Heroes section: The Great Heroes...

Cuchulainn the Hero.

The sources of the quoted passages (quoted text is green script) are listed in the Bibliography.

Related topics in other page areas:  

• Queen Mebh
• Ferdia
• King Conchur Mac Nessa

Cuchulainn the youth: Setanta

Cuchulainn was the Achilles of Celtic legend. Like Achilles, he was an invincible hero but one who had a short life and whose fate was tied with the gods wishes. Where Achilles was the son of a sea goddess, Cuchulainn was the son of Lugh the Sun God and the beautiful Deirdre (the daughter of Cathbad -druid of King Conchur Mac Nessa). Cuchulainn was originally named Setanta. His mother's husband Sualtam Mac Roth accepted him as his own son but eventually died. After this, Setanta lived with his foster father Fergus Mac Roth (the former and true king of Ulster ousted by Conchur Mac Nessa). Here he made the oath with his foster brother Conall that each of the two brothers would take revenge upon anybody who might kill the other.

Setanta becomes the Hound of Culann -"Cuchulainn"

Cuchulainn was sent to train as a warrior at the age of seven (not an uncommon practice). While King Conchur was travelling to the feast of a famous smith named Culann, he saw Setanta playing a game in the practice fields. He was playing a game similar to hurley against 150 opponents of his own age and winning. When the King saw this performance, he asked Setanta to journey with him to the feast. Setanta promised to follow him when he had finished the game.

King Conchur arrived at the feast and forgot to tell his host Culann that the boy Setanta is yet to arrive. Culann therefore sets his guard dog loose. The dog was a savage giant and insured that the smith's house was well guarded. When Setanta arrived at the house, he found the dog guarding it. The dog leaped at his throat and was about to kill him. The guests of the house looked out of the window and feared for Setanta's life. There are tow versions of how Setanta defeated the hound. The first as written in the Tain says that the youth threw down his hurley and picked the hound up over his head and broke it's back over his knee. The second may be a later variant and says that Setanta shot his ball with the hurley at the dog at the last possible moment so that it his the hound in the mouth and exited through the back of his head.

The guests at the feasts came out and celebrated Setanta's survival but Culann was desolate fearing that since he no longer had his fearless guard dog, his house would no longer be safe. Setanta offered him payment for his loss. He offered that he would guard the house until and meanwhile train a new dog of the same breed. Culann refused the offer but the men who overheard called Setanta a new name: Cuchulainn -the Hound of Culann.

How Cuchulainn befriends Ferdia and the tail of his son Conlai.

When Cuchulainn took up arms (the coming of age of a warrior) at the young age of 16 years, he was given King Conchur's own weapons and chariot as they were the only ones that he could not break. He fell in love with Emer -a girl he had met at a feast at Tara. When he asked to marry her, she said that she would agree only when he had proven himself as a warrior.

To further his skills as a warrior, he travelled to the lands of shadow (thought to be on the island called Skye off the Scottish coast) where he hoped to be thought by Scatha the woman-warrior. When he arrived, he met a boy of his own age called Ferdia. Of all the young men being trained by Scatha, Ferdia was the only who was Cuchulainn's match in arms. By the time Cuchulainn and Ferdia left Scatha's training, they were blood brothers.