#cu chulainn/laeg

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

sometimes i think i'm okay about láeg/lóeg literally meaning "calf" but figuratively being a term of endearment meaning "beloved" or "favourite" and i'm like. that's fine. totally okay for him to be called that. i'm normal about it.

and then i consider that in cú chulainn's lament for fer diad when he directly address fer diad as "beloved", that is the word he uses. a lóeg.

and on the same page: a lóeg, a phopa láeg, help me cut the gae bolga out of him, take this message for me, be there with me, be the only person i trust in this moment when i am falling apart,

and his name is fucking beloved

and fer diad is beloved and fer diad is fucking dead and láeg is fucking culpable because he helped and i don't even know where i'm going with this it's just something about being loved as an act of violence i think. beloved as a weapon. a bloody favourite and a mirror and a double and

[sissiarte]

I swear this was going to be just a quick sketch but... oh well... anyways read a moment's silence just fucking read it my god

[finnlongman]

Picture the scene. You're a gay nerd who followed a weirdly common pathway of being super into Les Mis and Hamlet as a teenager to ending up a medievalist (you will see why the Les Mis connection is relevant).

One day, in the course of your PhD on friendship in the late Ulster Cycle, which is really just an excuse to think about Láeg and Cú Chulainn all the time, you find yourself looking at an early eighteenth century manuscript of Oidheadh Con Culainn.

You find this.

Please excuse me any transcription errors, because I'm doing this on sight while writing this post, and likewise translation, and also while crying, but:

"Is ann sin do choirigh Laogh an laochmhilid ina sheasamh ris an ccairthe chloiche 7 a aghaidh ar fhearaibh Eireann. 7 do chuir a sgiath ina chlé láimh ..." Then Láeg arranged the hero standing against the standing stone and his face towards the men of Ireland. And he put his shield in his left hand...

The context of the scene. This is the moment of Cú Chulainn's death. Láeg is helping him to the standing stone. So far, so much what I would expect from Oidheadh Con Culainn.

And then:

Ro dhealaig a anam ré corp Choingculoinn ann sin, 7 a druimm ris an ccairthe, 7 a lámh a láimh Laoigh mac Rianghabhra And Cú Chulainn's soul left his body then, and his back against the stone, and his hand in the hand of Láeg mac Ríangabra

Emphasis quite clearly mine.

This is not in any of the versions of Oidheadh Con Culainn that have been edited so far. I have never seen this before in my life.

In this manuscript from 1702-03, Cú Chulainn dies HOLDING LÁEG'S HAND.

(17-year-old Finn, fervent e/R shipper, would like to point out that at least Láeg was alive and this isn't quite a permets-tu? situation yet, but boy did I just get bodyslammed by a recursive loop of feelings nonetheless. And now we see why the Les Mis/Hamlet->medievalist pipeline is relevant.)

[amylouioc]

Off to defend Ulster

[denndrawings]

"Cú Chulainn passenger princess." I say into the mic.

The crowd boos. I begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room.

"They’re right," they say. I look for the owner of the voice. There in the 5th row stands: Laeg Mac Riangabra himself.

Thank you @sissiarte for the meme format.

[incorrect-ulster-cycle]

oh to wrap bandages around and put disinfectant on another man’s wounds as i catch his tender gaze and lovingly call him an idiot and tell him to be more careful

—Láeg, about Cú Chulainn, probably

[gay-laeg]

context

oh god i thought Láeg was the charioteer not the secret second best warrior…

[an-ruraiocht]

talking to my therapist about my realisation that maybe my demisexuality also applies to fictional characters and they were like. and do these characters have anything in common. and. well. do they???? anyway I need to draw some charts or something and figure out what the fuck kind of venn diagram overlap we've got going on here

[shamblingrevenant]

Cú and Emer: *speaking in riddles*

Láeg, watching that shit:

[riastrad]

Princess: Emer

Slut: Cú Chulainn

Loser: Laeg Mac Riangabra

[lavendernix-art]

Here's a better look at that WIP from earlier! Thanks tumblr for killing my resolution, you're a real champ

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

fellas is it gay to swear yourself to another man and then never once part from him, day or night, until he pulls out the spear that wounded you and begs you to leave him to die alone in battle so that at least one of you will survive to take the news back to your shared home and his (your) wife,

[sissiarte]

(og by sweepswoop on twitter)

I'm so sorry

[finnlongman]

"And his hand in the hand of Láeg mac Ríangabra..."

My previous posts about the variants of Oidheadh Con Culainn were getting very long with all the reblogs and ramblings, so I thought I would do a summary.

Last week, I was idly paging through NLI MS G113 to check the terminology it uses for Láeg. This manuscript was written in 1703, in Co. Cork, by poet Uilliam mac Cartáin. I discovered that in this version of the text, Cú Chulainn dies "with his back against the standing stone and his hand in the hand of Láeg mac Ríangabra".

Although Láeg is usually present in this scene, I had never seen this particular detail before, and being the #1 fan of Láeg mac Ríangabra, I was obviously extremely intrigued and emotional. (Code for: I cried and then I screamed about it to everyone I knew.)

Not only this, but after Cú Chulainn's death, Láeg went back to kiss Cú Chulainn's body, hold him, and grieve for him, which is something he isn't given the opportunity to do in any of the versions that I knew. Wow.

Yesterday, I decided to check for other digitised manuscripts of this text, and I found RIA MS 23 M 25, a slightly earlier manuscript written probably in Co. Cork in the late 17th century -- probably 1684 for this section. To my amazement, it also contained this line:

Further investigation found it in two more Cork manuscripts -- a late 18th century one (RIA 23 G 21) and a 19th century one (Newman College O'Donnell II), both by scribes of the Ó Longáin family. The 18th century one isn't digitised, but I was able to read a transcription of it produced by Julia Kühns in her 2009 PhD thesis; the 19th century one is now held in Newman College in Melbourne, Australia, and looks like this:

All four of these manuscripts contain the detail that Cú Chulainn died with his back against the standing stone and his hand in the hand of Láeg mac Ríangabra.

All four of these manuscripts were written in Co. Cork, though chronologically they're quite dispersed.

There are two more manuscripts that Kühns groups alongside these in her study, one which has a strong Cork connection and one which doesn't. These aren't digitised and she didn't transcribe this passage, so I can't be certain it's there (her grouping is based on other elements, and she doesn't discuss this detail), but I would imagine it must be. I hope to go to TCD at some point and view them.

On the basis of the evidence I've got, though, it seems to me that this was a Cork variant of the story. The wording of this line is identical -- if they're not all copying from each other (and there are some other variations that might suggest they're not), they're definitely copying from a shared source. What that source was and how far it predates the 1684 manuscript, I don't know yet.

But so far, only G113 contains the scene where Láeg grieves and says goodbye to Cú Chulainn. Given that this MS was written by a known poet who wrote a lot of laments and emotional works, it may be that he added this to heighten the emotional experience. To my admittedly inexpert eye, it shows some strong signs of Munster Irish, which lends credence to the idea that it was locally composed, and since it's not in the other MSS, there's no reason yet to think it's not Uilliam's addition for the sake of feelings. In which case, it worked. Thanks, Liam, you made me cry 221 years later.

And now you're caught up!

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

i feel like there are only about four people on this site who can honestly vote yes to this but also i know all of them follow me, so, this is for you guys

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[denndrawings]

What if I posted something I made like three months ago in a three hour frenzy after reading a fic. Yeah what if.

SORRY editing to credit @sissiarte for designs!!!