Congal Cáech - Blinded by a Bee!
In this week's Honeybee Histories we explore the tale of the bee that blinded Congal Cáech in one eye; an injury that was then used to unseat him as High King in early medieval Ireland.
Name: Congal Cáech
Born: unknown
Died: 637 AD
Location: Ireland
Era: Medieval
Bee link: blinded by a bee-sting which may have lost him the kingship of Tara
We have no images of Congal Cáech but his name and the few tales that are told about him tell us that he was badly injured in one eye by a bee. He was high-king of Ireland until he was killed at the battle of Mag Roth in 637 AD. Thus, we know the date he died. His date of birth is unknown and we are not even certain who his parents were, despite his royal ascendancy. According to T.M. Charles-Edwards, Cáech appears in the annals from 626 AD and the regnal list of the provenance of Ulster list his reign as lasting ten years.
What adds more interest is the fact that he was the last king of Tara for 350 years who did not belong to the Ui Neill, the dynasty most often associated with the kingship of Tara. It is suggested that Cáech became high-king due to excessive in-fighting amongst the Ui Neill in the 620s-630s which made it easier for them to accept an overlord from outside their kin; at least for a while. Indeed, it is notable that Cáech is absent from all the regnal lists of Tara suggesting that his name might have been wiped out of their written histories. Indeed, the main proof that we have that he was high-king comes from a legal tract called ‘bee-judgements’ (Bechbretha), which is the reason I am discussing him here, on Honeybee Histories.
The Bechbretha document makes a claim that Congal Cáech was blinded in one eye by bees. His name, at the very least, partly collaborates this claim. “Cáech” is an epithet meaning ‘one-eyed’ or ‘squinting’, which confirms the likelihood that he could only see out of one eye. The document also claims that it was this physical defect which caused him to lose his kingship of Tara, which lead to Domnall mac Aeda engaging him in battle. Charles-Edwards only partly seems to accept this claim. He argues that it is doubtful that Cáech was actually blinded by a bee-sting (as this type of accident is extremely rare) but rather had a bad reaction to a sting close to his eye. He suggests that Cáech’s enemies might then have used this as an excuse to drive him from the high-kingship.
The Bechbretha not only claims that Cáech lost his kingship due to the incident but that he sued the owner of the beehives and demanded that one of his hives is destroyed at random. This, he considers to be justice. On initial inspection, it would seem somewhat harsh that an injured eye was enough of an excuse for the rulers of Tara to use it to remove him, however, Jacqueline Borsje reminds us that kingship in this era was often interpreted for good or ill through supernatural beliefs. As she explains:
“The loss of kingship because of a blemish is linked to the motif of sacral kingship. According to this literary-religious motif, the fate of the land is connected with the king; this supernatural connection demands that the king be unblemished, courageous, generous and just. Various texts state that if these rules are transgressed, the land suffers as a consequence.” (Borsje, 2007, 22).
The damage to an eye was therefore considered a bad omen, thus giving the Ui Neill an excuse to remove him on claims that his continuation as high-king could jeopardise the people of Tara.
Cáech was probably doomed from the start anyway. In 635 one of the powerful members of the Ui Neill Mide tribe, Conall mac Suibni, was killed, leading to the Ui Neill of Brega becoming more powerful than their Mide rivals. With their rivalry virtually at an end the injury to Cáech’s face was probably enough justification for them to make their move. They removed him from the kingship and a year later, Charles-Edwards theorises, Cáech may have attempted to regain it but died in the resulting battle.
Although next to nothing is known about the reign of Congal Cáech beyond some possibilities about how he became king and how he lost the throne, the injury he seems to have sustained from a bee-sting and the impact this had on his life, is interesting. However, all of this is not the only interpretation available. The Old Irish version of Cath Maige Rath (The Battle of Mag Rath) claimed that Cáech was King of Ulster and that the king of Tara, Domnall owned bees which accidentally destroyed Cáech’s eye.
In this alternative version of the story, Cáech is a child-king and his foster father is King Domnall. The Ulstermen demand that justice should best be served by following the maxim ‘an eye for an eye’. They demanded the eye of Domnall’s son in recompense. Of course, Domnall doesn’t accept this, and instead orders the destruction of the swarm so that the guilty bee is killed.
From there, the Old Irish version of the story suggests that Cáech became embittered, believing that justice was not done and he turns on his foster-father and goes to war – a war in which he is eventually killed.
Other tales connect Cáech’s anger to the devil or to being possessed by a demon, thus moving away from the story of the bee-sting. These various sources make it difficult to know the truth of the matter. Most likely Congal Cáech was injured by a bee and there was a legal case. It seems that he did become high-king of Tara and that he was killed in the Battle of Mag Rath. Beyond these facts, its hard to disentangle the truth from the fiction.
Sources
Borsje, J., ‘Demonising the enemy: a study of Congal Cáech’, Proceedings of the Eighth Symposium of Societias Celtologica Nordica, edited by J.E. Rekdal and A.O. Corrain (2007), pp. 21-38. [PDF]
Charles-Edwards, T.M., ‘Congal Cáech’, ODNB (2004). DOI: 10.1093/ref:odnb/50096