Queensway

Irish Mythology

The Voyage of Maeldun

12th century, Old Irish. Lebor na hUidre (Book of the Dun Cow).

A giant emerged from a forge and threw a huge ball of glowing iron towards their ship.

Maeldun is fated to sail for a long time around an enchanted ocean that he finds full of strange and wonderful islands, as he searches for the Ireland that he has been blown away from in a storm.

On one island, two members of his crew are sent ashore where they discover a huge racecourse. The impressions of horses’ hooves left in the turf are each the size of a boat’s sail! The men return to their ship and they make quickly for the open sea, but there is a great noise of shouting in the distance and they can see behind them some giant horses galloping around the racecourse.

On another island they find a giant shepherd, on another, giant ants, on yet another, a giant herdsman.

On another island still, Maeldun and his crew could hear sounds from a great forge long before they came to shore, and voices carrying in the wind: ‘small children is what they look like,’ they heard, ‘out there on the sea, in a little wooden feeding-bowl.’ They rowed quickly away, but not before a giant emerged from the forge and threw a huge ball of glowing iron at them, making the sea boil behind them as it landed with an almighty splash!