Quotations: Curses & Insults
 

A chacc cuirre uidre ittige!

(o * shit * of crane * grey-brown * winged)

O shit of a flapping dun-colored crane!

The adjectives that make this a truly baroque insult in Irish probably can't be carried over into English successfully. Our closest equivalent would be a blunt "You crane shit!" The word "corr" (genitive "cuirre") can mean either "crane" or "heron" in Old Irish. The insult is one of five, directed in rapid succession against someone named Bressal or Brénnan in a quatrain edited by Kuno Meyer in "Mittelirische Verslehren" (IT iii 102 §189) and then in "Bruchstücke der älteren Lyrik Irlands". The latter edition is:

A mâelscolb do messair,
a eclas crainn, a chacc cuirre uidre ittige,
a eôin re n-ossaib,
a fhertas a broinn bicire, a Brênaind!

A chride ind eoin ittig!

(o * heart * of the * bird * winged)

O heart of a fluttering bird!

Or, in more colloquial terms, "You chicken-hearted coward!" Fer Diad hurls this insult at Cú Chulainn as they prepare to meet in single combat in the LL Táin.

A eoin re n-ossaib!

(o * bird * in front of * deer)

O bird before deer!

The insult here, besides simply calling someone a bird, may lie in the parody of the usual heroic image of the bull or boar leading the herd. Cú Chulainn says, for example, in the LL Táin:

"Dodechad ré n-ócaib
im t[h]orc trethan trétaig
re cathaib re cétaib."

I came in front of warriors
as a bold herd-rich boar
before battalions, before hundreds.

See also "A chacc cuirre uidre ittige!" in this collection.

Bad nenaid co bráth a lucht!

(let be * nettles * to * doomsday * his * household)

May his household be nettles forever!

In other words, "May his house be deserted forever!" This malediction is included in "Mairg thochras ri clerchib cell", a poem attributed to Diarmait mac Cerbaill and found in LL 149b36. Nettles ("nenaid") are one of the three signs of a ruin or a cursed place, the other two being the elder bush ("tromm") and the corncrake or landrail ("tragna", modern "traonach"). "Trecheng Breth Féne" includes the triad "Trí comartha láthraig mallachtan: tromm, tradna, nenaid", and "Cáin Adomnáin" (§23) talks of "three shouts of malediction on every man who should kill a woman... so that his heirs would be elder and nettle and corncrake (... comad he a comarbpa trom 7 nenaid 7 traghnae)".

Bás fort béolu!

(death * on your * lips)

Death upon your lips!

A curse, spoken as a threat by the daughter of Echaid in the tale "Fingal Rónáin". Later in the same tale, Rónán curses her with the words "Mallacht fort béolu!" (A curse on your lips!) Compare Ailill's threat in "Táin Bó Fraích", when he demands that his daughter return a thumb ring: "atbélat do béoil mani aisce úait" ("your lips will die if you do not give it back"). When Moncha dies of childbirth in "Cath Maige Mucruma", the text says simply "atbailet a béoil" ("her lips die"). In "Buile Suibhne", the mad hero curses the old woman who lures him back into his old flighty, fleeing ways with the exclamation "Mallacht for do bhél, a chailleach!" (A curse on your mouth, old woman!)

Bé Néit fort!

(woman/wife * of the war god Néit * on you)

Damn you!

A curse quoted in entry #168 of "Sanas Cormaic".

Bécán
ní rab ilar a tredan!
Oiret rab grian ar deiseal,
ní rab seiser d'óib Bécán!

(Bécán / not * may be * multitude * his * fasting /
as long as * may be * sun * on * sunwise course /
not * may be * six persons * of * descendants * Bécán)

Bécán
may his fastings not be many!
So long as the sun follows its course,
may Bécán not have six descendants!

This curse is found in "Acallam na Senórach" (519). When Bécán, although wealthy, refused hospitalilty to St. Patrick's clerics, Patrick brought death upon him and his cattle and all his people with these words. This reading follows Tomás Ó Cathasaigh's edition and translation in the article "Curse and Satire" in Éigse xxi.

Beirid tríst 7 mallachtain nóem nÉrenn!

(let them carry * curse * and * malediction * of saints * of Ireland)

May they bear the curse and the malediction of the saints of Ireland!

This curse is quoted in Archiv für Celtische Lexicographie, ii.3.23. Another version of it is found in the Book of Fermagh (142.1):

Mallacht 7 tríst 7 anoráit naem nÉrend dóib! = The malediction and the curse and the imprecation of the saints of Ireland to them!

Ben in cluiccín for Domnall,
ná rup comlann a blíadain.

(strike * the * little bell * on * Domnall /
not * may be * complete * his * year)

Ring the little bell against Domnall!
May he not complete his year!

This curse, portending death within the year to Domnall, is half of a stanza put in the mouth of the cleric Adomnán, in the narrative introduction to "Cáin Adomnáin". According to the story, when Adomnán promulgated his "Law of the Innocents" in the 7th century, a number of kings took exception to the protections he granted in it to women, and they tried to kill him. He countered their swords with his "little bell", which he used to curse them. This is one of the curses, which he instructed his young attendant to carry out with the bell on his behalf. A similar formula from the same text is "Ben clucc ar Cellach Carmain, co raib i talmain ría ciunn blíadna!" (Ring the bell against Cellach Carmain, that he may be in the earth before the year's end!)

Bid móin 7 mothar a feranna-som co bráth.

(will be * bogland * and * thicket * their * lands * until * judgment day)

Their lands will be boglands and thickets forever.

This prophetic curse is the opening salvo of a longer litany of ill-will delivered by Saint Colmán against his ecclesiatical enemies in paragraph 59 of "Betha Colmáin".