The Poison-Tongued
Bricriu Nemthenga — “Bricriu of the Poison Tongue” — was the Ulster Cycle’s great mischief-maker. He didn’t kill people. He didn’t steal. He talked, and his talking caused catastrophes.
He built a great hall equal to Emain Macha and invited the entire Ulster court to a feast. Then, before the feast began, he went to each of the chief warriors privately and made each of them the same secret promise: that he would have the Champion’s Portion — the best cut of meat, the highest honour at the table. He made the same promise separately to each man’s wife about which of them would enter the hall first, which was the highest mark of precedence among women. Multiple men, multiple women, all privately promised the same prize.
The result was Fled Bricrenn — Bricriu’s Feast — one of the most celebrated texts of the Ulster Cycle. The competing claims escalated into the Beheading Game, appeals to multiple kings for judgment, and ultimately to Cú Roí mac Dáire‘s adjudication, which confirmed Cú Chulainn as the supreme warrior of Ireland. Bricriu caused a test that revealed a truth that had always been there but that the Ulster court had been avoiding. His poison tongue forced the question that produced the answer.
He died after the Táin Bó Cúailnge, when the two great bulls — the Donn Cuailnge and Finnbennach — fought their final battle. Bricriu was caught between them and trampled. The man who had started so many conflicts with his words died in the physical wreckage of the one conflict whose scale had grown beyond anything words could manage.
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