Ancient Celtic Literature in Retrospect

So before I get this final post started, I'll let you listen to the first thing I started blasting in my car as I came home from a (in my opinion) fairly successful final exam. A great traditional Irish folk song as played by my favorite Irish rock band, Thin Lizzy. You can just let it play as you keep reading.

I can't believe it's over, it feels like it went by so fast even though we covered such a huge amount of material. I can say with confidence that I came out of this course with a lot more than I went in with. I feel like even if it's only rudimentary, I've got a pretty good grasp on the tail of the great bull that is Celtic literature. Four months ago if you had asked me what I knew about real Celtic culture (excluding all the shamrocks, leprechauns, and Guinness), I would've said that the names Cúchulainn and Finn McCool sounded familiar and then I probably would've gone on to play that Thin Lizzy song if I had my guitar with me. Now I've come away with a huge appreciation for the rich canon of work spanning centuries from the Taín Bo Cuailnge all the way up to the origins of Arthurian legend.

Who would've thought a giant, hairy, green knight came from Ireland?

Now of course I could do a google search for Celtic influences on modern culture and copy and paste every hurling team, metal band, and video game with a Celtic name, but I feel like that would be a disservice to the true value of the culture, which is in the stories themselves. Though the style was difficult to get used to (and in the case of 10-page-long name lists, tedious), the stories were as colorful and engaging as any of the Greek myths I grew up reading as a child. I see the Taín as Ireland's Iliad, the Voyage of Mael Duin's Boat its Odyssey.

Though only the Irish could come up with Macc Da Thó's Pig...

I think the only reason I was surprised at this revelation is the fact that we just don't hear too much about Celtic stories nowadays. The western world was built upon the work of the Greeks and Romans, but what nobody seems to understand is that we owe just as much to the Celts. Though they were originally never a cohesive nation, the original Celtic tribes of the early world have been around as long as the Egyptians and inhabited an area of Europe so widespread that Alexander the Great or Napoleon wouldn't have been too ashamed to own it. In fact, if every "Kiss Me I'm Irish" shirt read "Kiss Me I'm Celtic," there still wouldn't be that much kissing, but it would be a much more accurate statement since a lot more people have Celtic roots than they might think.

"Hey look! I'm being multicultural! Wait...what do you mean I'm still white?"

Ok, slightly better. At least they're being honest now.

Anyway, if there's anything this new appreciation for Celtic culture and literature has taught me, it's that we need more of this stuff in the modern world. Everyone knows about Patrick driving out the snakes, but that's not nearly as cool as when he burns pagan wizards, banishes demons, or makes the earth swallow up people who cross him. And why are we putting tiny, bearded, green-clad men everywhere on March 17th when we should be putting up posters of Cúchulainn going into a warp spasm and liquidating an army or two.

Maybe not the most family-friendly imagery...Probably just save this one for the taverns...

The point is, this is a big part of our western cultural history and it's something so few of us know about (though I do love knowing things that other people don't). I really am glad I got this opportunity to learn about a culture I didn't know much about and more importantly to read so many great stories. Now I feel obligated to keep it alive somehow. Maybe I'll name one of my kids Fergus. Or my dog. It's probably a better dog name. It'll have to be my second dog, though, because the first one is going to be named Strider for the double Tolkien/Led Zeppelin reference.

Anyway, there's not much left I wanted to say. I realize this is shorter and less comprehensive than my other entries have been, but I intended it to be a sort of farewell, fondly remembering all that we've been through this past semester. So with that in mind, I'll sign off this last entry with a beautiful song from another Irish rock band, this one with more of a Celtic flair to it. Gerald of Wales (despite coming off as fairly racist against the Irish) had one thing right when he said the Irish were good at their music.

As a short P.S. to my teacher, Thomas Goodmann, the only person of the three or four that follow this blog who will likely read this final post, I'd like to say thank you again for such a great class and let you know that I plan on hanging on to the knowledge I've taken away from it (though don't quiz me on it next time we meet, the one final exam was stressful enough). My personal favorite parts of the class were the Taín and the Mabinogion, the various group discussions and readings, and watching the Secret of Kels was a wonderful little interlude. Have a great winter break and I hope to see you again before I graduate next semester.

Mythological Parallels

Before taking this class, I had next to no knowledge of any of the Celtic stories we've read, but I've always had an interest in other mythological traditions from around the world. Reading through some of these Celtic tales it's hard not to notice certain striking parallels between various other stories from around the world. I guess this post won't necessarily be exclusively about Celtic literature, but I think it's a very interesting subject and one worth exploring. Now I'll preface this with a few disclaimers: first of all, I'm no expert on any of these various mythologies I plan on comparing, but I have at least a basic knowledge on a fairly broad spectrum. Not to go on a tangent, but if I hadn't devoted my college career to painting, studying world mythologies and folklores would've been something I'd have liked to spend more time on. Secondly, though I am going to draw all these connections, I don't mean to suggest that these similarities come from a direct influence (except perhaps in the case of Norse mythology due to the geographic proximity of Scandinavia and the British Isles); my goal is simply to call attention to the common themes that run through so many of the stories of our little world.

Now, to cover all of the possible connections I could make would take up much more than a single blog post. It would probably take up a whole book or two. Or three. Or more...

"Hey guys! It turns out all of our stories use almost exactly the same themes and motifs!"

So because I'm the farthest thing from an overachiever, I'll just pick out a few of the ones that come to mind and then stop whenever I get tired of writing, so don't expect a Game of Thrones-length discussion.

Not pictured: The forklifts required to cart these literary behemoths around. 5/5

So let's start with one of the most common archetypes of any culture ever: The Trickster. Everyone has one, and they usually make for the best stories: African Anansi, Greek Hermes, Norse Loki, Native American Coyote, etc. But something I noticed in Celtic literature is that they don't seem to have one main trickster figure. I suppose it makes sense, since they would've rather heard about warriors tearing trees out of the ground and beating each other to death with them than a little man playing pranks, but there are still several characters, particularly in The Mabinogion, that share the typical Trickster characteristics.

Efnysien from the Second Branch of The Mabinogion is the first character I want to look at. Perhaps not the archetypal Trickster figure, he still possesses one of its most important qualities: he likes to start trouble and piss people off for the sheer hell of it. This is the guy who, because he wasn't consulted in his sister's marriage to the king of Ireland, decided to slice and dice the king's horses to a degree that would drive PETA into a warp spasm. His brother is able to cool things down, but we know from experience that the Irish don't forget insults very easily (Cuchulainn murdered his own son for refusing to give his name...), so the next time the Welsh get invited to Ireland, the Irish king hides a bunch of soldiers in bags around the house, claiming that they're bags of flour.

"No bloodthirsty Irishmen here, boss!"

This is where Efnysien displays another of the Trickster's qualities: the ability to see through deception. He casually pretends to inspect the flour by squeezing the bags and popping the heads inside like bubble-wrap. For whatever reason, the Irish let him do this to all of the bags. So it looks like everything is cool until, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, Efnysien decides to throw his sister's child onto the fire. The purpose here seems to be to make as many people angry as possible. This results in a huge fight in which the Irishmen keep bringing back their dead with a magic cauldron, but Efnysien, being the morally ambiguous guy he is, jumps in and breaks it apart himself. So good for him.

Next up we have Gwydion from the Fourth Branch of The Mabinogion. Though there isn't any one character that I'd consider the trickster of Celtic mythology, if I had to choose one, it'd be him. Not only is he clever, but he's also skilled in magic that he uses to accomplish his own personal needs. Chiefly, starting a war by tricking Pryderi and stealing his pigs so his brother can rape their uncle Math's foot-holder (the most oddly specific occupation of any virginal house servant). He later uses his magic to kill Pryderi in battle, but Math finds out about the whole rape thing, so Gwydion and his rapist brother get turned into wild animals for three years. Every year they switch genders so one is male and the other is female and they're forced to bear each other's children as a punishment. Gender ambiguity is another trait of the archetypal trickster, but specifically it calls to mind the Norse Loki who in one myth turned himself into a mare and gave birth to Odin's horse, Sleipnir.

Marvel conveniently omitted the gender-swapped bestiality from their recent movies featuring Loki

Now this isn't the only parallel we see to Loki in Celtic myths, there's actually a huge similarity in the story of Bricriu's Feast. Though the story is known for being a precursor of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the beginning has a very similar theme to the Norse Lokasenna. Bricriu invites the men of Ulster (or Ulaid, in our translation) to a feast at his brand new house with the intention of starting trouble. He tricks the three greatest heroes of the Ulstermen into competing for the champion's portion of the meal, and even convinces their wives to fight amongst themselves while he sits back and laughs at them all. In the Lokasenna, Loki comes to a feast of the gods and begins to cause trouble until he gets kicked out, but he comes back in and keeps insulting everyone until Thor gets tired of his BS, and then they all agree to chain him down while poison drips onto him for eternity until Ragnarok. Bricriu is also expelled and then reenters the feast when Cuchulainn lifts a wall to let his wife in, though he doesn't get such a bad punishment in the end. As I said before, I can't prove any influence between the two cultures, but it seems too coincidental that Bricriu's other name, Nemthenga, means "Poisontongue" while Loki's main epithet is "Silvertongue."

Think they're related to Grima Wormtongue? Tolkien was a fan of Celtic and Norse mythology...

I spent a lot more time talking about that then I had planned, so I'll just list a few of the other cool similarities I've found:

1. Rhiannon - Doesn't she remind you of Medea? A magical woman from a distant land, rebelling against her father's will, using magic to help the man she wants to marry (Pwyll and Jason, respectively), and murdering her children (though in Rhiannon's case she didn't actually do it, but was framed)

2. The Voyage of Mael Duin's Boat - A lot of the islands they come across are very reminiscent of the Odyssey. They find islands of women trying to keep them there forever (Calypso/Circe), islands where men lose their identities and forget their homes (the Lotus Eaters), and a whole bunch of islands with people/beasts throwing rocks at them (Polyphemus).

3. The Voyage of Bran - The concept of a magical land hidden across the sea isn't too specific to any single culture, but their return is very similar to the Japanese story of Urashima Taro who was taken by a turtle to a magical kingdom under the sea. When he left he was given a box and told to never open it, but when he inevitably does, all of the many years he spent their catch up with him and he turns into an old man, much like the one of Bran's sailors who turns to dust upon touching the land of his home when they return after centuries.

General Reflections and Mac Da Thó's Pig

Now I realize it's been a while since the last post, so I'll just address that quickly by saying that I've been overloaded with schoolwork and most of my free time is spent on painting. I'm not going to be too apologetic, as I doubt the three people who actually read these posts were losing any sleep over my hiatus.

Why hasn't he updated in a month? Why?!

This time I want to talk about the tale of Mac Da Thó's Pig. Now hold on a second, you interject (hypothetically, though in reality you probably don't care, but for the sake of my own interests you're going to interject), that story is ancient history by now, we're already onto the Mabinogion! Well despite your imaginary distress, I'll be talking about it anyway for two reasons. The first is that it's been my favorite thing we've read besides the Taín, and the second is that I'm really not a big fan of our more recent readings (Tales of the Elders of Ireland). I say this with brief mental hesitation since I know those tales are my professor's favorite part of the syllabus, but I'll stick my neck out for the sake of artistic integrity. Also because this gives me an opportunity to briefly cover that reading.

My main issue with Tales of the Elders of Ireland is that it's no longer the good old Celtic stories we love so much. It was written centuries after Ireland was converted to Catholicism, so all the wanton slaughter, shameless debauchery, and wholesale madness of the Ulster Cycle has been tainted by the piety and modesty of Christianity. The reason for this is very simple, that the writers wanted to integrate the traditional native styles of narrative with more modern Christian moral and social values. Still, knowing why doesn't make it any better. Yes, the earlier stories of a teenager going into spasmodic tantrums and razing entire armies were ludicrous, but I compare it to a piece of abstract art (a good piece of abstract art, nowadays these are few and far between): it may not make any sense, but it can speak to you aesthetically on a level where you don't have to have to completely understand it to appreciate it. To continue the comparison, Tales of the Elders of Ireland is like if someone pasted crucifixes and bumper stickers of the Virgin Mary all over a Jackson Pollock piece.

I was trying to prove a point, but this actually looks pretty cool. Damn.

Basically I just don't like the idea of these super-powered manliest-of-men Irish heroes bowing down and putting there heads on St. Patrick's lap in submission. It's contrary to everything we learned about these guys in the Taín. The last time a god (technically goddess in the case of the Morrigan) tried to mess with Cuchulainn, he beat her to a bloody pulp and knocked out one of her eyes. But oh well, too bad, Catholicism ruined Celtic literature and I'm a millenium too late to do anything about it. That's the end of my rant.

The only god I could potentially see the Ulster men worshipping

Mac Da Thó's Pig

The story begins with Mac Da Thó and his wife talking about how awesome their dog is. This thing is supposed to be fantastic, like it could blow Lassie, Clifford, and Old Yeller out of the water. Everyone seems to agree because Connachta and Ulaid (Connacht and Ulster in our previous stories) are both begging Mac to just give them this dog. Mac is really upset over this (despite how easy it would be to say "no, go find your own dog") so his wife tells him to promise the dog to both sides, because that couldn't possibly go wrong. It was kind of like that time in Game of Thrones when Tyrion promised Myrcella Baratheon to the Martell's, the Arryn's, and the Greyjoy's.

Ok, I know that one was a bit of a stretch, but I was worried I wouldn't be able to fit my GoT reference for this post anywhere else. How did this even get started? Oh well, 4/4 and going strong.

Now conveniently enough both opposing sides meet at Mac's place at exactly the same time. Seeing that this could be a problem, Mac invites everyone in for a good old feast, but these darn Celts can't go anywhere without getting offended and starting a fight over something inane. This time, the argument is about who gets to carve the pig. Cet of Connachta makes a stand and insults everyone who tries to challenge him until their spirits are broken and they go off to drink alone in a dark corner. Connal Cernach finally steps in and totally 1-ups Cet, relieving him of his dignity and the electric Thanksgiving carving blade. Because Connacht men are all sore losers, they start shooting at him, resulting in a massive drunken bar brawl, presumably in fast motion while the theme song from the Benny Hill Show plays in the background.

Like this, but with beards and bigger muscles

At this point Mac is sick of these guys wrecking up his house so he just lets the dog go to join whichever side he wants. It chooses Ulaid and helps them rout Connachta, but then gets its head chopped off immediately after when it tries to bite Ailill's chariot. Good job, Ulaid, that dog sure came in handy. The story ends with the charioteer Fer Loga jumping into Conchobor's chariot and forcing him to make all the women in Ulaid sing "Fer Loga Is My Darling" every night for a year. I feel like he could've gotten more, but that's not bad as far as hostage demands go.

The great thing about Mac Da Thó's Pig is that the whole story is a parody of these types of Celtic tales. The stakes (a dog and a pig) are just silly, all the main characters of the story are presented as fools who get shamed by each other, the major battle is just a barfight, and in the end the dog everyone was fighting over just up and dies like a character written by George R.R. Martin. If there's one thing I can appreciate, it's someone who can mock himself (or even better, mock his entire culture and history). Still, at the end you have to look back and ask, was it worth it?

Totally.

Early Irish Myths and Sagas #1

So now for something completely different. The last couple posts were about the Tain Bo Cuailnge, and in Celtic literature a "Tain" is really just a type of story, just like in modern literature we have comedies, tragedies, and tabloids. A Tain is a cattle raid, so the things that happen are essentially that someone steals cattle and someone else gets upset by this and responds in the rational Irish manner by killing a lot of people and consequently a lot of cattle as well. These next three stories I'll be discussing are The Wooing of Etain, the Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel, and The Cattle Raid of Froech, and though that third one is technically a Tain, it really reads much more like a wooing/pursuit story with a little bit of cattle raiding at the end. Sorry cattle enthusiasts.

Ireland's favorite thing next to Guinness and fist fights

The Wooing of Etain

I can say with great confidence that this was the most confusing of any of the stories I've read in this course so far, especially the beginning part. The Side, essentially the divinities of these ancient Celtic legends, are the main characters in this one, but lacking a knowledge of the surrounding mythology it gets pretty confusing as to which of these is a god, a demigod, or a mortal since the narrative doesn't make much mention of their status. Presumably the original intended audience would've known the surrounding mythology better than I do, and that's just another one of those factors that serve to remind us that we're reading the campfire stories from almost two millennia ago.

Anyway, onto the body of this story. It starts out with this guy Echu Ollathir, but since there are about 100 other characters named Echu we can just call him by his other name, Dagdae. Now Dagdae has got it bad for this lady, Eithne (aka Boand), but she's married to Elcmar. The issue here is apparently not that she's married but rather that Elcmar's always hanging around making it hard for her to cheat on him. Dagdae resolves this by asking Elcmar to run over to the store for some Doritos and laundry detergent and then puts a spell on him which makes him experience the next nine months as just a day. Either that or else he gives him a copy of Grand Theft Auto V which has a similar effect, sources are unclear. In these nine months Dagdae and Boand are pretty much free to do whatever they want, so she redecorates the entire living room, takes that feminist literature class she always wanted to at the community college, and gives birth to Dagdae's son, Oengus. Elcmar is apparently totally cool with having a brand new son a day after his wife was clearly not pregnant, so that's fine and they make Oengus live with his new foster father, Mider. Now in a very Conchobor-esque move, Oengus wins Elcmar's throne when he asks if he can be king for just a day and a night. When Elcmar comes back for it Oengus says not until we hear what Dagdae has to say about this. Dagdae, being his real father, naturally thinks that maybe all of Elcmar's land should stay with Oengus because why not. And now we've just begun this long and confusing story.

One day Mider comes to visit Oengus. They talk and watch some TV and then Mider gets his eye poked out with a pointed stick, but then gets it healed almost immediately.

The cast of Monty Python, not learning how to defend against a pointed stick.

I hope the three of you who get this reference enjoyed it.

Oengus asks him to stay but Mider is still salty about the eye thing, so he says he'll stay only if he gets a fancy new chariot, some really nice clothes, and the finest woman in all of Eriu, Etain. Oengus agrees and goes to her father, Ailill (not the Ailill of Tain Bo Cuailnge infamy), to ask for her. He says yes on the condition that Oengus complete a few impossible tasks for him and then pay her weight in gold, so Oengus calls up his super powerful godly father and takes care of it. Now Mider is really happy with his brand new trophy wife, but his old one, Fuamnach, isn't so pumped. Also she can do magic. So she turns innocent little Etain into a puddle. Which turns into a worm. And then a fly. Because magic. Fly-Etain hangs around Mider for a while but then gets blown away by Fuamnach's magic for seven years, a ridiculously long lifespan for both a fly and a gust of wind. She ends up landing on Oengus who appreciates her for all her magic fly abilities, like smelling nice and curing sickness. He and the fly travel everywhere together and he loves this thing. He loves it.

Because a massive disgusting bewitched fly is what I want following me everywhere

Anyway, Fuamnach finds the fly again and not knowing to leave well enough alone, she blows it away again. Everyone is understandably tired of this kind of behavior, so they just cut her head off and are done with her. Now Etain-Fly is blown around again for either 7 or 1012 years, there appears to be some discrepancy in the story. Though it's confusing, this is actually a pretty interesting convention when considering that these are immortals we're dealing with. Though it may have been intentionally, the basic idea is that to these beings, the passage of time is irrelevant and the actual years are just an arbitrary expression of "a really long time." Etain-Fly lands in someone's cup, gets drunk (and I don't mean intoxicated), and is reborn as a human. Hooray! Eventually she grows up and marries Echu Airem, but she is so fine that his brother Ailill (another Ailill, I know) falls in love with her and is so in love that he gets deathly sick. She helps to heal him, but he says he can't be completely cured unless she sleeps with him. Somehow she buys this weak excuse and consents to pity-sex, but it has to be on a hill so as not to shame her husband in his own house. Sure she's already planning to cheat on her husband with his brother, but that would just be plain rude.

The night of their meeting arrives, but Ailill sleeps through it. He couldn't stay awake long enough to meet the woman he apparently loved so much that he almost died of it. The guy must've been narcoleptic or something. This happens not once but three times. Though Etain does meet a mysterious stranger disguised as Ailill, who reveals himself to be Mider, her husband from long before she got turned into a fly and reborn as a human. I guess she buys that story, too, but says she can't go with him unless she's given by her husband. It may have been true, but damn if this isn't the most gullible girl in Ireland.

Mider is eager to win back his old wife, so he disguises himself as a hot movie star and sneaks into Echu's house where he challenges him to a game of fidchell, or ancient Irish chess. They wager some chariots and cows and stuff, and Mider loses a few times on purpose. One time he agrees to build a causeway over a bog as his wager, but he makes Echu promise that no one watch. When he finds out that Echu's steward was watching, he gets mad and challenges him to another game with the stakes this time being that the loser must grant the winner anything he asks. Mider destroys him and Echu realizes he got hustled. The use of simple games as an intellectual competition seems to be a common archetype throughout many stories across many different cultures as a stand in for physical combat.

Like that time Bill and Ted beat Death at Battleship

Echu is a man of his word, so when Mider asks for a kiss from Etain he has to agree, but tells him to come back in a little bit. In the meantime, Echu fortifies his castle and puts guards everyone, but since Mider is basically a god, he gets in anyway, turns Etain into a swan, and they fly off. Seems like something Zeus would do, what with his always turning people into swans and stealing them. Another one of those common threads between world mythologies that can really only be attributed to coincidence or subconscious universal archetypes. Whatever. Anyway, Echu is pissed off and proceeds to go around Ireland digging up every "sid" (basically a fairy mound or barrow, a place where the divine Side lived) he could bury a shovel in. He finally finds Mider who tells Echu to knock off all the landscaping he's been doing. Mider agrees to give him back Etain if he can correctly pick her out of a group of 50 identical women. Now at the moment I can't think of any other classical examples of this kind of test (though I'm sure there must be a couple), but this immediately brought to mind a scene from a more recent animated film, Spirited Away, by the fantastic director Hayao Miyazaki. Anyone who doesn't believe animation can be as legitimate an art form as live-action film should definitely watch this movie, as it's one of his best. Anyway, in the scene the protagonist must choose her parents (who have been turned into pigs) out of a large group of pigs, only to realize that they're not actually among the other pigs. I can't say with certainty whether or not the Japanese filmmaker was aware of this ancient Celtic myth, but the similarities are uncanny.

Uh...that one? Or...wait...that one?

Back to the story at hand: Echu tries to determine which woman is his wife by having them each serve him a drink, because Etain was supposed to be the best at serving. After 48 drinks he just wants to go home, watch some Netflix, have some coffee, and sleep it off, so he picks the 49th Etain as the real one.  Much later, after this woman has given Echu a daughter, Mider stops by to reveal that Etain was pregnant when he took her and that the woman Echu chose is actually his own daughter, and that his new daughter is also his granddaughter. That's some borderline Oedipus stuff right there. Echu goes and throws up for a bit and then tells his servants to abandon the child to get eaten by wild animals, but some guy takes pity and rescues her because what bad could possibly come from a child born of incest?

Thought I wouldn't fit a GoT reference in here this time? Think again. 3/3.

I spent way more time talking about The Wooing of Etain than I originally planned, so I'll get to Da Derga's Hostel and the Cattle Raid of Froech in another short post real soon.

The Tain Bo Cualinge: Cuchulainn

#2

Now for the meat and bones of The Tain. And by that, I mean I'll spend a paragraph or so summarizing it and then talk about Cuchulainn for the rest of the time. Though essentially that's not too far off from the structure of The Tain itself, since the majority of its length is spent talking about Cuchulainn and the people he kills. The basic idea is that Ailill and Medb, rulers of Connacht, are comparing all their stuff and then Ailill one-ups his wife with this really sweet white bull he has. Like basically every other ancient civilization of the western hemisphere, these guys are obsessed with bulls, so in order for Medb to get her mojo back she decides to steal the brown bull of Cualinge from Ulster. Ailill for whatever reason is ok with devoting his entire kingdom's military and resources to helping his wife beat him in a bovine pissing contest. It could have something to do with the fact that at that moment every single man in Ulster was incapacitated and that this endeavor should have been as easy as taking cattle from a country defended by women and children. Literally.

Now readers not familiar with the story (there should be none since the only audience I'm aware of is the class I read it in) will be asking what's so serious that the Ulster men can't stand up for themselves and protect their precious livestock. It's a humorously misogynistic little plot device called the pangs of Ulster. Long story short, some magic lady went into labor during a chariot race and no one would help her and made her keep racing.

Oh, she's just faking it to get out of the race. She's fine

This, understandably, made her a little upset. After birthing twins, she then curses all of Ulster so that in their time of greatest need the men would all experience the pain of labor for a week or so (it turns out being a lot longer than that). This is really telling of the views on women throughout The Tain (and presumably the culture of its creation), since to the originators of the story the greatest punishment that could be put on the men is to be womanly. There are countless other examples of blatant misogyny, most notably the instance where Medb is forced to leave the front lines because of her menstruation, or the fact that the most powerful female warriors, Scathach and Aife, are both only as good as their gender allows until they're defeated by a man (but more on that one later).

Anyway, Ailill and Medb are all geared up for the easiest cattle raid of all time until they realize they forgot one little detail...

CUCHULAINN

Cuchulainn is essentially The Tain's Achilles if Achilles did tons of steroids and had a massive rage-induced glandular disorder. Under normal circumstances Cuchulainn is known for cutting people in half, jumping around on spear points (apparently while they're still in the air...), and punching heads into 93% lean ground beef. However, a funny thing happens when the normally short-tempered warrior gets especially pissed off: he transforms into a freakish, uncontrollable, genocidal murder machine. Anyone not living under a rock since 1962 will notice the similarity to a certain green pop culture icon.

...Kermit the frog?

So like that, but scarier looking. I won't quote the whole description of Cuchulainn's "warp spasms" because it's nearly two pages long, but essentially his body contorts in ways that would impress Cirque du Soleil, one of his eyes shrivels and the other bulges, his muscles get "Macho Man" Randy Savage huge (each muscle as big as a the late professional wrestler, rest in peace), and just for the hell of it a fountain of blood mist erupts from his head. The fact that the army of Connacht fought this man for three months really says something about their bravery or their intelligence.

Originally named Setanta, Cuchulainn is the son of Conchobor's sister, Deichtine, and the river god, Lug. As a child he killed the massive guard dog of Cullan and then offered himself as the new guard until another dog could be trained, earning him his name which means the Hound of Cullan. No, not that "The Hound," though I wouldn't be surprised if George R. R. Martin was making a reference.

I'm 2 for 2 on Game of Thrones references in this blog. How long can I go?!

In his youth Cuchulainn was so far above everyone else's level that they were all scrambling to get him a wife so he wouldn't steal all of their wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, cousins, grandmothers, etc. He falls in love with a girl named Emer, but for whatever reason her dad doesn't want them together, probably because he's so envious of Cuchulainn's overwhelming manliness. So he gets Cuchulainn to go off for training. Throughout his training he continues to do amazing things and learns how to be an even more ridiculously overpowered character. He even fathers a child on Aife, one of the greatest female warriors...that he held at swordpoint...eh...(it was basically rape. Also, so much for being faithful to Emer but whatever she's just a woman). When he finally returns to Ulster to marry Emer, some pedantic smart ass points out the rule about Conchobor sleeping with every bride first (while Conchobor was presumably hiding around the corner making frantic gestures and mouthing "noooo shut up shut up shut up!"). Conchobor, up until now the baddest dude of the story, is so scared that he puts the sheets between them and they just talk. Also Fergus and Cathbad are there to make sure everything stays strictly PG. Oh, and all of this happened by the time Cuchulainn was 7 years old.

I played Gameboy when I was 7

Anyway, back to the story at hand. While all the men of Ulster are at home eating Ben & Jerry's and watching the Breaking Bad marathon on AMC (September 28 season finale, let's go!), Cuchulainn dons his try-hard pants, sets his iPod to his Megadeth playlist, and proceeds to single-handedly hold of the army of thousands at every ford along the countryside. At first he's taking them out in the hundreds by playfully slinging stones at their camp, but then they work out a deal where he fights one challenger in single combat each day, and some of these get pretty interesting. He is forced to fight Ferbaeth and Ferdia, two other warriors who trained under the same warrior woman, Scathach. They're basically his brothers, but he kills them nonetheless because he is one hard bastard, though he does get pretty bent out of shape after Ferdia and goes into a Hamlet-level whiney soliloquy. The Ferdia fight was actually really close until he whips out his secret weapon, the gae bolga, which is essentially a spear that shoots out barbs as it enters its target so it has to be cut out of the body. Also, it's apparently thrown with your toes. A personal favorite of his battles is against a random fighter called Nadcranntail who refuses to fight a boy so young (Cuchulainn is still only 17 at this point) because it wouldn't be honorable in the extremely unlikely chance that he actually won. So Cuchulainn resolves this issue by putting on a fake beard.

I just wanted an excuse to draw Cuchulainn with Groucho glasses

Eventually Conchobor and the rest of Ulster change out of their sweatpants, clean up their half-eaten bowls of soggy Lucky Charms, and go to back up this 17 year old boy who has been holding off an army for three months with only his charioteer and his teenage-angst-and-hormone-driven fury at his disposal. What little of the Connacht army is left after months of single combat and warp spasms is easily trumped by the Ulster men. Medb does still get away with the bull, but when the two bulls fight the white one is killed and then the brown one dies from heart failure shortly after. I feel that the creators of the story were trying to make some point about the futility of war, but that doesn't really matter because it's primarily about Cuchulainn.

On a more serious note, Cuchulainn's role as a hero is a very interesting one. He risks his life for his countrymen, defeating hordes of enemies and even his own previous comrades, and yet he's something of an outsider figure. His kinsmen fear him because of his immense power and bad temper and so despite his great deeds he is treated less as an ally and more as a force. His power is to turn into a grotesque monster, but even in his normal state he's hardly human. He's described as having 7 pupils in each eye, 7 fingers on each hand, and 7 toes on each foot. He's the son of a god, and from his childhood his actions have been superhuman. Aside from the extra digits and warp spasms, Cuchulainn actually bears a very close similarity to Achilles who was also valued for his power but feared and uncontrollable by his allies. The Tain, which allegedly takes place around the first century, makes passing mention of Greece (Fergus on page 225: "...from Greece and Scythia westward to the Orkney Islands and the Pillars of Hercules...") so though it is incredibly unlikely, is it possible that the old Irish knew the story of The Illiad in some form or another? More likely is that this type of isolation is part of the territory of the archetypal hero, being beyond the potential of any normal human. Anyway, that's just what I think. This post felt like it was a lot more regurgitation than analysis, so I did want to get into my own thoughts on the material. Though hopefully the rest of it was entertaining, since that's my primary goal here. No thoughts on the next post yet, might be more on the Tain or a start on the next book we read.

The Tain Bo Cualinge (1st Post)

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So this will be the first post in my blog dedicated to my Ancient Celtic Literature class. I'm not entirely certain how this is supposed to go, so I'll just try to summarize the main points and give my reactions to the readings as I go along. I'll be including some (very rudimentary) illustrations as it occurs to me to do so, and hopefully some humor as well (as with the illustrations, the quality will be pretty subjective and not just a little crude). The reason I wanted to make this blog and take this entire class in the first place is that I've always had an interest in the mythology, folklore, and epics of ancient cultures, but until now my knowledge was limited to mainly the Greek and Norse. After starting the reading I've come to realize that the Celtic stories follow many of the same tropes and are just as awesome, if not more so in certain cases. Anyway, with that out of the way, time to jump into...

THE TAIN BO CUALINGE

The Tain Bo Cualinge (or the Cualinge Cattle Raid) is part of the Ulster Cycle, one of the four cycles of the compiled ancient Celtic literature. Literature is a loose term in this case, as most of the stories would've been spread by oral tradition until they were recorded by Christian monks centuries after they were first told. In that way, it's a lot like Homeric myth and The Tain in particular is a lot like The Iliad, except instead of fighting for the most beautiful woman of the Greek world or supremacy over the Trojan people, the forces of Ireland were fighting over...cows... I get the feeling you have to be much more Irish than I am for this to make sense, and I'm pretty Irish. Speaking of Irish heritage, according to Barry Cunliffe's The Celts: A Very Short Introduction which we read as a prelude to the class, the Irish have had the stereotype of being belligerent, violent alcoholics since before the Roman Empire. The events and characters of The Tain do nothing to refute this reputation.

Hooray for historic validation!

Now the main hero of the Ulster Cycle is Cuchulainn, who is essentially the Irish Heracles except angrier and more violent (yeah, he's that bad), but we'll get to him later. First let's talk about Conchobor, the king of Ulster during the events of the story:

Conchobor

Conchobor comes from humble beginnings. He wasn't born in a fancy castle with his future royalty guaranteed. He had to earn his kingship, and by that I mean his mother had to sleep with a dirty magic vagrant at tea time or something like that. Seriously, that's his story. The story of Conchobor's conception is also the story of the ballsiest pickup line and the most gullible woman in the British Isles. The story goes that his mother Nes was just hanging out, herding sheep and listening to Van Morrison with a pint of Guinness when the druid Cathbad comes strolling along. Since druids were apparently sentient walking clocks as well as being the primary intellectual and spiritual figures of Ireland at the time, Nes asks Cathbad "What is the present hour lucky for?" At this Cathbad looks around, sees he's the only guy for miles and that a woman in this ridiculously misogynistic patriarchal society is addressing him, and responds with "For begetting a king on a queen."Since he's a druid and therefore very wise and not at all capable of abusing his position of respect and trust, Nes believes him and sees the next logical step as sex with a complete stranger. From this Conchobor is born. The fact that he did eventually become king must have saved Cathbad a lot time making up unwanted excuses.

Dating was much easier in the old days

Now the incredibly brief description of Nes in the book leads us to believe that she has some royal blood, or is at least part of the aristocracy, but being the illegitimate son of a man who is one druid school education and a few magic tricks away from being a hobo isn't a very good foundation for ascending to the throne. So Nes being in full possession of a female anatomy decides to use the tools she's got to make life for her son a little more regal. When Fergus, the then king of Ireland who is already an epic warrior in his own right, asks her to marry him she agrees on the seemingly innocent condition that her little boy gets to play king for just a year and he'll give it right back, promise. Fergus, disadvantaged by the fact that he really wanted to sleep with this lady, agrees. Now little King Conchobor, at his mother's suggestion, takes half of his kingdom's stuff and gives it to the other half. This serves to make one half pissed off at Fergus for putting this kid in charge and the other half fall in love with their new boy king who they vote into office. This must've made for a pretty awkward honeymoon for Fergus and Nes. So now we have an inexperienced and immature child king ruling while receiving instruction from his scheming mother who uses her intellect and sexuality to take advantage of the unthinking men who run society. I could make some connections to modern popular literature and television here. In fact, I insist:

What could possibly go wrong?

Now for whatever reason, the Irish are really into Conchobor. Like, really into him. So much so that "every man in Ulster that took a girl in marriage let her sleep the first night with Conchobor."It's not clearly stated in the book, but I'd be interested to know at what age he started making good on this practice. Now Conchobor is praised by all for his fighting ability, fairness, and intelligence, but let's be honest here, he could be kind of a dick sometimes. Who can blame him with an entire kingdom blowing up his ego since he was still driving his chariot with training wheels? A great example of this is the story of the exile of the sons of Uisliu. A very brief synopsis is soon told: a girl named Derdriu is born and she is prophesied to be so hot that everyone from Brad Pitt to Eric Bana will rip each others throats out to get at her. Or is that Helen from the Iliad and the cast of the 2004 Troy movie? Still, it's essentially the same which is the point I'm trying to make. Anyway, Conchobor being the kind and selfless king he is says "hey guys, don't worry. I'll take this kid and keep her with me so when she's the sexiest thing in existence she'll just be my problem and we can all be bros still." What a great guy. Now, as you would expect, Derdriu isn't too attracted to the man who's basically been her foster father for her entire conscious life. Instead she likes this guy Noisiu, who despite his valiant efforts is unable to refuse the advances of the most beautiful woman ever. This made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. So Noisiu, his brothers, and Derdriu got the hell out of Dodge and were living it up Alba until they started trouble there, too. Now Conchobor tells them that they can come back to Ulster and he guarantees their safety. He even sends Fergus and some other upstanding guys as a guarantee. And then (and here's where he's kind of a dick) he plots to separate Fergus from them so he can have Eogan mac Durthacht kill them and capture Derdriu. One wonders why he didn't send Eogan in the first place, and the only explanation is that Conchobor was making a point about other men stepping in on his hot foster daughter game.

Not cool, bro. Not cool.

Now this leads me to a discussion on honor in ancient Celtic culture. In these stories, men fight and die at the slightest hint of insult. In some instances (see the death of Cuchulainn's son) men practically set themselves up for the chance to murder to prove their honor. So essentially, honor is everything. And yet you have cases like this in which these honorable men are clearly being very sneaky and traitorous. The only clear explanation there seems to be for this has something to do with the fact that most of these instances have to do with women. So it would seem that the Celtic idea of honor really only extended to their status as warriors and members of society, but were fairly flexible on the matter of women. Again, not too different from modern civilization. This could open into a discussion of women's roles in the Celtic stories, except it won't because I'll save that for another time. Needless to say, they don't have the best place in society at this time, and even the best of them get the short end of the stick when they go up against the male heroes. Anyway, that topic can wait for another time. And next time...CUCHULAINN!