Medb
Celtic Pantheon
Legendary queen of Connacht and central figure of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, whose war to seize the bull Donn Cúailnge drives the great epic of the Ulster Cycle. Medb is presented in the medieval texts as a formidable human queen, though many scholars read her as preserving the traces of an earlier sovereignty goddess.
Medb was queen of Connacht and wife of Ailill. When a boastful comparison of their wealth revealed that only Ailill possessed a bull without equal, Medb resolved to seize the rival bull Donn Cúailnge from Ulster, launching the war recounted in the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the central epic of the Ulster Cycle.
Medb is the legendary queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, most famous as the driving force behind the *Táin Bó Cúailnge* ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley"), the great medieval Irish epic. The tale opens with a private conversation, the so-called "pillow talk," between Medb and her husband Ailill, in which each boasts of their wealth. Medb discovers that Ailill's prize bull, Finnbennach, has no equal among her own possessions, and resolves to acquire the only bull that could match it: Donn Cúailnge, the great brown bull of Ulster.
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