Myths and Legends of the Celts (Penguin Reference)

by James MacKillop

  A separate version begins with Deichtine’s disappearance, with fifty maidens, from the court of Conchobar mac Nessa. After three years a flock of birds settles on the field of Emain Macha and lays waste the crops. Conchobar and his retainers drive off the birds, which then lead the royal party to Brug na Bóinne, the residence of Angus Óg on the Boyne River. That night the men enter a splendid palace, where a noble young man is seen with what appear to be fifty maidens. The young women include Deichtine, and the noble youth is revealed to be Lug Lámfhota. Realizing this, Conchobar asks to see Deichtine, but she sends instead her newborn son Cúchulainn.

  In a third alternative, less widely circulated, Conchobar, as either Deichtine’s father or brother, commits incest with her to produce Cúchulainn.

  There are also rival stories of the hero’s fosterage, an important question in the unstable society of early Ireland where the sponsorship of a prominent fosterer could guarantee a lifetime of security and influence. Following the first of the conception stories, cited above, Sualtam mac Róich, Deichtine’s husband, is seen as Cúchulainn’s sole foster-father. More often leading members of the Ulster court vie for Deichtine’s favour to be named fosterer, a possible contretemps she diplomatically resolves by agreeing to have seven in the role concurrently. They are: (i) Sencha mac Ailella the judge to give eloquence and poetry; (ii) Blái Briuga the hospitaller to provide for material comfort; (iii) Fergus mac Róich to take the young hero on his knee; (iv) Amairgin the poet to be his teacher; (v) Conall Cernach to be a foster-brother and virtual twin; (vi) Findchóem, Conall’s mother, to be his wet nurse; and finally (vii) Conchobar to be his principal foster-father.

  The boy Cúchulainn is still called Sétanta and must earn his heroic name, much as Heracles is first known as Alcides. How this happened along with other boyhood deeds is remembered by Fergus mac Róich, his tutor, in a lengthy early chapter of the Táin Bó Cuailnge. While still only five years old (or seven in many sources), Sétanta learns of a martial boys’ corps at Emain Macha, headed by Follamain, Conchobar’s son, and travels 25 miles by foot to reach it. To make the journey seem shorter, he plays games with weapons, such as throwing his javelin ahead of him, then racing forward to catch it. Upon his arrival Sétanta finds the boys, 150 strong, some practising fighting skills while others are playing hurling, a game like field hockey. He rushes headlong into the game, gets the ball, dodges around the surprised players and scores a goal. This does not go down well with the boys, and especially angers their leader Follamain. The rest of the boys throw their sticks, balls and finally their spears at Sétanta. Under this attack he experiences his first battle frenzy or warp spasm, baring his teeth, making his hair stand on end and putting a bright circle of light around his head. Thus transformed, Sétanta rushes the crowd, knocking fifty of the boys to the ground and chasing off others until Conchobar takes him by the arm. The king advises the impetuous boy that the corps is forbidden to play with the newcomer until he claims the protection of the group. Sétanta replies that he would have complied had he known. Conchobar then introduces the boy to the troop, and they all return to playing hurling. Quickly asserting himself, Sétanta begins knocking down the others one by one until Conchobar calls out to ask what he is doing. He answers that all the boys must come under his protection, which the terrified boys agree to do, even though Sétanta is younger than they are.

  A little more than a year later, Sétanta is left behind playing hurling at Emain Macha while the rest of the royal household visits the residence of a wealthy smith named Culann in Cuailnge, next to the boy’s home territory of Muirtheimne. Guests at the smith’s lonely mansion know they can relax because they are protected against intruders by the host’s huge, ferocious dog. In the midst of their merrymaking they hear a terrible sound. The late-arriving Sétanta, still only a boy, has slain the mighty dog by smashing it against a doorpost. An alternative version has Cúchulainn fling a ball into the dog’s open mouth, mortally punishing the creature’s innards. The guests at first cheer the boy’s feats of strength, but Culann is clearly dismayed at the loss of his prized hound. Sensing this loss, Sétanta promises to raise another whelp to replace the guard dog, and will himself serve as the hound in the interim. Saluting his understanding and generosity, the crowd applauds and calls him the hound, Cú, of Culann, Chulainn, the name he retains thenceforward.

  As we saw in the previous chapter with Finnabair’s descriptions for her mother Medb, Cúchulainn is often portrayed as short, dark, beardless and filled with high spirits. Accounts vary from text to text, but his hair is usually thought to be of three colours, brown at the roots, blood red in the middle and blond at the crown. Some aspects of his person appear magical rather than what is usually thought handsome in a man. He has four dimples in each cheek, each dimple being of a different colour: yellow, green, crimson and blue. Seven pupils fill each eye. He clasps with seven fingers, and the seven toes on each foot allow him the grip of a hawk or griffin. As off-putting as some of these features may sound, Cúchulainn is conventionally described as handsome and highly attractive to women. Perhaps readers of early Irish literature did not always visualize the hero in his beguiling feats.

  Difficult to visualize also is the singular transformation Cúchulainn undergoes before entering battle. The Irish term ríastrad is untranslatable, but the usual attempts are battle fury, contortion and warp spasm. When this overcomes him, he becomes a fearsome figure such as never has been seen before. His entire body quivers like a bullrush in a running stream. The muscles of his neck expand to the size of a baby’s head, while his legs rotate on their axes, his calves, hams and heels shifting to the front and knees and feet to the back. One eye recedes to the interior of his skull, reduced to the size of a pin, while the other thrusts out. His mouth widens to meet his ears, and foam pours from his mouth like the fleece of a three-year-old wether. The thump of his heartbeat is as loud as a lion’s roar as he rushes towards his prey. From his scalp a column of dark blood spurts forth, scattering in four directions, forming a gloomy mist. Lastly, a projection emerges from Cúchulainn’s head, like a horn but the size of man’s fist. It is the lón láith [light of the hero (?)], which signals he is about to begin combat.

  As the paragon of Irish heroes, Cúchulainn’s personal strengths are a continual theme among storytellers as well as among other characters in the narratives. Fergus mac Róich praises Cúchulainn while conducting his adulterous affair with Medb, Cúchulainn’s soon-to-be adversary. No raven is more ravenous, no lion more ferocious. Obstacles and barriers do not exist for him. A characteristic expression of his energy is the distinctive salmon leap, which modern commentators compare to the jump of a soccer player. It may be both aggressive and defensive, enabling him to pounce on an enemy but also escape a predator. His ability to soar upward explains why nimbleness and brilliance are thought to be Cúchulainn’s signal assets. The hero’s vitality and attractiveness to women engender love-sickness in many an Ulsterwoman’s breast. Warriors wish that Cúchulainn would take a wife so that their daughters would forget him. From the many he chooses Emer, daughter of the wily Forgall Manach. Even before he speaks to her Cúchulainn kills the three sons of Nechta Scéne as a demonstration of his lethal power, as the prevailing custom demanded he win Emer by force.

  Upon their meeting, things begin well as Cúchulainn and Emer greet each other in riddles only they can understand. His stories of early exploits charm the maiden. Seeing the swell of her breasts above her gown, Cúchulainn coos that it would be a sweet place to rest. No one will rest here, she answers, until he accomplish three demanding tasks: (i) killing a hundred men at a range of fords in rivers, (ii) slaying three times nine men while leaving the middle man in each group still standing, and (iii) staying awake from February to May, and from May to November. Her father Forgall is less taken with the young swain, however. Going with friends to the court at Emain Macha disguised as Gaulish emissaries, he proposes that the only way for Ulster heroes, Cúchulainn in particular, to
achieve greatness is to travel to distant Scotland to be schooled in the arts of war by the amazonian Scáthach. Not so secretly, Forgall wishes that Cúchulainn will perish on the journey or be slain by Scáthach herself. Even after heeding Emer’s warning of her father’s intrigue, Cúchulainn departs for Scotland with Lóegaire, Conall and Conchobar.

  The experience in Scotland turns out very differently from what Forgall wishes. In addition to receiving the required training, Cúchulainn enjoys successive romantic encounters with martial women. Upon arrival in Scotland, the four Ulstermen receive lessons in balance and endurance from Domnall Mildemail [the warlike], who still advises them to travel on to meet Scáthach. The tutor’s hideous daughter Dornoll, meanwhile, becomes smitten with Cúchulainn, who does not return her affections. Hurt and angry, she vows revenge. In a short while she conjures up an enticing, roseate vision of Emain Macha, causing homesick Lóegaire, Conall and Conchobar to return to Ulster, leaving Cúchulainn alone in his quest for the right instruction. To reach Scáthach’s fort, often identified with archaeological sites on the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides, the hero must cross the daunting ‘Pupils’ Bridge’. Designed to block the incapable, it is arched high in the middle and is low at each end. When he first steps on it, the bridge heaves low and throws Cúchulainn off, to the laughter of bystanders. Seized at that moment by his battle fury, Cúchulainn shifts to his salmon leap and flies to the middle of the bridge and then on, adroitly, to the far shore. He then treks on confidently to Scáthach’s fort, hammering on the door with his spear, smashing through it in the process.

  Recognizing that only a substantially trained fighter would have made it this far, Scáthach sends her daughter Uathach [spectre] to answer the door, and she immediately falls in love with Cúchulainn, like so many women before her. The Ulsterman also gets on well with the mother, who gives him a new spear, the Gáe Bulga, with which he is always later identified. Next she shows him how to cast it with his foot for maximum accuracy and deadly force. In time Cúchulainn comes to know the ‘friendship of Scáthach’s thighs’, which may derive from a forgotten warrior initiation instead of being mere lovemaking. Scáthach grants Cúchulainn three favours: (i) to continue to instruct him most carefully; (ii) to give him her daughter Uathach, without exacting the bride price; and (iii) to predict his future career. In return Scáthach asks Cúchulainn’s aid in fighting her enemies, an army of men and women led by the amazonian Aífe, whom even the formidable Scáthach fears. Despite her role in the narrative, Aífe may be a double for Scáthach; she is a different Aífe from the cruel stepmother of the Children of Lir. Cúchulainn charges into Aífe’s army with heady success, slaying fighters left and right, and then comes into hand-to-hand combat with the warrior queen herself. She strikes the blade of his sword, leaving him with only the hilt, but he steadily gets the better of her, pinning her down and pointing the blade of another sword to her heart. Now he makes three demands of her: that she cease war upon Scáthach, stay with him that night, and bear him a son. She agrees.

  The son she bears in nine months’ time is named Connla (also Conlaoch, Conlai, etc.). Father and son spend no time together in Scotland, but they are destined to confront one another at a later date.

  A fellow student of Cúchulainn in Scotland is Ferdiad [man of smoke], a bosom friend and sword brother. Ferdiad too is fated to find himself confronting Cúchulainn in the future.

  On his return from Scotland to Emain Macha, Cúchulainn battles Emer’s family and carries her off along with much gold and silver. In a struggle that lasts a year, he fulfils all the demands she had put upon him. Emer’s father tries to escape the onslaught but tumbles from the fortifications to his death. Despite such violent courtship, Emer is usually portrayed as Cúchulainn’s wife through the rest of the Ulster Cycle, and she is never said to leave him. In some stories Cúchulainn’s wife is named as Eithne Ingubai, which may be but another name for Emer. Some of his dalliances have already been cited, such as the affair with Cú Roí’s wife Bláithíne, and more are yet to come, as with Manannán mac Lir’s wife Fand. He is also to be the love object of other women, such as the female warrior Cathach and the tragic swan maiden Derbforgaill.

  The spear, Gáe Bulga, given him by Scáthach, is one of his major weapons along with his sword Caladbolg.* In later oral tradition he wields the Claidheamh Soluis [sword of light], which may also be known as Cruaidin Catutchenn. His charioteer is Láeg, and together they drive two horses, Saingliu or Dubh [Black] Sainglenn and Liath Macha [Grey of Macha]. Cúchulainn also has many associations with ravens and is once warned by two magical ravens.

  CONNLA’S RETURN

  Cúchulainn is always seen as a boy or a very young man. Unlike Fionn mac Cumhaill or King Arthur, he never ages. Once again, as in the other cycles of Irish literature, there is no implicit timeline to show that one story comes before or after another. The same is true of Cúchulainn’s portrayals in the previous chapter, competing for the champion’s portion or racing across Ireland in the middle of the night. Imposing as the Táin is, storytellers saw no need to allude to it in Cúchulainn’s other adventures, even in such foretales to the epic as this story. We can, however, understand that seven years have passed since Cúchulainn’s sojourn in Scotland, learning the arts of war from Scáthach and fathering a child upon her rival Aífe. That son, Connla, has now reached the age of seven, and, like his father, he is ready to assert himself with arms.

  Cúchulainn might have been an absent father, but he left instructions for the boy’s upbringing. He was to be called Connla and sent to Scáthach for training as soon as he was able. He must step aside for no man, never refuse a challenge to single combat, and never tell his name to anyone except when overcome by another combatant. Further, Cúchulainn left a ring for the boy, asking that he should wear it when his hand was sufficiently big and then be sent to look for his father.

  Seven years after the day of those fatherly commands, Cúchulainn and Conchobar mac Nessa are walking with other Ulster warriors on the beach at Tracht Esi (or Trácht Éisi, near Baile’s Strand, Co. Louth) when they see a boy rowing on the sea in a bronze boat with gilded oars. The boy’s power in using a sling to make birds do his will fills the men with awe. Cautiously, the Ulstermen send a lesser champion, hapless Condere, to prevent his landing or at least learn his name. The boy confidently defies him, refusing to give his name until he is bested in combat, which Condere does not wish to try. The more imposing Conall Cernach blusters, but with little effect. The mere noise of the boy’s sling is enough to flatten Conall, after which the boy ties his arms with a shield strap.

  This shifts the burden to Cúchulainn, standing angrily nearby, who is restrained by his wife Emer. She has already guessed the boy’s identity. Challenged by the smirch on Ulster’s honour, Cúchulainn ignores Emer and faces the intruder, sword in hand. His demand that the boy tell his name is enough to impel the youngster to draw his sword and rush forward. With one swing of the blade he shaves the hair off Cúchulainn’s scalp, just missing the drawing of blood. Putting aside their weapons, Cúchulainn and the boy begin to wrestle. The grown man thrusts the boy down so hard that his feet penetrate into stone up to the ankles. They roll into the water, each hoping to drown the other. At last Cúchulainn casts his lethal spear, the Gáe Bulga, into the boy. It tears into the young flesh, barbs opening out, turning the surf red with blood.

  With his last breath the boy cries out that Cúchulainn has used something that Scáthach did not teach him – and it has mortally wounded him.

  The name of their common teacher is enough to reveal the boy’s identity to Cúchulainn, confirmed by finding the ring the father had left with Aífe. The father then takes Connla’s body in his arms and brings it before the assembled Ulstermen.

  Known as Aided Óenfhir Aífe [The Tragic Death of Aífe’s Only Son], the Cúchulainn-Connla story is an Irish instance of the international tale type N731.3, of which the best-known example is the Persian story of Sohrab and Rustum.

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bsp; TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE

  For wealth of detail, richness of characterization and enumeration of episode, not to mention sheer length, the Táin Βó Cuailnge can stand comparison with the national epics of Europe. It is not, however, a highly finished work. To begin with it lacks a unifying narrative tone. Successive episodes do not advance continuing themes. Scant motivation appears for abrupt shifts in character. Some have derisively called it an ‘epic-like saga’ rather than an epic. What we have survives in two versions that differ in both character and specifics. Internal linguistic evidence suggests that narratives within the epic Táin Βó Cuailnge began to form as early as the seventh century, but the two versions that come down to us are of later date. The oldest recension, found in Lebor na hUidre [Book of the Dun Cow] (1106), exhibits lean prose and sharp humour but is somewhat disjointed. The text in Lebor Buide Lecáin [Yellow Book of Lecan] (completed c.1390) is clearly copied from the Lebor na hUidre. The second version, found in Lebor Laignech [Book of Leinster] (completed c. 1150), can be more literary at best but is also given to florid alliteration and sentimentality. The Lebor Laignech version includes the remscéla or foretales, such as the Deirdre story, that are now usually cited as anticipations of the central narrative, even when Cúchulainn or Medb do not appear in them.