A retelling of an Irish epic, the Tain Bo Cualigne, explains how an argument between the King of Connacht and his wife Ailill about which of them is wealthier results in war upon the province of Ulster, protected only by a powerful boy warrior known as Cuchulainn.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
The American author of a thriller set in Ireland (The Gombeen Man, 1992) retells the greatest Irish tale of them all, the mythical Tain--the greatest tale in the sense that, as with the Iliad and the Odyssey in Greek literature, all Irish literature descends from it. Also known as the Tain Bo Cualigne, and, in English, as The Cattle Raid of Cooley, the epic concerns the rise of a hero, Cuchulainn, whose forebears were gods, and who even as a child was a mighty warrior. The story opens with a comic argument between the king and queen of Connacht, a powerful province in ancient Ireland. As the two lie in bed after making love, they take an elaborate inventory of their holdings, which are absolutely equal except that King Ailill owns a massive bull with mythic procreative powers. Queen Maeve, jealous, learns of another such bull in the weak neighboring province of Ulster and musters her armies to capture him. Adventures galore take place on the march, and, in epic style, soldiers declaim on their prowess in battle and in bed (The Raid is remarkably graphic in its depictions both of killing and of lust). Although Eickhoff renders some passages in verse, for the most part he tries to give the great epic the form of a modern novel. It's episodic all the same, rather like one of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories. The chief barbarian here, of course, is mighty Cuchulainn, who with strength, valor, and magic almost single-handedly defends Ulster from the invading Connachtmen, saving the mythic bull and securing his own immortality. As Eickhoff points out in his fine introduction, ``Sinn Fein'' means ``ourselves alone.'' Against the invading British, that is. A seamless blend of scholarship and storytelling, though perhaps too specialized for a wide American audience. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
"An amazing piece of work. This version has a marvelous ring of authenticity. This is what those wild pagans were really like-before the priests got to them! It's a really magical narrative-a turn-on in every sense of the word." -Thomas Fleming, author of The Officers' Wives
"A tremendous achievement. You don't have to be Irish to be entranced by Eickhoff's earthy magical rendering of one of the world's most ancient epics." -Jeanne Williams, Spur Award-winning author of Home Again.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
"A tremendous achievement. You don't have to be Irish to be entranced by Eickhoff's earthy magical rendering of one of the world's most ancient epics." -Jeanne Williams, Spur Award-winning author of Home Again.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A solid novelization,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Raid (Hardcover)
Eickhoff manages to transform one of the great epic poems in Western literature into a solidly-written novel. What it loses in poetic form it makes up for in immediacy. Not for the delicate of sensibilities, but a good introduction to the piece for those who have a hard time dealing with poetry in translation.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Cattle Raid of Cooley!,
By C. Harrison "C. Harrison" (London, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Raid: A Dramatic Retelling of Ireland's Epic Tale (Ulster Cycle) (Paperback)
Eickhoff's works are all very well done. This work is no exception. He has taken the Celtic epic the Tain and dissected the work, giving it a proper and detailed treatment in telling the tales of Cuchullain, the Hound of Ulster, the single most important hero in Irish myth/history. I recommend getting all these books in the Ulster Cycle in hardback form because you will want to keep these and display them, then reread them again in a few years. Excellent work.
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the great epics of the world,
By
This review is from: The Raid (Hardcover)
This wonderful book deserves to be on everyone's shelf. The story of the Cattle Raid of Cooley is translated and retold here in novelistic form to great effect. This story ranks up there with The Iliad and Beowulf as one of the great epics of the world.
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