Macha

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Macha
1. Wife of Nemed the invader in Lebor Gabála [Book of Invasions]. Although she is not richly characterized there, the text claims that she gives her name to Emain Macha; she also gives her name to Armagh [Ard Macha]. Congruent with Dumézil's theory, she is a prophetess.

2. Also called Mong Ruadh, Mongroe [Ir., red-haired]. The Ulster queen who marries her rival, Cimbáeth, and dominates him. Macha is heir to the throne as the daughter of one of three kings, Áed Ruad, Díthorba, and Cimbáeth, who have agreed to serve in successive seven-year reigns. When Áed, her father, drowns at Assaroe, the others refuse her claim to the throne. When Díthorba dies (in some accounts, at Macha's hand) she denies the throne to his five sons and routs them in battle. She then marries Cimbáeth, but knows that her claim on the queenship is not secure. Going to Connacht in disguise as a leper, she comes upon Cimbáeth's sons roasting a pig and joins them at dinner. Implying that she is sexually available, she leads them one by one into a wood where they expect to lie with her. Instead, she overpowers each one of them, ties them up, and drags them back to Ulster, where she sets them to building a noble fortress in her honour. She names it eo-muin because she marks out its perimeter with a clasp [eo] about her neck [muin]. Fulfilling Dumézil's schema, Macha (2) is a warrior.

3. The wife of Crunniuc mac Agnomain who gives birth during a horse-race and brings the noínden [debility/birth pangs] to Ulster. She appears one day to a wealthy, widowed farmer, Crunniuc, and begins keeping house for him. Before the first nightfall she has made a sunwise ritual right-hand turn ensuring good fortune, before entering his bed. Soon he grows more prosperous because of their union, and she becomes pregnant by him. Crunniuc announces that he wants to go to the great assembly of the Ulstermen, but Macha warns him not to speak of her there. Not heeding her, he watches Conchobar mac Nessa's chariots racing and immediately boasts that his wife can outrun them all. Stung by these words, the king has Crunniuc seized and demands that he prove his claim. Macha protests that she is pregnant, but to defend her husband, agrees. As she does she shouts that her name is Macha, daughter of Sainrith mac Imbaith [strange son of the ocean], and that a perpetual evil will descend upon Ulster because of this affair. Crunniuc's boast turns out to be justified, as she beats all horses easily, but as she crosses the finishing line she cries out in pain and gives birth to twins [Ir. emain], thus naming the spot Emain Macha [the twins of Macha], the capital of Ulster. In her crying out she also curses all who hear her, and all their descendants unto nine times nine generations, that they will suffer the pangs or debility [Ir. noínden] of childbirth for five days and four nights at the time of their greatest difficulty. Thus do the Ulstermen suffer, with three exceptions: small boys, women, and Cúchulainn because he is a son and avatar of the divine Lug Lámfhota; he will later be required to defend Ulster single-handedly. In Dumézil's analysis, Macha (3) is the telluric goddess who brings fruitfulness and increase. See J. F. Killeen, ‘The Debility of the Ulstermen: A Suggestion’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, 33 (1974), 81–6. See also TLACHTGA.

Macha. Irish otherworldly woman with three identities and multiple associations. She may have originally been a goddess of the land; see ANA. Her associations with war link her to Badb and Mórrígan; as a trio they are called Mórrígna. An association with horses suggests a derivation from Epona (or euhemerization from another, unnamed horse-goddess) as well as links to Rhiannon. Her high status in Ulster implies that she may have been a sovereignty goddess. While there are three Machas for purposes of story telling, they may all derive from a single persona; each is attributed the same mother, Ernmass. Georges Dumézil has argued that this provides a model for tripartite division (see TRIPLISM); see ‘Le Trio des Macha’, Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, 146 (1954), 5–17. T. F. O'Rahilly (1946) thought there was but one Macha with three attributed husbands. Cúchulainn's horse Liath Macha [grey of Macha] could, for example, be named for any of the three Machas. Emain Macha may be named for any of the three. All may also take the form of a crow. See also Françoise Le Roux and Christian-J. Guyonvarc'h, La Souveraineté guerrière de l'Irlande: Mórrígan, Bodb, Macha (Rennes, 1983).