The Mortal and the Divine in Celtic Mythology
Patrick C. Griffin
COLT 79
Prof. Laurence Davies
June 6, 2000
The Mortal and the Divine in Celtic Mythology
Celtic mythology is quite often concerned with the concepts of divinity, mortality, and otherworldliness. The myths of the Welsh and the Irish serve as our most complete link to the tradition of the ancient Celtic world, and they provide us with examples of this concern. It is not necessary for a character in a myth to have been divinely conceived, though it is a help, for him to be a divine character. There are those who flit between the worlds of the mortals and the gods, and those who inhabit the middle world, where both exist. There are also those who possess a divine ability, and who tower so far over the other characters as to be Herculean: to have a divinity in their absolute domination of the foe.
The most prominent hero in Celtic mythology is Cúchullain, the hero of the Táin bó Cuailgne, which is the central story in the Ulster Cycle. The forces of Connaught, under the generalship of Medb and Fergus mác Roich, seek to obtain the Brown Bull of Cuailgne, Donn Cuailgne, in order to boost Medb¹s wealth to equal that of her husband¹s. Because of a curse laid on them by the woman Macha, the Ulstermen are subject to feeling labor pangs at their most desparate times. So, when Medb and Fergus attack, Ulster is left almost completely undefended, its men suffering from the pains of labor. However, there is one who remains to stand up to the invading army: Cúchullain. In the tale of Macha, it is said that "only three classes of people were free from the pangs of Ulster: the young boys of Ulster, the women, and Cúchullain." (Kinsella, 8) He becomes the only hope for Ulster, but he is one man, with an army arrayed against him. Any mortal man would perish within an instant in that situation.
Cúchullain is not mortal. He dies, of course, and he is not immune to the difficulties of life, but this only proves that he is human. He is, however, so immensely well-equipped that he nearly brings ruin to the armies of Connaught all by himself. His prowess in the fight is not one of a mortal man, but is reminiscent of Lúg Lonnansclech, in Cath Maige Tuiread. Lúg is born to a woman, the daughter of Balor, ard-rí of Fomoire. While it may be argued that Lúg is, in fact, divine (being that the Túatha Dé Dánann were believed to be at least demigods), the counterpoint is that Lúg is also fighting an army of the divine. The Fomorians are also remembered in tales, given the roles of devils who cause great difficulty in life. The Fomorians present a challenge for Lúg that is on the same level as the one Cúchullain meets and defeats. It can even be argued that Cúchullain is more divine than Lúg, as he faces the armies of Connaught on his own, whereas Lúg is the general of an army led against the Fomorians. Lúg does succeed in slaying his nemesis, though, whereas Cúchullain is not called upon to kill Medb or Fergus.
Cúchullain is conceived in a manner far more complicated than most Irish heroes, though almost all are born through some oddity. This can be as "simple" as a meeting with a stranger (the conception of Bres mác Elathan), or as complex as the impregnation of Lúg¹s mother, where a cattle is stolen, leading to her meeting a man of the Túatha, who gets her pregnant. Cúchullain (or Sétanta, as his birth-name is) has a double-conception. The first is when his mother, Deichtine, swallows a microbe that finds its way to her womb, and impregnates her. Lúg appears to her and says that it was he whom she swallowed, and that the child is to be named Sétanta. When Deichtine is married, she is pregnant, but loses the child. She reconceives, and bears a son, whom she names Sétanta. This phenomenon gives Cúchullain a sort of dual parentage by both Lúg and Sualdam mác Roich, also imbuing him with powers both human and godly, and blurring the line of his mortality.
To add to this divinity, his training by the warrior-woman, Scáthach (called "the Shadowy One" in Kinsella¹s translation), moves him farther from the realm of mortals. He is taught the many amazing tricks of battle, from the apple-feat of juggling to the gae bolga (which only he is taught), tricks that serve him well in his battles, and elevate him beyond the level of a mere champion. He is better, stronger, faster, and more cunning than all of Scáthach¹s other pupils. He also attracts his teacher¹s daughter, Uathach, who convinces him to sleep with her. He becomes the head of Scáthach¹s armies, and manages to father a son with Aoife, a defeated general. In all things, Cúchullain is more than a mortal man, and fate works for him.
Interestingly enough, this divinity is not necessarily transmitted to his son. Connla is the son Aoife bore Cúchullain, and he walks ashore from the sea at the age of seven, planning to fight on the side of the Ulstermen. Conchobor refuses to let him land without telling his name, which the boy refuses to do, as he is too proud. Condere is sent to force him, and is rebuked. Conall Cernach, a great warrior in his own right, is sent to subdue the boy, and is handily defeated. Finally, Cúchullain descends to the beach, and fights his son, without being convinced that it is his son. Even though Connla is winning, Cúchullain manages to strike back with the gae bolga, and defeats his son. Connla dies, and with him dies the legacy he would have fostered, the "Irish Empire" that stretched over all of Europe, from Spain to Rome to Byzantium. Even though Connla had all the traits of divinity, even being more powerful and more accomplished than his father, he did not transcend his father enough to have been taught the deadly gae bolga. While Connla is of divine heritage, being the son of a prophetess and the foremost warrior in Ireland, fate does not work for him the way it does for Cúchullain.
One may consider that luck is a qualification for divinity in the older stories. Lúg is possessed of the most amazing luck, from being able to rally a completely downtrodden set of people to action, to throwing the flagstone Ogma flings back into the courtyard, to the exact spot where it sat before. The Táin was first written down in the years when monks were tabulating everything they could get their hands on, and it is set in a time when the four provinces were the only real political assignments of the island. Despite this, however, the Táin recalls a time and a style much more reminiscent of Cath Maige Tuiread than of the Fenian Cycle, neither of which it is intended to be close to in time. The style of the battles, the writing, the dialogue, and the images the characters present are quite different from those of the Fianna, and it recalls a dimly-remembered past. Cúchullain almost seems like a man of the Túatha brought forward and placed in the world of the Gael. As a man of the old traditions, he is a god among children, and men lie strewn about his path, nameless victims of his thunder-feat, or of the deadly spear-cast. He finds the powers of his fellow warriors completely insufficient when compared to his own. Even his fight against Ferdia at the ford is protracted not so much through some difficulty or mistake on his part, but through general reluctance to kill his dear friend and foster-brother. It is the same with Fergus: Cúchullain could slay him at any time, but Fergus is a close friend of his, one of his uncles, and a man who wished to train him in his childhood.
Finn mác Cumhail is the next major Irish hero that one encounters as one travels along within the tradition. Finn becomes the king of the Túatha, and is the great-grandson of Nuadu and Ethlinn (the king of the Túatha and the mother of Lúg, respectively). His birth does not come about in the odd fashion we see with most other Irish heroes, but it does lead to odd consequences as he is secluded because his mother "[does] not dare to keep him with her." (Gregory, 139) The reason for this is that the sons of Morna have sworn to kill the progeny of Cumhail, and she fears for his life. This is rather standard in much mythology, and is certainly not restricted to the Celtic world.
He is raised in seclusion, and two women, one a Druid, take care of him in his infancy. His childhood is short, however, and they begin to train him in agility: chasing him and being chased with thorns, putting him in a field with rabbits and requiring him to keep them all there, and throwing him roughly into a pond, letting him flounder, then swim, his own way out. Let it not be assumed here that Finn had a less difficult training than Cúchullain, merely because his teachers were not as famous or as glorified as Scáthach Cúchullain was never pitched headlong into a pond to find out if he could swim (which, of course, he could).
Finn¹s first real adventure is with the man of the Túatha, Aillen, son of Midhne, who comes to burn Teamhair (Tara) down every year with sleep-inducing music and fiery breath. He is befriended by the ard-rí, and is seated at the side of the king¹s son. When the king asks who will stop the man from burning Teamhair down again, Finn volunteers, though he is but a boy. He is given a faultless spear by a man in exchange for a victory-price and his friendship in the event that he should win. The spear also defends him against the sidhe-sleep, so that he will not be caught unawares if Aillen begins to play against him. When he does come to the fight with Aillen, he uses the spear to block the sidhe-spell, and his fringed cloak to block the fire-spell, and pursues him to his home, killing him in his doorway. He returns to Teamhair with Aillen¹s head on his spear, and Morna, son of Goll, is forced to make friendship with him or be exiled from Ireland. So Finn¹s legacy starts, and he is made the head of the fighting-band of the Fianna.
Finn is already represented in this story as having less power and presence than Cúchullain, though perhaps not less luck. Finn is given a magical weapon, and though he volunteered to fight Aillen before he had it, it is implied that he would have fallen victim to the sleep-spell and lost his life at the man¹s hands. Cúchullain needs no special weapon to make him powerful or defend him against the magics and powers of the enemy: he is sufficiently powerful on his own, and can fight as well with his bare hands as any man (with the exception of Connla, who ducks him twice). Finn, however, needs this aid from the world of magic, even though he is a child (later, man) of the Túatha, while Cúchullain is "merely" a Gael. Again, it may be argued that this can be attributed to relativity: Finn has to fight other godlike characters, so his divinity is relatively disproportionate to Cúchullain¹s. This cannot be the case, however, because Cúchullain is a Gael among Gaels, though he does recall the traditions of the Túatha, and he should be as powerful against them as Finn is against the Túatha. Cúchullain does not need a charm or a piece of ogham to make himself immune from the pangs of birth, he just is. He is a member of both the world of magic and the world of humans, despite being the descendant of a mortal. However one looks at this, Finn is presented early on as being a hero, and a great one, but not the same level of hero that Cúchullain is.
There are other reasons for this disparity: Cúchaullain is not a head of, or even a member of, a war-band: he is merely a champion of Ulster. Finn is the leader of an elite fighting troop, one which has a rather interesting parallel to that of Arthur¹s Round Table, and he is generally referred to in the company of his soldiers. Much like Lúg, this lends him a less powerful image: he may be the strongest, and the fastest, and the most clever among his comrades, but he is not able to complete his tasks without their help, in most occasions. Men like Oisin (later plagiarized into the Scottish national consciousness as "Ossian," the progenitor of a probable forgery of an ancient Scottish epic), Goll, and Caoilte all aid Finn in his exploits, building the reputation of the Fianna as well as Finn himself. Cúchullain does not need an army. He does not really even need any man to help, save his charioteer, when he comes up against the armies of Connaught, and he slays over fifteen hundred men (an army in its own right) in his first slaughter of Medb¹s forces. His tricks of battle (here, the thunder-feat) are present in his actions against Medb, whereas Finn relies on standard combat and the aid of his men to defeat masses of foes. When Arthur comes from Britain (in a delightful parallel to the story of Branwen, which will be considered later), he brings many of his warriors with him, and spies Finn¹s prize gaming hounds. He plots to steal them, and carries them back to Britain with him. The Fianna notice this, and give chase, coming upon Arthur and his men, and slaying all of them but him. They carry him back to Ireland with them, and force him to choose between death and service to Finn, the latter of which he gladly chooses. One can imagine that if Cúchullain were in the place of Finn, he would be more than capable of defeating all of Arthur¹s troops with his tricks of battle, and of bringing Arthur to justice in Ireland. Finn does have heroic exploits, to be certain, but he is not the same completely overpowering man as Cúchullain.
There are other important Irish heroes who cause the line between divinity and mortality to be blurred, such as Máel Dúin, the warrior of the Eoganacht, hero of Immram Curaig Máel Dúin. Máel Dúin is the son of a warrior, Ailill Ocher Agha, and a nun. He is given away and raised in fostership, not knowing his father has been killed and left unavenged. He returns to his father¹s people, and is stunned to learn of this, a fact which makes him into an outcast until he manages to kill his father¹s murderer, or to extract an honor-price from him. He is aided in this endeavor by both Christian and Druidic support, his voyage being itemized by a Druid, and the entire venture being sanctified by God. His foster-brothers flout the one, and he places all his faith in the other tradition, letting God guide the curragh to its next destination. After they are blown away from the island, they leave the world of men and enter a middle-world, one not of the divine, necessarily, or of men, but the Otherworld, where magic lives.
Máel Dúin is not a proper warrior-hero, though he is called a wonderful warrior and is spoken of as fair and fast and cunning in his description at the inception of the tale. (Oskamp, 103) It is interesting, therefore, that we do not see Máel Dúin fighting armies, or getting into battles with much of anyone. He is primarily a representation of an Irish Odysseus. He does little actual fighting, but he leads his people through a great travail to return safely home (sans the foster-brothers, who are eliminated at various islands). He puts his trust in God, and manages to wind his way through this world-that-is-not-a-world, this world outside of reality.
Máel Dúin is less a mortal hero than Finn, and less a divine hero than Cúchullain, because he is not the leader of an active war-band, and he is not a single man who can perform amazing feats. He is somewhere between the two, his birth moving him into this middle space between the spiritual and the temporal. His voyage is merely the outgrowth of that inhabitation of the middle: it is a journey into a magical world rooted firmly in the reality of this one. He travels through this world, accepted by it, and allowed to pass through it, without harm coming to him or the intended members of his journey (save the man whose hand Díuran cuts off when he is snared by the woman with the ball of string snared by the world he is not a part of).
In the Welsh tradition, there are comparatively few stories remaining, and no single major epic. The Mabinogion is the single most important document we have that encapsulates Welsh myth. In it, the tales contain some representations of both divine and mortal heroes, and a blurring of that line between the two.worlds: the worlds of here and there.
The single common character to all of the branches of the Mabinogion is Pryderi. He is born through a strange set of circumstances, and is fostered elsewhere, giving him the requisite background for the standard Celtic hero. He is the savior of Rhiannon, his mother, and is a warrior who survives the raid into Ireland in the tale of Branwen. He aids Manawydan when he is driven from his land, and is killed (rather suddenly) at the hands of Gwydion. His death seems to be very out-of-place, and may reflect an addition to the Mabinogion that was completed at a later date, or one that expresses the rivalry between the north and south of Wales (Gwydion is a man of Gwynedd, while Pryderi represents Dyfed). Pryderi, however, does not seem to fit the divinity of a character like Cúchullain, in that he is not amazingly powerful, or filled with tricks, or even possessed of a particular connection with the supernatural. The Pryderi we see in the Mabinogion appears to be the remnant of what might be the main character of a larger epic, possibly mirroring that of Cúchullain. However, we are presented with a rather incomplete picture of Pryderi, and can only conclude that he is more likely than not a mortal hero, one who does good deeds, but who does not have the same mettle to stare down an army.
There is one hero in the Mabinogion who does seem to present a divine image, even though he is slain at the end of the tale. Bendigeidfran is the king of Britain (the Isle of the Mighty, in this none of these myths are far above being propaganda in either tradition), and he is approached by Matholwch, king of Ireland, who seeks to marry Branwen, Bendigeidfran¹s sister. He agrees, and after a sticky period where Efnisien insults Matholwch, the couple is married and returns to Ireland. Matholwch is convinced to treat her poorly, however, and she calls for help from her family. Bendigeidfran marshals up a force, and invades, forcing Matholwch to negotiate. Matholwch deceives him, and sets his warriors on him. In the ensuing struggle, Bendigeidfran dies, and orders his head to be taken back to Britain.
Bendigeidfran is an example of a divine character for two important reasons. He is imbued with a sense of immensity, where he cannot be contained by houses, and he walks through the Irish Sea to reach the island. He is larger (literally and figuratively) than all of his compatriots, and therefore represents the exponential increase over his people that Cúchullain represents for the Ulstermen. He also presents the case of having life after death, where his head does not decay until they reach a certain place in Britain.
The two traditions carry great significance in their presentations of mortality and divinity, allowing them to have multiple forms of expression. Divinity seems to be connected to the level of power of presence one shows over his own people and his foes, and mortality is connected to the necessity of aid in fighting those foes. If one can be said to be divine, then one must be so greatly transcendent of the others in one¹s world that one seems to be a god among men. It is apparent that Cúchullain, and even Bendigeidfran, are these, and the relative powers of the two are something which allows them to be above the other heroes of their traditions.
Bibliography
Ford, Patrick K. The Mabinogi. Berkley: Ucal Press, 1977.
Gantz, Jeffrey. Early Irish Myths and Sagas. New York: Penguin, 1981.
Gray, Elizabeth A., trans. Cath Maige Tuiread: The Second Battle of Mag Tuired. Dublin: Irish Texts Society, vol. II, 1982.
Kinsella, Thomas, trans. The Táin. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Oskamp, H. P. A, trans. The Voyage of Máel Dúin. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff Publishing, 1970.