Page:The ancient Irish epic tale, Táin bó Cúalnge (Dunn).djvu/24

xvi his age when he followed the Driving of the Kine of Cualnge, but twenty-seven years was his age when he died."

A very different account is given in the manuscript known as H. 3. 17, Trinity College, Dublin, quoted by O'Curry in his Manuscript Materials, page 508. The passage concludes with the statement: "So that the year of the Táin was the fifty-ninth year of Cuchulain's age, from the night of his birth to the night of his death." The record first quoted, however, is partly corroborated by the following passage which I translate from the Book of Ballymote, facsimilé edition, page 13, col. a, lines 9-21: "In the fourteenth year of the reign of Conairè (killed in 40 B.C.) and of Conchobar, the Blessed Virgin was born. At that time Cuchulain had completed thirteen years; and in the fourth year after the birth of Mary, the expedition of the Kine of Cualnge took place ... that is, in the eighteenth year of the reign of Conairè. Cuchulain had completed his seventeenth year at that time. That is, it was in the thirty-second year of the reign of Octavius Augustus that the same expedition took place. Eight years after the Táin Bó Cúalnge, Christ was born, and Mary had completed twelve years then, and that was in the fortieth year of the reign of Octavius Augustus; and in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Conairè and Conchobar, and in the second year after the birth of Christ, Cuchulain died. And twenty-seven years was Cuchulain's age at that time."

These apparent synchronisms, of course, may only rest upon the imagination of the Christian annalists of Ireland, who hoped to exalt their ancient rulers and heroes by bringing them into relation with and even making them