Medb

Medb rules Connacht from Cruachan in the Tain Bo Cuailnge. In bed, she and her husband Ailill compare their property piece by piece: jewels, clothing, sheep, horses, and cattle are equal until one animal breaks the balance. Finnbennach, the White-Horned Bull, had belonged to Medb but crossed into Ailill's herd because, the tale says, it would not be ruled by a woman. Medb sends to borrow the Brown Bull of Cooley in Ulster. A drunken boast by her envoys ruins the agreement, and the proposed loan becomes a cattle raid. A private accounting opens into a war of four provinces.

With the men of Ulster disabled by Macha's curse, Medb leads the coalition north. At the fords Cu Chulainn invokes single combat and kills Connacht's champions one after another. Medb answers with reward, marriage promises, intimidation, and strategy, always remaining the directing will of the host. The Brown Bull is eventually driven into Connacht, where it fights and kills Finnbennach, then returns to Cooley and dies. Both animals are lost, and the difference of one bull that began the campaign has been paid for with an army's dead.

Other narratives call Medb a daughter of a high king and place a series of husbands and political unions around her, revealing how sovereignty, territory, and marriage interlock in early Irish storytelling. The later Cath Bóinde preserves the memorable account of her death by a sling-stone made of hardened cheese. Retellings often reduce her to lust or jealousy, but the Tain gives her a more formidable shape: a ruler who measures power openly, builds coalitions, defines equality on her own terms, and makes the island bear the cost.