An Tromdámh Guaire – a (re)telling by Oisín Breen

Guaire’s fear was slander,

And she feared the poets two,

For they came to visit him

To scorn him and make demands

Demands he could not meet.

Yet Marbán’s gift was to satisfy

Even the most outlandish want,

For she, Guaire’s sister, was the great swineherd,

That queen who ever kept her brother safe,

She, Marbán the pig prophetess,

Chief messenger of heaven.

Yet, Senchán was to be the ollam, the next poet king –

And his friend, his second – so it was his right to visit all homes

And make demands, and he insisted on having his pound of flesh –

This he swore. His wanted meat: Guaire’s broken honour as a host,

But in his efforts, he abused his power, which prove a catalyst,

The trigger-point of a sundering none would ever willing seek –

for the pair of them had planned to make dear Guaire blush,

for he boasted all too frequently of being spared their satire’s touch,

but they could not embarrass Guaire, he their host, no matter,

for Marbán helped him meet each and all of their demands

so the poets efforts’ and their wants grew prideful and unfair –

So, in overreach, Senchán did doubt

That which, when given freely, it is a sin to slander,

And when he called into question Guaire’s hospitality,

This abuse fast drove the pig-queen into a rage,

And when Senchán did not know the story she demanded –

for Marbán could demand a bard sing for her,

at any time – as heaven’s messenger, she had that right –

and she could choose which story, too,

and so when she called Senchán to sing

she begged him to do so of Ireland’s bravest hound,

a tale she knew neither he or his second ever learned

for it had been forgotten, despite the promised fame

long ago apportioned to the mighty boy

he, who killed three dogs at nightfall

with but a hurley and sliotair trí –

And when Senchán could not speak or sing,

Or usher in a vision of Cú Chullain’s fate,

His failure drew a curse from Marbán’s lips

That changed Ireland evermore,

And when the bardic line it fell,

As her invocation ensured it must,

The Holymost did come,

You, our Christian King on high.

For in her rage and fury, Marbán laid a curse to split and separate

All those who kept the Senchas Már – all those who read and wrote its laws –

And so her hex, it barred all poets in the land, and all who accompanied them,

Of sharing anything at all, so no two poets could even share a roof,

They could not share a bed or draught of beer, on pain of death,

And the ban, she said, it would stand forever and a day,

Unless Senchán could sing Cú Chullain’s then forgotten doom,

And poor Marbán, how she later wept

– oh her tears new rivers formed –

For she did not realise how powerful was the curse,

And in Ireland, her ban, it broke the poet’s rule forever.

And though later the pair of poets learned

Cú Chullain’s long and storied song,

Having sought and found its meaning –

they found it in a graveyard of which the annals speak,

and it was from dead mac Róich’s precious lips they learned it,

for, once wakened, he gladly told Cú’s secret,

for he was Fergus, the stallion’s son, the Ulster king and brave,

who clambered through the deathmuck of his grave

to try and lift the curse and save his land and people;

Fergus, whose last act came sanctioned by great Lír himself;

Fergus, who lifted his own corpse from his grave to sing,

Fergus, who gave unto Ireland even his last contentment –

for he was, until then, beyond the pains and closing ravishes of death –

that slow body-murder of mealworms, he for centuries had felt,

their mouthparts grinding cellulose from bone – it a shearing pain;

and he had been beyond, too, even the conquest of seeds

that found in him a reservoir to fuel their young and thirsty needs

a reservoir to fuel their growth so they might one-day touch the sun –

and yet, he the horse lord hero of Leitir Ruad and many battles more,

he rose again, knowing he would, in doing so, endure death again,

oh bold Fergus mac Róich, he rose again, and to an audience of weary two

he sang Setanta-hound’s great elegy, he sang it gladly to the world again –

But it was not enough, for when the pig-queen’s curse was lifted,

The air had changed and a new age come,

And with that change, the company of bards was broken, too,

And ever more, each poet sang alone,

For together they would only ever argue

And the poet’s reign, now mourned, was done.