Cuchulainn

In Ireland it is sometimes difficult to distinguish heroes from gods. But out of the Ulster or Red Branch cycle, dominated by the Tain Bo Cuailnge, one great hero emerges in the person of Cuchulainn (Cu Chulainn), the miraculous circumstances of whose birth, initiation, and other aspects of life place him in the company of the multitude of archetypal heroes of the monomyth, including Zoroaster, Achilles, Jesus, Herakles, and Theseus.

The mother of the hero-to-be was Dechtire, the daughter of the druid Cathbad and the love god Aonghus. During the wedding feast of Dechtire and the Ulster chieftain Sualtam, the god Lugh took the form of a mayfly and flew into the bride's drink. Dechtire fell into a deep sleep, during which Lugh came to her in a dream and instructed her to leave with him, taking fifty maidens, whom he would disguise as birds. Nine months after the disappearance of the women, a group of hunting warriors followed a flock of birds to the river Boyne, thought to be the home of the gods. There they found a palace, where they were entertained by a handsome man and a beautiful woman surrounded by fifty maidens. During the night the woman gave birth to a boy. Lugh then revealed his own and Dechtire's identities and instructed the hunters to return to Ulster with the mother and child and the maidens. There Sualtam welcomed back Dechtire as his wife and the baby as his son.

The child was first called Setanta. But one day the king, Conchobhar (Conor), noticed the boy's prodigious strength and invited him to join him at a feast being given by the smith, Culann. There the smith's huge dog attacked the child, who jammed his ball into the beast's mouth and smashed its head against a rock, killing it instantly. Culann was furious that the child had killed his favorite watchdog, but Setanta promised to find a replacement for the dog and until then to serve in its place as the “Hound of Culann,” or Cuchulainn. Later, still only a seven-year-old, Cuchulainn overheard the druid Cathbad predicting that anyone who took arms that day would become the greatest of heroes but would be condemned to a short life. Cuchulainn, like the similarly doomed Achilles, immediately demanded arms of Conchobhar and went off to defeat three magical warriors who had plagued the kingdom. So the young hero joined the community of mythic children whose extraordinary boyhood deeds indicate their heroic nature.

Still a boy, Cuchulainn fell in love with the beautiful Emer, who would have nothing to do with him before he could prove himself a true hero by accomplishing certain feats. Emer's father, the chieftain Forgall Manach, placed many more barriers before the young hero, and the overcoming of those barriers became his Heraklean labors, the traditional hero's quest. With the help of training by the warrior queen Scathach on Scathach's Island (perhaps Skye), Cuchulainn grew in strength and prowess and finally returned to Ireland and, after overcoming Forgall, married Emer. In the tradition of many heroes, Cuchulainn had a famous sword, Caladin, and a magic spear, the Gael-Bolg.

Many heroic and tragic events filled the rest of Cuchulainn's short life. Like other great heroes, he traveled in the Otherworld. He lost women he loved, quarreled with Emer, and found himself in a position in which he became the killer of his own son and then his best friend. The central events in his adult life are those of the great war of the Cattle Raid, contained in the epic the Tain Bo Cuailgne, in which Cuchulainn is the champion of Conchobhar's Ulstermen against the Connacht armies of Queen Medb. Cuchulainn is so admired, even by his enemies, that the evil queen and the war goddess Morrigan herself desire him. But, like the ancient hero Gilgamesh, he refuses the love of the goddess and suffers for that refusal. His reputation as a hero is fully established by his defeating Medb's warriors almost single-handedly, but there is no escape from Cathbad's prophecy. In spite of Emer's pleading that he avoid his final battle and in spite of the selfless acts of his faithful charioteer Leag, Cuchulainn is slain at the famous Pillar Stone, to which the hero bound himself so that he might die standing; and as an otter drinks his blood, the goddess Morrigan sits on his shoulder as a raven, finally in possession of the man she has desired.