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Editions

• Vernam Hull (ed.), ‘Geneamuin Chormaic’, Ériu 16 (1952) 79-85.

• Standish H. O’Grady (ed. & tr.), Silva Gadelica (London 1892) I. 253-6; II. 286-9.

Manuscripts

• The Yellow Book of Lecan, cols. 886-9

• The Book of Ballymote, f. 142v a-b.
  

Date

• Middle Irish period, though possibly a reworking of an earlier source
  

Characters

• Art mac Cuinn: king of Tara from Dál Cuinn (prehistoric ancestors of the Connachta and Uí Néill)

• Olc Aiche: a smith and the father of Etan, the mother of Cormac

• Mac Con, the son of Luigith and king of Ireland from an Érainn people known as the Dáirine (prehistoric ancestors of the Corco Loígde)

• Cormac ua Cuinn: the son of Art mac Cuinn and the subsequent king of Tara.

• Lugna Fer Trí: the foster-father of Cormac

• Grec mac Arod: the man who finds the infant Cormac and the eponymous ancestor of the Grecraige

• Bennaid: a female-hospitaller and the owner of the sheep who eat the queen’s woad.
  

Notes

• According to Vernam Hull, the textual history of this tale is somewhat unclear.  There are two possibilities: 1) The copy in the Book of Ballymote is a transcription of the copy in the Yellow Book of Lecan, or 2) both texts are descended from a common source now lost.

• Cormac’s birth also forms part of Scéla Éogain 7 Cormaic and Cath Maige Mucrama.

Summary

On his way to give battle to Mac Con, Art mac Cuinn overnights at the house of a smith named Olc Aiche.  Since the king has only one child, Olc allows Art to sleep with his daughter Etan.  Afterwards, Art tells the girl that she will bear a son, that he should be fostered by Lugna Fer Trí, and that he will one day be king of Ireland.  The next day, Art is slain at the battle of Mag Mucrama.

While pregnant with Cormac, Etan decides to make the journey to Corann, where Lugna lives.  However, while en route, she goes into labor and delivers her child in the wilderness.  Hoping to rest a while before setting out again for Corann, Etan puts the baby in the care of her handmaid and then falls asleep.  Unfortunately, the handmaid too falls asleep, and soon a she-wolf (sad meic tíre) happens upon them, snatches up the baby, and heads off to her den, a little cave that comes to be known as Uaim Chormaic.  When the two women awake, they are beside themselves with grief.  They are soon met, however, by Lugna, who heard a loud clap of thunder, which he took to be the announcement of Cormac’s birth, and went looking for the child.  Some time later, a man named Grec mac Arod comes upon the infant Cormac as he is playing outside a wolf’s den among his lupine siblings.  With the child delivered to Lugna, Grec is rewarded with the land upon which his descendants, the Grecraige, now live.

Under Lugna’s care, Cormac grows into a very handsome young man (ingealt súl sochaidi), and all is well for him, until one day, when he is taunted for not having a father.  When he complains to his foster-father, Lugna tells him that he is the son of Art mac Cuinn, the former king of Tara.

Armed with that knowledge, Cormac goes to Tara, where Mac Con rules.  When he arrives, he hears that the king has just passed judgment on Bennaid, the female-hospitaller.  Mac Con has declared that her sheep, which had eaten the queen's woad, are to be forfeited as compensation for the damage.  Cormac, however, declares that a better judgment would have been the sheering of the sheep in compensation for the eating of the woad, since both the wool and the woad will grow back (leor lomrad na cáerach hi lomrad na glaisne ar asfaid díb línaib).  When the men of Ireland hear this, they realize that Mac Con has given a false judgment.  They drive him from Tara and make Cormac king.

After a long and prosperous rule, Cormac dies in Cletech at the house of Spelán the hospitaller—he chokes on a salmon bone—and is buried at Ros na Ríg rather than Bruig na Bóinne because of his knowledge of the Christian God.