Killed a smith's hound as a boy and offered to guard the house himself until a replacement grew
Hence the name; his birth name was Setanta.
Myth · Celtic & Arthurian
Cú Chulainn
Irish mythology — hero of the Ulster Cycle
The great hero of the Ulster Cycle: son of the god Lug, born Setanta, and renamed for the hound he killed and replaced. When a magical debility lays every other Ulsterman flat, he holds the border alone against the armies of Connacht through a whole winter, taking on one champion a day at the ford. He dies young, tied upright to a standing stone so that his enemies will not see him fall.
How to spot them
- ▸Killed a smith's guard dog as a boy and served as its replacement, which gave him his name
- ▸His battle rage twists his body out of shape, one eye sucked in and the other bulging out
- ▸Fights with a barbed spear given him by a warrior woman on a Scottish island
- ▸Quiz clue: 'the Tain', 'Emain Macha', 'gae bulga', 'the crow on his shoulder'
Stories & episodes
Held a ford alone against the army of Connacht for a whole winter, fighting a champion a day
The Ulstermen were laid low by the curse of Macha; he alone was exempt.
Fought his own foster-brother for three days at the ford and killed him with a barbed spear
Ferdiad, the most famous single combat in Irish literature.
Trained in arms on a Scottish island by a warrior woman who gave him a terrible spear
Scathach, and the gae bulga.
Killed his own son without knowing him, because the boy was bound not to give his name
Connla, his son by Aife.
Broke his taboos by eating dog meat pressed on him by hags he could not refuse
Two geasa in conflict destroy him.
Tied himself upright to a standing stone so that he would die on his feet
His enemies only dared approach when a crow settled on his shoulder.
Oliver Sheppard's bronze of his death stands in the General Post Office in Dublin
Installed in 1935 as a memorial to the Easter Rising.
Quick-fire facts
- •His birth name is Setanta; the name he takes means 'the hound of Culann'
- •His father is the god Lug; his mortal father is Sualtam and his mother Deichtine, sister of King Conchobar
- •He belongs to the Ulster Cycle, centred on Emain Macha (Navan Fort, County Armagh)
- •The central text is Tain Bo Cuailnge, The Cattle Raid of Cooley
- •His chief enemy is Queen Medb of Connacht, who covets the Brown Bull of Cooley
- •His battle frenzy is the riastrad, usually Englished as 'warp spasm' or 'torque'
- •His charioteer is Laeg, his wife Emer and his spear the gae bulga
- •His geasa forbid him to eat dog meat and to refuse hospitality — an unavoidable conflict kills him
- •Yeats wrote five plays about him; Lady Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) popularised the cycle
Drill it — 10 cards
1 / 10new card
Sources
- Thomas Kinsella — The Tain: From the Irish Epic Tain Bo Cuailnge
- CELT, University College Cork — Tain Bo Cualnge Recension 1