Cú Chulainn is the central hero of the medieval Celtic literary tradition, the most famous figure of the Irish Ulster cycle and one of the great tragic heroes of early European literature. To follow the tale of Cú Chulainn and the warrior tradition of which he is the supreme expression is to enter the heroic world of pre-Christian and early Christian Ireland, a world of single combat, sacred geasa (taboos), and the ríastrad or warp spasm, in which the body of the hero undergoes grotesque transformation in the fury of battle. The story is preserved in the great Irish manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and it draws on a much older oral tradition that belongs to the broader story of Celtic languages and oral tradition.
The Boyhood of the Hero
Cú Chulainn was born Sétanta, the son of the god Lugh of the Long Arm and the mortal woman Deichtine, sister of Conchobor mac Nessa, the king of Ulster. According to the story preserved in the Compert Con Culainn and the related tales, the child was named Sétanta after a chance utterance, and the name Cú Chulainn (“the hound of Culann”) was given to him after he killed the fierce guard-dog of the smith Culann in self-defence, and offered to serve as a replacement until a new hound could be reared.
The boyhood of Cú Chulainn is recounted in a series of tales that describe his early feats of arms, his initiation into the warrior band of the Red Branch, and his taking of the ríastrad for the first time. The most famous of these boyhood tales describes how the young hero, having accepted the challenge of a great number of the older boys of the Red Branch, fought them all and beat them, only to be stopped in his killing fury by the appearance of the women of Emain Macha, who bared their breasts and shamed him into ceasing.
This episode, in which the nakedness of women acts as a check on the battle-fury of the hero, is one of the most often-quoted passages of medieval Irish literature, and it is a remarkable instance of the moral ambivalence of the older Irish heroic code, in which the warrior’s ferocity is both admired and feared.
The Warp Spasm and the Hero’s Body
The ríasthad or warp spasm is the most distinctive feature of Cú Chulainn’s battle appearance, and it is described in some of the most vivid prose of the early Irish tradition. When the hero enters his battle fury, his body undergoes a series of terrifying transformations: one eye sinks into his head while the other protrudes enormously; his mouth distorts to his ears; his hair bristles with drops of blood at the tips; a pillar of dark blood rises from his head; his muscles and joints all knot and bulge; his voice becomes a monstrous shout that can be heard for miles.
This description, preserved in the opening of the Táin Bó Cúailnge and in several other tales, is one of the great portraits of the heroic warrior in world literature, and it has been compared to the similar descriptions of the battle-fury of the Norse berserker and to the ecstatic transformations described in the Mahābhārata and other ancient Indian heroic texts. The ríastrad is not merely a physical condition; it is a moral and ritual state, and the hero who enters it is no longer fully a member of the human community.
The Cattle Raid of Cooley
The Táin Bó Cúailnge, the central text of the Ulster cycle, is the great epic in which Cú Chulainn plays his most famous role. The story tells of the great cattle raid launched by Medb, the warrior queen of Connacht, and her husband Ailill mac Máta, against the hero and the men of Ulster. The men of Ulster are laid low by a curse put on them by the goddess Macha, and only the young Cú Chulainn, fighting alone, is left to defend the province against the army of Connacht.
The Táin is preserved in two principal recensions, the version in the Book of the Dun Cow (c. 1100 CE) and the more elaborate version in the Yellow Book of Lecan (c. 1390 CE), and it includes some of the most memorable single combats of early European literature. The hero fights a long series of single combats against the champions of Connacht, including Fer Diad, his foster-brother and dearest companion, whose death at Cú Chulainn’s hands is one of the great tragic episodes of the tradition.
The Táin also includes the great episode of the Donn Cuailnge, the divine bull of Cooley, who is the ultimate object of the raid, and the long description of the bull’s final battle with the bull of Connacht, in which the two great bulls fight for days across the whole of Ireland before the bull of Cooley wins and returns home to die of his wounds.
The Death of the Hero
The death of Cú Chulainn is recounted in a series of tales that describe the hero’s last stand against the combined forces of the men of Ireland, who have at last banded together to destroy him. The hero, having broken one by one the great geasa that had protected him, is at last vulnerable, and he is killed by Lugaid mac Con Roí and the other champions of the older tradition.
The death of Cú Chulainn, in which the hero ties himself to a standing stone so that he may die on his feet, and his enemies do not dare to approach him until a raven lights on his shoulder, is one of the great tragic endings of medieval European literature, and it has been a model for heroic death-scenes from the medieval Irish tradition to the present. The figure of the dying hero, refusing to die lying down, has entered the larger European literary imagination through the Táin and the related tales.
The Warrior Tradition
The tale of Cú Chulainn is not merely the tale of an individual hero; it is also the expression of an older warrior tradition that is reflected in other tales of the medieval Celtic literary tradition and in the broader warrior culture of the Celtic world. The hero’s fosterage, his initiation by the older warriors, his taking of the ríastrad, his single combats, his marriage to Emer, his broken geasa, and his death are all features of a heroic code that is shared by other heroes of the Irish tradition, by the heroes of the Welsh Mabinogion, and by the heroes of the continental Celtic world.
The figure of Cú Chulainn also entered the wider literary tradition through the Ossianic poems of James Macpherson, through the work of the Anglo-Irish writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and through the modern Irish and Irish-language literary tradition. The hero remains one of the most powerful and most recognisable figures of the older Celtic world, and his story is an essential introduction to the Celtic language family in which it was told.
Related Topics
- The medieval Celtic literary tradition of which the Cú Chulainn tales form the heroic core is examined through the major works of the Irish, Welsh, and Breton traditions.
- The Celtic language family in which the tales were composed is examined in its Indo-European context.
- The Celtic warfare and warriors that form the background of the heroic tradition are examined in their historical context.
- The Celtic religion, mythology, and spirituality provides the religious context for the figures of Lugh, Macha, and the Morrígan who appear in the tales.
- The history of the Celtic civilization places the heroic tradition in its chronological and political context.