The Death of Celtchar mac Uthecair

Whence is the death of Celtchar mac Uthecair? Not hard to tell. There was a famous man of the men of Ulster, Blai Briuga. He owned seven herds of cattle, seven score cows in each herd. He also kept a guest-house. Now it was taboo for him that a woman should come in a company to his house without his sleeping with her, unless her husband were in her company. Then Brig Bretach, the wife of CeLtchar, went to his house. “Not good is what thou hast done, woman,” said Blai Briuga. “Thy coming as thou hast come is taboo to me.”

“It is a wretched man,” said the woman, “that violates his own taboos.”

“It is true. I am an old man, and moreover you are inciting me,” said he.

That night he slept with her.

Celtchar came to know that; and he went to seek his wife. Blai Briuga went to Conchobar in the royal house. Celtchar also went to the royal house. There were Conchobar and Cu Chulainn playing a game of chess; and Blai Briuga’s chest was over the play-board between them. And Celtchar planted a spear through him so that it stuck in the wattle of the wall behind him, so that a drop of blood fell from the point of the spear on the board.

“Truly, Cu Chulainn!” said Conchobar.

“Indeed, then, Conchobar!” said Cu Chulainn.

The board was measured from the drop hither and thither to know to which of them it was nearer. Now the drop was nearer to Conchobar, and it was the longer till revenge. Blai Briuga, however, died.

Celtchar escaped and went to the land of the Desi of Munster in the south. “This is bad, O Conchobar!” said the men of Ulster. “This means the ruin of the Desi. It was enough that we should lose the man who has died, and let Celtchar come back to his land.”

“Let him come, then,” said Conchobar; “and let his son go for him, and let him be his safeguard.” At that time with the men of Ulster a father’s crime was not laid upon his son, nor a songs crime upon the father. So Celtchar’s son went to summon him until he was in the south.

“Wherefore have you come, my lad?” said Celtchar.

“That you may come to your land,” said the boy.

“What is my safeguard?”

“I,” said the lad.

“True,” said he. “Subtle is the treachery that the men of Ulster practice on me, that I should go on my son’s guarantee.”

“Subtle (séim) shall be his name and the name of his offspring,” said the druid.

“Wait, lad,” said Celtchar, “and I will go with you.”

This was done, and hence is Semuine in the land of the Desi.

However, this is the fine that was demanded for Blai Briuga,— to free them from the three worst pests that would come to Ulster in his time.

Then Conganchnes (Horn-skin) mac Dedad went to avenge his brother, Cu Roi mac Dairi maic Dedad, upon the men of Ulster. He devastated Ulster greatly. Spears or swords hurt him not, but sprang from him as from horn.

“Free us from this pest, O Celtchar!” said Conchobar.

“I will surely,” said Celtchar. And on a certain day he went to converse with Conganchnes so that he beguiled him, promising him his daughter Niam, as well as a dinner for a hundred every afternoon to be supplied him.

Then the woman beguiled him, saying to him, “Tell me,” said she, “how you may be killed.”

“Red-hot iron spits have to be thrust into my soles and through my shins,” he said.

Then she told her father that he should have two large spits made, and a sleeping spell put on them, and that he should gather a large host. And so it was done. And they went on their bellies, and the spears were thrust into his soles with sledge-hammers, and right through his marrow, so that he died by them. And Celtchar cut off his head, over which a cairn was raised; that is, a stone was placed by every man that came there.

And this was the second pest, the Mouse Brown; that is, a whelp which the son of a widow had found in the hollow of an oak, and which the widow reared until it was big. At last then it turned upon the sheep of the widow, and it killed her cows, and her son, and killed herself, and then went to the Glen of the Great Sow. Every night it would devastate a stronghold in Ulster and every day it lay asleep.

“Free us from it, O Celtchar!” said Conchobar. And Celtcbar went into a wood and brought out a log of alder; and a hole was dug in it as long as his arms, and he boiled it in fragrant herbs and in honey and in grease until it was soft yet tough. Celtchar went toward the cave in which the Mouse Brown used to sleep, and he entered the cave early, before the hound came after the slaughter. It came, with its snout raised high in the air at the smell of the wood. And Celtchar pushed the wood out through the cave to wards it. The hound took it in his jaws and put his teeth into it, and the teeth stuck in the tough wood. Celtchar pulled the wood to ward him, and the hound pulled on the other side; and Celtchar put his arm along the log inside and took its heart out through its jaws so that he bad it in his hand. And he took its head with him.
And that day, at the end of a year afterwards, cow-herds were by the side of the cairn of Conganchnes, and heard the squealing of whelps in the cairn. And they dug up the cairn and found three whelps in it, namely, a dun hound, and a speckled hound, and a black hound. The speckled hound was given as a present to Mac Datho of Leinster; and for its sake multitudes of the men of Ireland fell in the house of Mac Datho, and Ailbe was the name of that bound.’ And it would be to Culann the smith that the dun hound was given, and the black hound was Celtchar’s own Doelchu. It let no man take hold of it save Celtchar. Once upon a time when Celtchar was not at home, and the hound was let out, the people of the household could not catch it; and it turned among the cattle and the flocks, and at last it destroyed a living creature every night in Ulster.

“Free us from that pest, O Celtchar!” said Conchobar. Celtchar went toward the glen in which the hound was, and a hundred warriors with him, and three times he called the hound until they saw it coming towards them, making straight for Celtchar until it was licking his feet.

“It is sad indeed, what the hound does,” said all.

“I will no longer be incriminated on your account!” said Celtchar, giving it a blow with the Luin (spear) of Celtchar, so that he brought out its heart, whereupon it died.

“Woe!” cried everybody.

“‘Tis true,” said he, as he raised the spear, when a drop of the hound’s blood ran along the spear and went through him to the ground, so that he died of it. And his lament was set up and his stone and tomb were raised there. So this is the Tragical Death of Blai Briuga, and of Conganchnes, and of Celtchar mac Uthecair.