

Medb gathered the armies of Connacht, Leinster, Munster, and Meath and marched north into Ulster at the head of a host numbering in the thousands. She commanded the invasion personally: choosing the route, assigning camps, settling disputes among her allies. The men of Ulster lay helpless under the ces noínden, the curse of labor-pangs inflicted by the goddess Macha. Only the young Cú Chulainn, exempt through his divine blood, stood between Medb and the bull.

Medb and Fergus

Among her allies was Fergus mac Róich, the former king of Ulster who had gone into exile after Conchobar mac Nessa treacherously killed the sons of Uisneach under Fergus's guarantee of safe conduct. Fergus became Medb's lover and her foremost military counselor.

Ailill tolerated the affair, though not without resentment. At one point during the campaign, he had his sword-bearer steal Fergus's sword while the couple lay together in the heather, replacing it with a wooden replica in its scabbard. When Fergus later reached for his weapon, he found wood where iron should have been. At the final battle, Fergus refused to fight Cú Chulainn directly. He had helped foster the boy.

Medb Against Cú Chulainn

For months, Cú Chulainn held Medb's army at the fords, invoking the right of single combat and killing champion after champion. Medb answered with cunning. She promised her daughter Finnabair to multiple warriors as the prize for defeating him, a deception that caused bitter fighting among her own forces when the duplicity came out.

Her worst manipulation was the goading of Ferdia mac Damáin, Cú Chulainn's foster-brother and closest friend. She accused Ferdia of cowardice before the assembled army, plied him with wine, offered him Finnabair, and shamed him until he had no choice but to accept the challenge. The combat at the ford lasted four days. Ferdia died on Cú Chulainn's spear. When single combat proved insufficient, Medb sent warriors in groups.

The Brown Bull Won

The men of Ulster recovered from their curse and routed the invaders, but Medb had already sent the Brown Bull ahead to Connacht under guard. She had her prize.

When the two great bulls met, they fought through the night across the length of Ireland. The Brown Bull gored Finnbennach and tore him apart. His loins fell at Áth Luain, his liver at Dublin. Then the Donn Cúailnge himself staggered back toward Ulster, mortally spent, and died at the border, his heart bursting. Medb's war, fought over a single animal, gained her nothing.

Cruachan

Medb ruled from Cruachan in what is now County Roscommon, a complex of earthworks and burial mounds spread across the landscape. Beneath it ran a narrow souterrain called Oweynagat, the Cave of the Cats, barely wide enough for a person to crawl through.

At Samhain, the boundary between worlds thinned at Cruachan, and things came out. The Ellén Trechend, a triple-headed monster, emerged from Oweynagat along with flocks of destructive birds and spectral hosts, ravaging the countryside until heroes drove them back or dawn restored the boundary. The pillow talk with Ailill began here, and here Medb held court.

The Death of Medb

Furbaide Ferbend killed her. He was the son of Medb's sister Clothra, and Medb had murdered his mother. Furbaide learned that Medb bathed each morning at a fixed hour in a pool on an island in Loch Rée. He measured the distance from the nearest shore to her bathing spot, practiced the shot until he had mastered the range, and killed her with a sling-stone cast across the water, striking her on the forehead.

She was buried standing upright in a great cairn at Knocknarea in County Sligo, her body facing northward toward Ulster. The cairn, Míosgán Meadhbha, still crowns the summit of Knocknarea and dominates the skyline of Sligo.