(no subject)

So, I'm currently reading Ciaran Carson's translation of Táin Bó Cuailnge. I've never read it before or any Irish mythology/legends, really, and I have a question.

Are we really doing all of this over a cow? One cow? A cow the queen of Ireland doesn't even really appear to need for any purpose other than her husband has an awesome cow so she has to have one too? I mean, yeah, cattle were hugely important in some ancient European societies* but Medb and Ailill have an army of something like 50,000 guys (most of whom I assume Cù Chulainn is going to slaughter) to steal a single cow. Considering that they didn't know about Cù Chulainn when they set out, this seems like overkill.

It is a very enjoyable story but I keep getting stuck on the fact that huge numbers of people are presumably going to die over a single cow that the aggressors don't actually need. It's weird.

I assume there is a cultural context here that I'm missing.





*The first rune of the first aett of the futhark is fehu, which is usually translated as "wealth" but really refers to mobile wealth in the form of herds. In shape, fehu recalls the horns of a cow.

(no subject)

In which being a horror film weirdo probably makes me irritatingly pedantic:

A patron was explaining The Walking Dead to my coworker - "And these aren't like old fashioned zombies like in 1945."

And I thought, "Well, no, because 1945 is pre-Romero and most of the zombies in films were loosely based on badly understood voodoo legends, rather than blaming the zombies on a viral or vague supernatural agent. Also, in 1945, the Hays Code was still very much in effect, so of course you wouldn't be able to have the sort of gutmunching you can get away with today. Incidentally, did you know that 1945 saw the release of a film starring Bela Lugosi entitled Zombies on Broadway?"

And that is why it's a good thing that she was having the conversation with my coworker and not with me.