Cattle Raiding In My Youth

I was visiting with Braja over at Lost and Found in India reading a delightful post on COWS yesterday, and as usually happens when I read her posts, it got me to thinking. I know what you must be thinking: Cows? Delightful? Come on, Gumbo, you must be yanking my chain.

I yank not your chain! I like cows anyway, so I may be predisposed to like reading about cows. In this case, though, the photos were so cute and so well done (especially considering they were taken with a cell phone camera), and the writing itself very engaging. I have to say it was one of the few times I was looking at cows without thinking of cheese, fine tooled leather or a pot roast. (Forgive me, Braja, I am still struggling with my animal nature.) The calf in the pics is also goshdarnded cute, too. What the pictures got me to thinking about was, instead, Irish folklore and my own childhood. Go figure.

It was the “Cattle Raid of Cooley” (Táin Bó Cúailnge) that sprang to mind, an amazing story from Irish (way, way back) folklore. I read about this many moons ago and the whole thing just stuck with me. ‘Cattle Raid’ doesn’t exactly scream ‘epic’, but the Irish have a knack (ahem) for storytelling, in case you hadn’t noticed. The gist of it involves marital jealousy, a pissed off bull and a tidy business arrangement undone by drunkenness. Somehow that escalates into a knockdown, drag-out battle involving magic, sex and mass slaughter. In other words, a typical day in the land of the Celts.

The hero of this story, who I sometimes wish was me, is Cúchulainn (pronounced ‘Cu-hoo-lin’. I know, it doesn’t make sense. This is Irish myth, remember?); Cúchulainn is the fierce-looking lad in the tricked-out chariot, pictured below:

Cúchulainn first big task was to defend the kingdom of Ulster from the army of the jealous queen Medb, who was out to get Donn Cuailnge*, the ‘Brown Bull of Cooley’ (the pissed off bovine I mentioned earlier). Brown Bull is a hot commodity, because he was, shall we say, ‘potent’. Potent as in, some sort of mega-stud that all the cattle-crazy Celts were quite keen on adding to their herds, cattle being the prime form of wealth. Cúchulainn, in typical lunkhead teenage boy fashion, manages to screw up his big task because he was off ‘trysting’ (i.e. getting’ his freak on) with some fair Irish lass**. So Medb and her army manage to waltz in and take Ulster like it ain’t no thang. (What’s Gaelic for ‘thang’?). Anyway, Cúchulainn does manage to get his breeches up and he makes a good effort to finally stops the invaders. Thing is, he fails to get his mitts back on our boy the Brown Bull. Half-assed attempts at redemption (heroic but unnecessary, because preventable) are endemic to teenage boys all over the world; a major reason I identify with the story.

The bull is also a central attraction for me in all this, and not because of my capacity to generate a fair amount of it, all on my lonesome! My association with bulls began many, MANY years ago, back when I was a little Gumbo biting the ankles of my blessed Mom. Back in the day, budgets were tight for my Ma and Da, so sometimes she would make her own baby clothes to save a few dead presidents. She made a little yellow shirt, like a tunic, stitched together with red thread. I don’t remember wearing the shirt, but by some miracle Mom had kept it for all the years since I was a toddler. I was delighted when I received it as a gift this Christmas:

Wow. That shirt is about forty years old now! Looking down in the lower right hand corner of the photo, you’ll see where she took a marker and wrote on it ‘The Bull’. The reason she wrote that is because supposedly I was a rather stubborn, contrary lad. (I know! Shocked, aren’t you?) And in my family, if one was being stubborn, that typically garnered one the epithet ‘bull-headed’. In my case I earned the title when I was quite the wee one. Hence, in honor of my clear identification with a heroic figure (big bull, a stud: a natural fit, yeah?) from Irish myth, Mom made this shirt as a memento. This set me on the road to a lifelong aspiration to be a hero.

My Ma and Da will tell you I was called ‘The Bull’ because I was stubborn and difficult. I prefer to think it is because I am perseverant, strong and virile. And hey, who are you going to believe, me or my Mom? (Wait, don’t answer that…)

* ‘Donn Cuailnge’ would be my Irish gangster boss name. Donn = Don. Get it? Ha! But only if I was an Irish gangster. Which I am not. At least, I wouldn’t admit to youse.
**In all fairness, I also probably would have chosen the lass over boring guard duty. That Cúchulainn and I, we like the ladies! See also ‘Goddess Belly: On Your Knees, Boy!’

Images courtesy of Wikipedia (Cúchulainn) and something I found on Amazon called
‘Shee-eire’ (Donn Cuailnge).