Cuchulain was the greatest hero of medieval Ireland. The stories of his deeds belong to the ULSTER CYCLE of Irish tales, where Cuchulain is presented as the nephew of Conchobar, king of Ulster. Cuchulain was reputed to possess great personal beauty as well as incredible strength and courage, and when he went into his battle-frenzy, was a virtually invulnerable killing machine. His greatest feats are described in the Irish prose epic TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE (The cattle raid of cooley), in which he single-handedly holds off an invading army on the border of Ulster.
Cuchulain was said to be the son of Dechtire, Conchobar’s sister, and the Irish god Lugh. His childhood name was Setanta, and he was raised as a foster child in the house of his uncle the king. His reputedly famous beauty consisted of his having seven fingers on each hand and seven toes on each foot,with seven pupils in each eye.He was also supposed to have four moles (a blue, a red, a green, and a yellow one) on each cheek. At the age of six, Setanta fought and killed the ferocious watchdog of Culann the Smith, after which he became known as “Cu Chulain,” or “The Hound of Culann.” A number of boyhood deeds are attributed to Cuchulain, and when he was still a young man he invaded the fortress of Forgall the Wily, leaping over the fortress wall to ask for the hand of Forgall’s daughter Emer. Forgall had forbidden Emer to marry before her older sister, and denied Cuchulain’s suit, sending his warriors to challenge the youth. But Cuchulain had no trouble killing all 20 of his attackers, and Forgall himself was killed when he fell while fleeing from the scene. Returning home to Emain Macha, the Ulster capital, Cuchulain was attacked again, this time by Emer’s aunt and her supporters. Cuchulain, in his battle frenzy, killed so many attackers that the river ran red with blood.
Shortly after his marriage to Emer, Cuchulain becomes involved in the adventure told in the tale BRICRIU’s FEAST.In this story, Bricriu of the Poison Tongue invites the great warriors of Conchobar’s court to a feast, at which the “champion’s portion” was to go to the greatest warrior in Ulster. Cuchulain, Loegaire, and Cuchulain’s kinsman Conall all vie for the title, and after several tests, they are challenged to a beheading contest by a terrible stranger with an axe. Each hero, in turn, strikes off the head of the stranger, but only Cuchulain returns the following night to accept the stranger’s return blow. It is his courage that ultimately gains him recognition as the warrior deserving of the champion’s portion.
In the Táin bó Cuailnge, often simply called the Táin, Cuchulain must protect Ulster from an invasion by Queen Mebd of Connacht and her allies. A strange illness debilitates all the adult warriors of Ulster, and the 17-year-old Cuchulain guards a ford that forms the border between the two territories, defeating a Connacht warrior each day in single combat. Ultimately he is forced to fight his own foster brother, Ferdiad, who battles him for three days before Cuchulain finally kills him with his secret weapon, the dreaded gae bolga, a spear that makes 30 wounds.
Cuchulain’s death comes about through deception and misfortune. The 27-year-old Cuchulain, once again called upon to face an entire army single-handed, rides into battle fully conscious that his end is near. He is tricked into breaking a number of geis or taboos, on which his life depends, and he is distracted by satirists— poets who threaten to deride Ulster if he does not toss his spears to them. Lugaid, king of Munster, who fights Cuchulain to avenge his father’s death at Cuchulain’s hands, throws back one of the spears and disembowels Cuchulain with it. Obtaining a truce from his enemies to get a drink of water from a lake, Cuchulain then ties himself to a pillar so that he will not die lying down, and Lugaid lifts up Cuchulain’s head and strikes it off. Yet even in death, Cuchulain will not surrender easily—his sword comes down and cuts off Lugaid’s hand.
Cuchulain’s exploits survive in numerous medieval tales, and interest in his legendary exploits was revived during the Irish literary renaissance at the turn of the 20th century. The great Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote several poems and plays on the deeds of Cuchulain. A symbolic figure of indomitable Irish manhood during the Irish cultural revival,Cuchulain’s statue at the Dublin General Post Office commemorates the Easter Rising of 1916.
Bibliography
■ Dillon, Myles. Early Irish Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.
■ Kinsella, Thomas, trans. The Táin.With brush drawings by Louis Le Brocquy. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.
■ Mallory, J. P., ed. Aspects of the Táin. Belfast: December Publications, 1992.
■ Tymoczko, Maria. Two Death Tales from the Ulster Cycle. Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1981.