Cruinniuc (Crunniuc, Cruinn, Crundchu) is a farmer of Ulster in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. A widower, he is surprised when a beautiful woman turns up at his house, sleeps with him and takes care of his children, without revealing her name. She becomes pregnant by him. The Ulaid, also known as the Ulaidh and the Ulad, are a people of Early Ireland who gave their name to the Irish Province of Ulster. ... The Ulster Cycle, formerly the Red Branch Cycle, is a large body of prose and verse centering around the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster. ... The mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branches of Celtic mythology. ...

Later, at a festival, he boasts that his wife could run faster than the king's chariot. The king hears his boast, and his heavily pregnant wife is forced to race against his chariot. She wins, and gives birth to twins on the finish line. She reveals her name is Macha, and the capital of Ulster is thereafter called Emain Macha ("Macha's Twins"). She curses the men of Ulster to suffer her labour pains in the hour of their greatest need, which is why none of the Ulstermen but Cúchulainn is able to fight in the Táin Bó Cuailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley). Chariot was the name of a WW2 naval weapon, the British manned torpedo. ... This article is about the goddess in Celtic mythology. ... Categories: Ireland-place stubs | Ulster cycle ... Young Cúchulainn, 1912 illustration by Stephen Reid. ... The Táin Bó Cúailnge, or Cattle Raid of Cooley, is the central tale in the Ulster Cycle, one of the four great cycles that make up the surviving corpus of Irish mythology. ...