Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/89

74 Two other remarks of this writer regarding the manner of feasting now remain to be mentioned: (1) Their custom of setting the best and fairest joint by way of respect and honour before persons whom they wished to distinguish; and (2) the ease with which, in the midst of a peaceful banquet, they would spring to arms on the slightest provocation.

The first of these two peculiarities was so well-known and commonly practised that it forms the motif of several of the finest heroic tales of Ireland. There was at all feasts of special importance a joint or portion set apart from all the rest, to be bestowed upon the champion who was considered by the universal vote of his fellows to be the most brave and worthy of honour. The bestowal of this ‘champion’s portion,’ as it was called, led to much disputing and protesting of the deeds of various warriors, and frequently ended in open feud or warfare. In the time of the Ulster cycle of stories, three champions of nearly equal renown frequently contested the ‘champion’s bit,’ and it is on their trials of strength, and contests for priority that such tales as the ‘Feast of Bricriu’ and the ‘Hound of Mac Datho’ are founded. These warriors are named Laeghaire or Laery the Triumphant, Conall the Victorious, and Cuchulain. They are all men of renown among their fellows, but, as Queen Méve puts it when she is asked to adjudge between them, ‘Laery and Conall the Victorious are as different as bronze is from white metal; Conall and Cuchulain as different as white metal is from red gold’' (Fled Bricrend, p. 74). In the Feast of Bricriu the three heroes go through a long series of tests, carried on first in Ulster, and afterwards at the palace of Méve in Connaught, and at the fort of Curoi mac Daire in Munster, in all of which Cuchulain comes out victor.

In the wild Homeric tale of Mac Datho’s Hound and Boar, a similar subject forms the motif of the story. In the contest for priority between the warriors of Ulster and those of Connaught, Conall Cemach at length carries off the palm, and sits down to carve the hero’s portion, a boar roasted whole. Like so many feasts of the heroic period, the banquet