TAL-chuh (TAIL-tyoo)
Tailtiu is the foster-mother of Lugh, said to have died clearing the plains of Ireland for farming, and honoured with the great Áenach Tailten, the funeral games held at Teltown each Lughnasadh.
Tailtiu was a queen of the Fir Bolg, the people who held Ireland before the Tuatha Dé Danann. In the myth she becomes the foster-mother of Lugh, the many-skilled god. The Dindshenchas tells that she died of exhaustion after clearing a great forest for farming, and that Lugh held funeral games in her honour at the place now called Teltown, in County Meath.
These games, the Áenach Tailten, were a real festival held in early Ireland around the start of August, which is Lughnasadh, with contests, markets and the making of marriages. The month of August is Lúnasa in Irish and takes its name from the festival of Lugh. The games continued in some form into the Middle Ages. In 1924 the Irish Free State revived them as the Tailteann Games, an athletics event for the Irish diaspora, held in 1924, 1928 and 1932.
| Cycle | Entries here | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| The Mythological Cycle | 21 | The oldest of the four cycles, telling of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the successive invasions of Ireland. |
| The Fenian Cycle | 7 | Tales of Fionn mac Cumhaill and his band of warriors, the Fianna, set generations after the Ulster Cycle in a world of hunting, romance, and roaming adventure. |
| The Ulster Cycle | 12 | The heroic tales of Conchobar mac Nessa's court at Emain Macha, centered on Cú Chulainn and the great cattle raid of the Táin Bó Cúailnge. |
| The Historical Cycle | 1 | Also the Cycle of the Kings — legendary and semi-legendary tales of Ireland's High Kings, treated by medieval scribes as genuine national history. |