THE CÚCHULAINN CYCLE.
The events of the Cúchulainn cycle are supposed to date from the
beginning of the Christian era--King Conchobar's death synchronising
with the crucifixion. But though some personages who are mentioned in
the Annals figure in the tales, on the whole they deal with persons who
never existed. They belong to a world of romance and myth, and embody
the ideals of Celtic paganism, modified by Christian influences and
those of classical tales and romantic sagas of other regions, mainly
Scandinavian. The present form of the tales as they exist in the _Book
of the Dun Cow_ and the _Book of Leinster_ must have been given them in
the seventh or eighth century, but they embody materials of a far older
date. At an early time the saga may have had a more or less definite
form, but new tales were being constantly added to it, and some of the
longer tales are composed of incidents which once had no connection with
each other.
Cúchulainn is the central figure of the cycle, and its central episode
is that of the _Táin bó Cuailgne_, or "Cattle Spoil of Cooley." Other
personages are Conchobar and Dechtire, Ailill and Medb, Fergus, Conall
Cernach, Cúroi, Deirdre, and the sons of Usnach. Some of these are of
divine descent, some are perhaps euhemerised divinities; Conchobar is
called _día talmaide_, "a terrestrial god," and Dechtire a goddess. The
cycle opens with the birth of Conchobar, son of Cathbad and of Nessa,
daughter of one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, though in an older rescension
of the tale he is Nessa's son by the god Lug. During Conchobar's reign
over Ulster Cúchulainn was born. He was son of Dechtire, either by
Sualtaim, or by her brother Conchobar, or by the god Lug, of whom he may
also be a reincarnation.[453] Like other heroes of saga, he possesses
great strength and skill at a tender age, and, setting out for
Conchobar's court, overpowers the king's "boy corps," and then becomes
their chief. His next adventure is the slaying of the watch-dog of
Culann the smith, and his appeasing the anger of its owner by offering
to act as his watch-dog. Cathbad now announced that his name would
henceforth be Cú Chulainn, "Culann's hound."[454] At the mature age of
seven he obtained Conchobar's spears, sword, shield, and chariot, and
with these he overcame three mighty champions, returning in the
distortion of his "battle-fury" to Emania. To prevent mischief from his
rage, the women went forth naked to meet him. He modestly covered his
eyes, for it was one of his _geasa_ not to look on a woman's breast.
Thus taken unawares, he was plunged into three successive vats of cold
water until his natural appearance was restored to him, although the
water boiled and hissed from his heat.[455]
As Cúchulainn grew up, his strength, skill, wisdom, and beauty were
unsurpassed. All women fell in love with him, and to forestall a series
of _bonnes fortunes_, the men of Ulster sought a wife for him. But the
hero's heart was set on Emer, daughter of Forgall, whom he wooed in a
strange language which none but she could understand. At last she
consented to be his wife if he would slay a number of warriors. Forgall
was opposed to the match, and with a view to Cúchulainn's destruction
suggested that he should go to Donall in Alba to increase his skill, and
to Scathach if he would excel all other warriors. He agreed, provided
that Forgall would give him whatever he asked for on his return. Arrived
in Alba, he refused the love of Donall's daughter, Dornolla, who swore
to be avenged. Thence he went to Scathach, overcoming all the dangers of
the way, leaping in safety the gulf surrounding her island, after
essaying in vain to cross a narrow, swinging bridge. From Scathach he
learned supreme skill in arms, and overcame her Amazonian rival Aife. He
begat a son by Aife, and instructed her to call him Conla, to give him
his father's ring, to send him to seek Cúchulainn, and to forbid him to
reveal his name. In the sequel, Cúchulainn, unaware that Conla was his
son, slew him in single combat, too late discovering his identity from
the ring which he wore. This is the well-known saga formula of Sohrab
and Rustum, of Theseus and Hippolytus. On his return from Scathach's
isle Cúchulainn destroyed Forgall's _rath_ with many of its inmates,
including Forgall, and carried off Emer. To the ten years which
followed, during which he was the great champion of Ulster, belong many
tales in which he figures prominently. One of these is _The Debility of
the Ultonians_. This was caused by Macha, who, during her pregnancy, was
forced to run a race with Conchobar's horses. She outran them, but gave
birth immediately to twins, and, in her pangs, cursed the men of Ulster,
with a curse that, in time of oppression, they would be overcome with
the weakness of childbirth. From this Cúchulainn was exempt, for he was
not of Ulster, but a son of Lug.[456] Various attempts have been made to
explain this "debility." It may be a myth explaining a Celtic use of the
"couvade," though no example of a simultaneous tribal couvade is known,
unless we have here an instance of Westermarck's "human pairing season
in primitive times," with its consequent simultaneous birth-period for
women and couvade for men.[457] Others, with less likelihood, explain it
as a period of tabu, with cessation from work and warfare, at a funeral
or festival.[458] In any case Macha's curse is a myth explanatory of the
origin of some existing custom, the duration of which is much
exaggerated by the narrator. To this period belong also the tale of
Cúchulainn's visit to Elysium, and others to be referred to later.
Another story describes his attack upon Morrigan because she would
neither yield up the cows which she was driving away nor tell her true
name--an instance of the well-known name tabu. Morrigan took the form of
a bird, and was then recognised by Cúchulainn, who poured scorn upon
her, while she promised to oppose him during the fight of the _Táin_ in
the forms of an eel, a wolf, and a cow, all of which he vowed to
destroy.[459] Like many others in the saga, this story is introductory
to the main episode of the _Táin_. To this we now turn.
Medb had been wife of Conchobar, but, leaving him, had married in
succession two chiefs called Ailill, the second of whom had a bull,
Findbennach, the White-horned, which she resolved to match by one in
every way its equal. Having been refused the Brown Bull of Cuailgne, she
summoned all her forces to invade Ulster. The moment was inauspicious
for Ulster, for all its men were suffering from their "debility."
Cúchulainn, therefore, went out to encounter the host, and forced Medb
to agree that a succession of her warriors should engage him in single
combat. Among these was his old friend Ferdia, and nothing is so
touching as his reluctance to fight him or so pathetic as his grief when
Ferdia falls. The reluctance is primarily due to the tie of
blood-brotherhood existing between them. Finally, the Ulstermen rose in
force and defeated Medb, but not before she had already captured the
bull and sent it into her own land. There it was fought by the
Findbennach and slew it, rushing back to Ulster with the mangled body on
its horns. But in its frenzy a rock seemed to be another bull, which it
charged; its brains were dashed out, and it fell dead.
The Morrigan had warned the bull of the approach of Medb's army, and she
had also appeared in the form of a beautiful woman to Cúchulainn
offering him her love, only to be repulsed. Hence she turned against
him, and described how she would oppose him as an eel, a wolf, and a red
heifer--an incident which is probably a variant of that already
described.[460] In each of these shapes she was conquered and wounded by
the hero, and knowing that none whom he hurt could be healed save by
himself, she appeared to him as an old crone milking a cow. At each
draught of the milk which he received from her he blessed her with "the
blessing of gods and not-gods," and so her wounds were healed.[461] For
this, at a later time, she tried to ward off his death, but
unsuccessfully. During the progress of the _Táin_, one of Cúchulainn's
"fairy kinsmen," namely, Lug, who announced himself as his father,
appeared to aid him, while others of the Tuatha Déa threw "herbs of
healing" into the streams in which his wounds were washed.[462]
During the _Táin_, Cúchulainn slaughtered the wizard Calatin and his
daughters. But Calatin's wife bore three posthumous sons and three
daughters, and through their means the hero was at last slain.
Everything was done to keep him back from the host which now advanced
against Ulster, but finally one of Calatin's daughters took the form of
Niamh and bade him go forth. As he passed to the fight, Calatin's
daughters persuaded him to eat the flesh of a dog--a fatal deed, for it
was one of his _geasa_ never to eat dog's flesh. So it was that in the
fight he was slain by Lugaid,[463] and his soul appeared to the thrice
fifty queens who had loved him, chanting a mystic song of the coming of
Christ and the day of doom--an interesting example of a phantasm
coincidental with death.[464] This and other Christian touches show that
the Christian redactors of the saga felt tenderly towards the old pagan
hero. This is even more marked in the story in which he appears to King
Loegaire and S. Patrick, begging the former to believe in God and the
saint, and praying Patrick to "bring me with thy faithful ones unto the
land of the living."[465] A similar Christianising appears in the story
of Conchobar's death, the result of his mad frenzy on hearing from his
Druid that an earthquake is the result of the shameful crucifixion of
Christ.[466]
In the saga, Cúchulainn appears as the ideal Celtic warrior, but, like
other ideal warriors, he is a "magnified, non-natural man," many of his
deeds being merely exaggerations of those common among barbaric folk.
Even his "distortion" or battle frenzy is but a magnifying of the wild
frenzy of all wild fighters. To the person of this ideal warrior, some
of whose traits may have been derived from traditional stories of actual
heroes, _Märchen_ and saga episodes attached themselves. Of every ideal
hero, Celtic, Greek, Babylonian, or Polynesian, certain things are
told--his phenomenal strength as a child; his victory over enormous
forces; his visits to the Other-world; his amours with a goddess; his
divine descent. These belong to the common stock of folk-tale episodes,
and accumulate round every great name. Hence, save in the colouring
given to them or the use made of them by any race, they do not afford a
key to the mythic character of the hero. Such deeds are ascribed to
Cúchulainn, as they doubtless were to the ideal heroes of the "undivided
Aryans," but though parallels may be found between him and the Greek
Heracles, they might just as easily be found in non-Aryan regions, e.g.
in Polynesia. Thus the parallels between Cúchulainn and Heracles throw
little light on the personality of the former, though here and there in
such parallels we observe a peculiarly Celtic touch. Thus, while the
Greek hero rescues Hesione from a dragon, it is from three Fomorians
that Cúchulainn rescues Devorgilla, namely, from beings to whom actual
human sacrifice was paid. Thus a _Märchen_ formula of world-wide
existence has been moulded by Celtic religious belief and ritual
practice.[467]
It was inevitable that the "mythological school" should regard
Cúchulainn as a solar hero. Thus "he reaches his full development at an
unusually early age," as the sun does,[468] but also as do many other
heroes of saga and _Märchen_ who are not solar. The three colours of
Cúchulainn's hair, dark near the skin, red in the middle, golden near
the top, are claimed to be a description of the sun's rays, or of the
three parts into which the Celts divided the day.[469] Elsewhere his
tresses are yellow, like Prince Charlie's in fact and in song, yet he
was not a solar hero. Again, the seven pupils of his eyes perhaps
"referred to the days of the week."[470] Blindness befell all women who
loved him, a reference to the difficulty of gazing at the sun.[471] This
is prosaic! The blindness was a compliment paid to Cúchulainn the blind,
by women who made themselves blind while talking to him, just as Conall
Cernach's mistresses squinted as he did.[472] Cúchulainn's blindness
arose from his habit of sinking one eye into his head and protruding the
other--a well-known solar trait! His "distortion," during which, besides
this "blindness," blood shot upwards from his head and formed a magic
mist, and his anger caused showers of sparks to mount above him, points
to dawn or sunset,[473] though the setting sun would rather suggest a
hero sinking calmly to rest than a mad giant setting out to slaughter
friend and foe. The "distortion," as already pointed out, is the
exaggerated description of the mad warrior rage, just as the fear which
produced death to those who saw him brandish his weapons, was also
produced by Maori warrior methods.[474] Lug, who may be a sun-god, has
no such "distortion." The cooling of the hero in three vats, the waters
of which boil over, and his emergence from them pinky red in colour,
symbolise the sun sinking into the waters and reappearing at dawn.[475]
Might it not describe in an exaggerated way the refreshing bath taken by
frenzied warriors, the water being supposed to grow warm from the heat
of their bodies?[476] One of the hero's _geasa_ was not to see
Manannan's horses, the waves; which, being interpreted, means that the
sun is near its death as it approaches the sea. Yet Lug, a sun-god,
rides the steed Enbarr, a personification of the waves, while Cúchulainn
himself often crossed the sea, and also lived with the sea-god's wife,
Fand, without coming to grief. Again, the magic horses which he drives,
black and grey in colour, are "symbols of day and night,"[477] though it
is not obvious why a grey horse should symbolise day, which is not
always grey even in the isles of the west. Unlike a solar hero, too,
Cúchulainn is most active in winter, and rests for a brief space from
slaughtering at midday--the time of the sun's greatest activity both in
summer and winter.
Another theory is that every visit of the hero to a strange land
signifies a descent to Hades, suggested by the sun sinking in the west.
Scathach's island may be Hades, but it is more probably Elysium with
some traits borrowed from the Christian idea of hell. But Emer's land,
also visited by Cúchulainn, suggests neither Hades nor Elysium. Emer
calls herself _ingen rig richis garta_, translated by Professor Rh[^y]s
as "daughter of the coal-faced king," i.e. she is daughter of darkness.
Hence she is a dawn-maiden and becomes the sun-hero's wife.[478] There
is nothing in the story to corroborate this theory, apart from the fact
that it is not clear, even to the hypothetical primitive mind, why dawn
and sun should be a divine pair. Emer's words probably mean that she is
"daughter of a king" and "a flame of hospitality" (_richis garta_.)[479]
Cúchulainn, in visiting her, went from west to east, contrary to the
apparent course of the sun. The extravagance of the solar theory is
further seen in the hypothesis that because Cúchulainn has other wives,
the sun-god made love to as many dawn-maidens as there are days in the
year,[480] like the king in Louys' romance with his 366 wives, one for
each day of the year, leap-year included.
Further examples of the solar theory need not be cited. It is enough to
see in Cúchulainn the ideal warrior, whose traits are bombastic and
obscure exaggerations of actual custom and warfare, or are borrowed from
folk-tale _motifs_ not exclusively Celtic. Possibly he may have been a
war-god, since he is associated with Badb[481] and also with Morrigan.
But he has also some traits of a culture hero. He claims superiority in
wisdom, in law, in politics, in the art of the _Filid_, and in Druidism,
while he brings various things from the world of the gods[482]. In any
case the Celts paid divine honours to heroes, living or dead,[483] and
Cúchulainn, god or ideal hero, may have been the subject of a cult. This
lends point to the theory of M. D'Arbois that Cúchulainn and Conall
Cernach are the equivalents of Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri, said by
Diodorus to be worshipped among the Celts near the Ocean.[484]
Cúchulainn, like Pollux, was son of a god, and was nursed, according to
some accounts, by Findchoém, mother of Conall,[485] just as Leda was
mother of Castor as well as of Pollux. But, on the other hand,
Cúchulainn, unlike Pollux, was mortal. M. D'Arbois then identifies the
two pairs of heroes with certain figures on an altar at Cluny. These are
Castor and Pollux; Cernunnos and Smertullos. He equates Castor with
Cernunnos, and Pollux with Smertullos. Smertullos is Cúchulainn, and the
name is explained from an incident in the _Táin_, in which the hero,
reproached for his youth, puts on a false beard before attacking
Morrigan in her form as an eel. This is expressed by _smérthain_, "to
attach", and is thus connected with and gave rise to the name
Smertullos. On the altar Smertullos is attacking an eel or serpent.
Hence Pollux is Smertullos-Cúchulainn.[486] Again, the name Cernunnos
signifies "the horned one," from _cernu_, "horn," a word found in
Conall's epithet Cernach. But this was not given him because he was
horned, but because of the angular shape of his head, the angle (_cern_)
being the result of a blow.[487] The epithet may mean "victorious."[488]
On the whole, the theory is more ingenious than convincing, and we have
no proof that the figures of Castor and Pollux on the altar were
duplicates of the Celtic pair. Cernunnos was an underworld god, and
Conall has no trace of such a character.
M. D'Arbois also traces the saga in Gaul in the fact that on the menhir
of Kervadel Mercury is figured with a child, Mercury, in his opinion,
being Lug, and the child Cúchulainn.[489] On another altar are depicted
(1) a woodman, Esus, cutting down a tree, and (2) a bull on which are
perched three birds--Tarvos Trigaranos. The two subjects, as M. Reinach
points out, are combined on another altar at Trèves, on which a woodman
is cutting down a tree in which are perched three birds, while a bull's
head appears in the branches.[490] These represent, according to M.
D'Arbois, incidents of the _Táin_--the cutting down of trees by
Cúchulainn and placing them in the way of his enemies, and the warning
of the bull by Morrigan in the bird form which she shared with her
sisters Badb and Macha.[491] Why, then, is Cúchulainn called Esus?
"Esus" comes from a root which gives words meaning "rapid motion,"
"anger," "strength"--all shown by the hero.[492] The altars were found
in the land of the Belgic Treveri, and some Belgic tribes may have
passed into Britain and Ireland carrying the Esus-Cúchulainn legend
there in the second century B.C., e.g. the Setantii, dwelling by the
Mersey, and bearing a name similar to that of the hero in his
childhood--Setanta (_Setantios_) as well as the Menapii and Brigantes,
located in Ireland by Ptolemy.[493] In other words, the divine Esus,
with his surname Smertullos, was called in Ireland Setanta, after the
Setantii, and at a later date, Cúchulainn. The princely name Donnotaurus
resembles _Dond tarb_, the "Brown Bull" of the saga, and also suggests
its presence in Gaul, while the name [Greek: dêiotaros], perhaps the
equivalent of _De[^u]io-taruos_, "Divine Bull," is found in
Galatia.[494] Thus the main elements of the saga may have been known to
the continental Celts before it was localised in Ireland,[495] and, it
may be added, if it was brought there by Gallo-British tribes, this
might account for the greater popularity of the native, possibly
pre-Celtic, Fionn saga among the folk, as well as for the finer literary
quality of the Cúchulainn saga. But the identification of Esus with
Cúchulainn rests on slight grounds; the names Esus and Smertullos are
not found in Ireland, and the Gaulish Esus, worshipped with human
sacrifice, has little affinity with the hero, unless his deeds of
slaughter are reminiscent of such rites. It is possible, however, that
the episode of the _Táin_ came from a myth explaining ritual acts. This
myth may have been the subject of the bas-reliefs, carried to Ireland,
and there worked into the saga.
The folk-versions of the saga, though resembling the literary versions,
are less elaborate and generally wilder, and perhaps represent its
primitive form.[496] The greatest differences are found in versions of
the _Táin_ and of Cúchulainn's death, which, separate in the saga, are
parts of one folk-tale, the death occurring during the fighting over the
bull. The bull is his property, and Medb sends Garbh mac Stairn to take
it from him. He pretends to be a child, goes to bed, and tricks Garbh,
who goes off to get the bull. Cúchulainn arrives before him and
personates the herdsman. Each seizes a horn, and the bull is torn in
two.[497] Does this represent the primitive form of the _Táin_, and,
further, were the bull and Cúchulainn once one and the same--a bull, the
incarnation of a god or vegetation spirit, being later made
anthropomorphic--a hero-god whose property or symbol was a bull?
Instances of this process are not unknown among the Celts.[498] In
India, Indra was a bull and a divine youth, in Greece there was the
bull-Dionysos, and among the Celts the name of the divine bull was borne
by kings.[499] In the saga Morrigan is friendly to the bull, but fights
for Medb; but she is now friendly, now hostile to Cúchulainn, finally,
however, trying to avert his doom. If he had once been the bull, her
friendliness would not be quite forgotten, once he became human and
separate from the bull. When she first met Cúchulainn she had a cow on
whom the Brown Bull was to beget a calf, and she told the hero that "So
long as the calf which is in this cow's body is a yearling, it is up to
that time that thou art in life; and it is this that will lead to the
_Táin_."[500] This suggests that the hero was to die in the battle, but
it shows that the Brown Bull's calf is bound up his life. The Bull was a
reincarnation of a divine swineherd, and if, as in the case of
Cúchulainn, "his rebirth could only be of himself,"[501] the calf was
simply a duplicate of the bull, and, as it was bound up with the hero's
life, bull and hero may well have been one. The life or soul was in the
calf, and, as in all such cases, the owner of the soul and that in which
it is hidden are practically identical. Cúchulainn's "distortion" might
then be explained as representing the bull's fury in fight, and the
folk-tales would be popular forms of an old myth explaining ritual in
which a bull, the incarnation of a tree or vegetation spirit, was slain,
and the sacred tree cut down and consumed, as in Celtic agricultural
ritual. This would be the myth represented on the bas-reliefs, and in
the ritual the bull would be slain, rent, and eaten by his worshippers.
Why, then, should Cúchulainn rend the bull? In the later stages of such
rites the animal was slain, not so much as a divine incarnation as a
sacrifice to the god once incarnated in him. And when a god was thus
separated from his animal form, myths often arose telling how he himself
had slain the animal.[502] In the case of Cúchulainn and the bull, the
god represented by the bull became separate from it, became
anthropomorphic, and in that form was associated with or actually was
the hero Cúchulainn. Bull sacrifices were common among the Celts with
whom the bull had been a divine animal.[503] Possibly a further echo of
this myth and ritual is to be found in the folk-belief that S. Martin
was cut up and eaten in the form of an ox--the god incarnate in the
animal being associated with a saint.[504] Thus the literary versions of
the _Táin_, departing from the hypothetical primitive versions, kept the
bull as the central figure, but introduced a rival bull, and described
its death differently, while both bulls are said to be reincarnations of
divine swine-herds.[505] The idea of a fight for a bull is borrowed from
actual custom, and thus the old form of the story was further distorted.
The Cúchulainn saga is more coherent than the Fionn saga, because it
possesses one central incident. The "canon" of the saga was closed at an
early date, while that of Fionn has practically never been closed,
mainly because it has been more a saga of the folk than that of
Cúchulainn. In some respects the two may have been rivals, for if the
Cúchulainn saga was introduced by conquerors from Britain or Gaul, it
would not be looked on with favour by the folk. Or if it is the saga of
Ulster as opposed to that of Leinster, rivalry would again ensue. The
Fionn saga lives more in the hearts of the people, though it sometimes
borrows from the other. This borrowing, however, is less than some
critics, e.g. Zimmer, maintain. Many of the likenesses are the result of
the fact that wherever a hero exists a common stock of incidents becomes
his. Hence there is much similarity in all sagas wherever found.
FOOTNOTES:
[453] _IT_ i. 134; Nutt-Meyer, ii. 38 f.; Windisch, _Táin_, 342; L.
Duvau, "La Legende de la Conception de Cúchulainn," _RC_ ix. 1 f.
[454] Windisch, _Táin_, 118 f. For a similar reason Finnchad was called
Cú Cerca, "the hound of Cerc" (_IT_ iii. 377).
[455] For the boyish exploits, see Windisch, _Táin_, 106 f.
[456] _RC_ vii. 225; Windisch, _Táin_, 20. Macha is a granddaughter of
Ler, but elsewhere she is called Mider's daughter (_RC_ xvi. 46).
[457] Rh[^y]s, _CFL_ ii. 654; Westermarck, _Hist. of Human Marriage_,
ch. 2.
[458] Miss Hull, _Folk-Lore_, xii. 60, citing instances from Jevons,
_Hist. of Religion_, 65.
[459] Windisch, _IT_ ii. 239.
[460] Windisch, 184, 312, 330; cf. _IT_ iii. 355; Miss Hull, 164 f.;
Rh[^y]s, _HL_ 468.
[461] _LL_ 119_a_; _RC_ iii. 175.
[462] Windisch, 342.
[463] _RC_ iii. 175 f.
[464] Ibid. 185.
[465] Crowe, _Jour. Kilkenny Arch. Soc._ 1870-1871, 371 f.
[466] _LL_ 79_a_; O'Curry, _MS. Mat_, 640.
[467] _LL_ 125_a_. See my _Childhood of fiction_, ch. 14.
[468] Miss Hull, lxxvi.
[469] "Da Derga's Hostel," _RC_ xxii. 283; Rh[^y]s, _HL_ 438.
[470] _LL_ 68_a_; Rh[^y]s, 437; Ingcel the one-eyed has also many pupils
(_RC_ xxii. 58).
[471] Miss Hull, lxiii.
[472] _RC_ viii. 49.
[473] _LL_ 77_b_; Miss Hull, lxii.
[474] Other Celtic heroes undergo this distortion, which resembles the
Scandinavian warrior rage followed by languor, as in the case of
Cúchulainn.
[475] Miss Hull, p. lxvi.
[476] Irish saints, standing neck deep in freezing water, made it hot.
[477] _IT_ i. 268; D'Arbois, v. 103; Miss Hull, lxvi.
[478] _HL_ 448.
[479] See Meyer, _RC xi_. 435; Windisch, _IT_ i. 589, 740. Though
_richis_ means "charcoal," it is also glossed "flame," hence it could
only be glowing charcoal, without any idea of darkness.
[480] _HL_ 458.
[481] _IT_ i. 107.
[482] _Arch. Rev._ i. 1 f.; _IT_ i. 213; see p. 381, _infra_.
[483] See p. 164, _infra_.
[484] Diod. Siculus, iv. 56.
[485] _IT_ iii. 393.
[486] _Les Celtes_, 58 f. Formerly M. D'Arbois identified Smertullos
with Lug, ii. 217; Holder, i. 46, 262. For the incident of the beard,
see Windisch, _Táin_, 308.
[487] _IT_ iii. 395.
[488] _IT_ i. 420.
[489] _RC_ xxvii. 319 f.
[490] _RC_ xviii. 256.
[491] _Les Celtes_, 63; _RC_ xix. 246.
[492] D'Arbois, _RC_ xx. 89.
[493] D'Arbois, _RC_ xxvii. 321; _Les Celtes_, 65.
[494] _Les Celtes_, 49; Cæsar, vi. 14.
[495] In contradiction to this, M. D'Arbois elsewhere thinks that Druids
from Britain may have taught the Cúchulainn legend in Gaul (_RC_ xxvii.
319).
[496] See versions in _Book of the Dean of Lismore_; _CM_ xiii.;
Campbell, _The Fians_, 6 f.
[497] _CM_ xiii. 327, 514. The same story is told of Fionn, _ibid._ 512.
See also ballad versions in Campbell, _LF_ 3 f.
[498] See p. 212, _infra_.
[499] A Galatian king was called Brogitaros, probably a form of
_Brogitaruos_, "bull of the province," a title borne by Conchobar, _tarb
in chóicid_ (_IT_ i. 72). This with the epithets applied to heroes in
the _Triads_, "bull-phantom," "prince bull of combat" (Loth, ii. 232,
243), may be an appellative denoting great strength.
[500] _IT_ ii. 241 f.; D'Arbois, _Les Druides_, 168.
[501] Miss Hull, 58.
[502] See p. 212, _infra_.
[503] See p. 208, _infra_.
[504] Fitzgerald, _RC_ vi. 254.
[505] See p. 243, _infra_.