Mythology in Poetry: Her Strong Enchantments Failing

By Sibhéal McGarry

‘Her strong enchantments failing’ is a short poem written by Alfred Edward Housman. The poem is supernatural in theme, detailing an altercation between a young slayer and ‘The Queen of air and darkness’.

It contains three stanzas along with a regular half rhyme scheme. The first line is simply the title of the poem. The noun ‘her’ is used to dehumanise. It isolates the audience from the Queen of air and darkness and establishes her as a villain. The ‘e’ sounding assonance throughout the poem creates a distinctive hissing sound, further reinforcing the thinking that the Queen of air and darkness is a monster and must be slayed.

We are jolted into the scene with no warning, with the slayer holding a ‘knife at her neck’. The words are unfeeling and callous. They evoke a lurid image of the young slayer gripping the blade almost flippantly, pinning the Queen with their cold stare as she attempts to writhe away from their hold.

The young slayer is victorious, stating a sense of finality, and a tone of self-righteousness.

‘I shall die tomorrow; / But you will die today’

The slayer accepts their mortality, believing that the death of the Queen of air and darkness is a just exchange for their own life.

The audience feel somewhat mollified in that they are on the side of victory, but there is nothing to incline the reader that the slayer’s intentions are honourable. Unbeknownst to the audience, and perhaps only known to Housman himself, the slayer could be planning their ascension to the now vacated throne. Their rule could be even more heartless.

‘The Queen of air and darkness’ is a more chilling title to refer to Queen Mab, who is widely regarded as the Queen of the Fairies along with Titania (who appears in William Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer’s Night Dream’).

Queen Mab is first referenced in Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. She is introduced in a speech by Mercutio, a character in the play. Queen Mab is described as the fairies’ midwife and is said to gallop on her chariot through ‘lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love’. However, the dreams become violent, seen in their crescendo with:

‘Sometimes she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, / And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats’

The manipulation of these young soldiers to dream of cutting throats leads us to ascertain that she is somewhat of a malevolent figure. This corresponds to the figure she is widely believed to be inspired by, Queen Medb.

Queen Medb is queen of Connacht in the Ulster Cycle of Irish Mythology. The most famous story associated with Medb is the ‘Táin Bó Cúailnge’, which can be translated into ‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’, where she leads Connacht’s forces against Ulster. Most notably Cú Chulainn appears and holds down the enemies’ advances, whilst Ulster builds up their army after having been plagued by a spell that crippled them.

There was a great deal of animosity between these two Irish legends, with Medb having a hand in Cú Chulainn’s death. Cú Chulainn was granted the grace of a courageous death where he could face down his enemies, dying as a beloved and respected hero. Whereas Medb died unaware of her attacker plotting her death and orchestrating it with a well shot sling.

There are many similarities between Queen Mab and Queen Medb. Both were women attempting to rule in areas dominated by men.

Although, the resemblance fades when Medb’s known acts of brutality are compared to Mab’s. Queen Mab’s encouragement of bloodlust in soldiers pales against Medb’s wickedness. An example of this is when she killed the wife of her ex-husband Conchobar, who was with child and who was also her sister, out of revenge.

On my initial inspection of Queen Medb, I was afraid that she had been typecast as a seductress and a villain wrongly, due to her position as queen and as a woman. But on closer inspection, her tale is littered with even more horrible atrocities she committed out of spite, anger and jealousy. Her story is meant to be a cautionary tale on the corrupting nature of power.

If you wish to immerse yourself further in the tale of Medb, Cú Chulainn and the Ulster Cycle, I would highly recommend reading ‘The Táin’, which has been translated by Ciaran Carson who was a Professor of Poetry at Queen’s University.

Edited by Tiffany Murnaghan