Mael Dúin

Máel Dúin is the protagonist of Immram Maele Dúin or the Voyage of Máel Dúin, a tale of a sea voyage written in Old Irish around the end of the first millennium. He is the son of Ailill Edge-of-Battle, whose murder provides the initial impetus for the tale.

The story belongs to the group of Irish romances, the Navigations (Imrama), the common type of which was possibly drawn in part from the classical tales of the wanderings of Jason, Ulysses, and Aeneas.

The text exists in an 11th-century redaction, by a certain Aed the Fair, described as the "chief sage of Ireland," but it may be gathered from internal evidence that the tale itself dates back to the 8th century. Imram Curaig Mailduin is preserved, in each case imperfectly, in the Lebor na hUidre, a manuscript in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin; and in the Yellow Book of Lecan, MS. H. 216 in the Trinity College Library, Dublin; fragments are in Harleian MS. 5280 and Egerton MS. 1782 in the British Museum.

Máel Dúin was the son of warrior chieftain Ailill Ochair Aghra. His mother was a nun raped by Ailill. Shortly after, Ailill was killed by marauders from Leix who burned a church down on him. His mother then fostered Máel Dúin with the Queen of Eoganacht. He grew into an attractive warrior who was "victorious over everyone in every game they used to play, both in running and leaping and spear casting and casting stones and racing horses." A jealous youth exposed to him the truth of his unknown kindred, saying to Máel Dúin "whose clan and kindred no one knows, whose mother and father no one knows, vanquish us in every game." All this time Máel Dúin thought he was the son of the king and queen. He refused to eat or drink with the king and queen until he was told who his birth mother was. The queen sent him to his biological mother who told him about the death of his father.

He travelled to the graveyard of the church of Dubcluain where Briccne, a poison-tongued man of the community of the church, tells him that it is Máel Dúin's duty to go out and avenge his father's murder. Máel Dúin seeks the advice of a druid named Nuca at Corcomroe who tells him how to find the murderers. She instructs him to take only 17 companions.

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