#mizenhead

This was...probably a more difficult entry to make than I thought it would be. I know people probably voted for it on the idea of 'R loves Bres and R loves Balor, so this should be an easy post for them to make!' But it's...almost specifically BECAUSE I'm so emotionally invested that I struggle to make it. Are people looking for an academic, objective account for this? Are they looking for pretty photos? Both? Yes? No? 

But...well. You all voted for this in a poll posted by me, knowing my interests, so you knew this wasn't going to be 100% objective, either. So...let's get into it. 

When I visited Mizenhead, it was the culmination of over a decade of dreaming of getting to see it in person.

Many Americans, when they go to Ireland, have a certain idea of what they want to see, what they want to do. This can range from the Book of Kells to Irish run breweries to the Blarney Stone to the Cliffs of Moher to half-forgotten familial holdings to Cong, where The Quiet Man (starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara) was shot (sidenote: that village is also close to where the First Battle of Magh Tuireadh, ie Cath Muighe Tuireadh Cunga, took place.) For me, when I first got off the plane to Ireland, I knew that this was a site that I desperately *needed* to see (besides, of course, my uni), and that was Mizenhead. In the old days, of course, it wasn't called Mizenhead, it was called Carn uí Néit, or "The Gravesite of the Grandson/Descendant of Nét" (the 't' was softened to a 'd' as time went on, leading to its modern form of Carn uí Néid.) Sometimes, I still forget to call it by its more well known anglicized name, meaning that I'm constantly having to clarify, because that's the name I heard first, and it's the name that rings truest to me.  

According to the Dindshenchas of Cairn uí Néit, written the better part of a millennium ago c, this was the spot where Bres Mac Elatha died at the hands of his rival, Lugh, being tricked under geas to swallow over 300 vats of bog water, in the guise of milk.

A dindshenchas poem details the most well-known story associated with the site, as it was known in the Middle Ages (translated, in a style a little too flowery for my taste, by Edward Gwynn, but, if I want to be honest, it has taken me too long to get this out as it is and I know that if I translate the entire thing, it will NEVER get done) : 

[...]

6. Bress, a kindly friend was he, (he was a good friend) noble he was and fortunate, ornament of the host, with visage never woeful, of the Tuath De he was the flower. (Note: the BEST, what were you DOING Gwynn, lay off the medieval chivalry)

7. The drink of a hundred for each roof-tree was brought to the chieftain without fail, of the milk of dun-hued kine: he suffered from that fare.

8. In the reign of Nechtan bass-chain, of dear fame, of enduring purpose, at the cost of the King of the two Munsters, occurred the cause of the enduring name.

10. The kine of every townland in Munster — lasting harm! — by Nechtan's orders were singed, over ferns, till they were black of hue.

11. A mess of ashes was smeared by the noted men of cunning on the kine famed for fatness [...]

12. They fashioned stout kine of wood — that whole host noble and slender: Lug, who was dutiful on all occasions, chose them and brought them together. 

13. Pails in their forks were set with cheerful nimbleness; red stuff, with no bright shining fatness, that is the milk that filled them.

14. Three hundred, that was their number on the road to that gathering: at this contest, through his cheating illusion, there was not a cow of these kine alive.

15. Bress, hot of valour, came to the middle of the field to judge them: thereby, without prosperous issue, he perished and died.

16. From the drove were measured three hundred measures, bitter-harsh, for the spear-attended king to drink: it was a preparation of ill-presage.

17. Bress had a vow not to refuse any feat that was offered him: he drank it off without flinching: I know not what it brings.

18. At the Carn of radiant Ua Neit it killed the stern scion, when he had drunk without dread a draught of the dark ruddy liquor

19. By reason of this unfair demand, without due observance since the failure of his vow, without rightful and seemly honour the grave of Bress covers him.

Stokes provided an edition and translation of the prose version from the Rennes Dindshenchas: 

Then Bres came to inspect the manner of these cattle and so that they might be milked in his présence, and Cian (Lugh's father) was also among them. Ail the bogstuff they had was squeezed out as if it was milk of which they were milked. The Irish were under a tabu to corne thither at the same time, and Bres was under a tabu to drink what should be- milked there.

So three hundred bucketfuls of red bogstuff are milked for him, and he drinks it. Some say that he was seven days and seven mouths and seven years wasting away because of it, and he traversed Erin seeking a cure till he reached the same cairn, and there he died. Whence Carn uí Néit is named.

In other texts, the owner of the grave is changed: In the Early Modern recension of CMT, Cath Muighe Turieadh, it is actually Balor's death site, not Bres', Lug hunting his grandfather across Ireland until they have their fatal showdown there. John Carey, in "Myth and Mythography in Cath Maige Tuired", has argued that the attribution of this site to Bres was actually after the fact, with the attribution to Balor being the earlier of the two. On the record, I agree, on the basis that (1) Bres' usual haunt is Maginnis, in what is now Lecale, Co. Down and (2) Balor is consistently referred to as "Uí"/"Ua Néit", unlike Bres who, outside of this poem, is generally referred to purely as "Mac Elathan." 

Generally speaking, Bres is not the figure from Cath Maige Tuired that most academics will say that they like, when they'll admit that they *can* like any of the characters, beyond a detached sense of general interest. The boisterous Dagda, the haunted and embattled Nuada, the exemplary Lug all gather far more positive reactions. On an anecdotal note, though, I've had a number of overwhelmingly queer people, usually in their late teens or twenties, approach me over my time doing this, and tell me how important Bres was to them, how interesting. Bres taps into something that, perhaps, many older academics, who are used to the rigid structures of academia, do not want to acknowledge: a willingness to defy society, to rebel, to question. The feeling of being torn apart by competing forces, of being conflicted, of being frightened and lonely. The feeling of being watched, of being judged, of being a player in a game by much older, much more experienced people, but still trying to play it anyway, even if he flounders in his execution. Because the truth is that Lug is easy to like, particularly in Cath Maige Tuired where he's at his least manipulative. He can do everything! He unifies people! He's charismatic! He's dutiful! He does everything exactly as he's supposed to and, as a result, has all the emotional depth of a thimble. (I like him best when he's taking bloody revenge, when the mask of the ideal hero comes off and he's allowed to be a little bit messy.) With Bres, there is no illusion that he's perfect, that he's flawless. No one finishes reading CMT and thinks that, really, it would have been better off for everyone if Bres had won. Not many of us can be Lug, but all of us have been Bres at one point or another, the question is simply whether we want to admit to it. All of us have fallen short, at some point or another, all of us have disappointed someone, including, at times, ourselves. All of us have watched as someone came onboard -- maybe they were younger, better with people, more competent, naturally talented, and left us in the dust. It's why people come away from Amadeus sympathizing with Salieri, because, at some point in our lives, we all venerate the Patron Saint of Mediocrity.