22 The Heroic Deeds Of Cuchulain

Cuchulain was the Celtic Achilles. He was seventeen years old, handsome, and utterly fearless. He had grown up as a foster son of King Conchobar (konn-r) of Ulster. Cuchulain’s name means “Culann’s hound.” He got this name because when the hound of Culann the smith attacked him, he killed it with his bare hands. Culann was upset because his watchdog was dead, and Cuchulain offered to do the job himself until he found a replacement canine.

When Cuchulain met the army from Connacht, he killed 100 soldiers single handed. Next, he fought a series of Medb’s warriors in single combat; Medb had persuaded soldiers to fight for her by bribing them with anything from land, to her own daughter in marriage, to her own thighs, which she had previously offered in exchange for the brown bull. Her warriors found these rewards enticing enough, but Cuchulain defeated all of them.

Turning back toward Ulster, Cuchulain discovered Medb’s forces leading away the brown bull. He killed the leader, but the rest escaped with the bull, much to Cuchulain’s distress. He took to his bed and slept for three days and nights, while the god Lug (who happened to be his father) healed his wounds.

While Cuchulain slept, the army of Ulster fought Medb’s forces. The Ulster side was winning, but in the process lost 150 soldiers. When Cuchulain woke up and heard about this, he was furious and was transfigured by the warp-spasm, a battle-rage that turned him into the most fearsome sight anyone had ever seen. Possessed by this rage, he slaughtered hundreds of warriors, women, children, horses, and dogs. No man from Connacht escaped uninjured, but Cuchulain came away without a scratch on himself.

Cuchulain was a fearsome opponent, but Medb finally came up with a way to get the best of him. She forced him to fight his foster brother, Fer Diad, whom Cuchulain loved more than any other man. She persuaded Fer Diad to fight on her behalf by promising him her daughter as a wife. The men fought for three days without either one gaining an advantage, and each one sent assistance to the other at night. On the fourth day, though, Cuchulain killed Fer Diad with the gae bolga, a frightful weapon that would expand into twenty-four barbs within a wound, like an exploding shell. Then Cuchulain sang a lament over his fallen friend.

The Ulster forces pursued Medb’s army all the way to the border of Connacht. There, Cuchulain met Medb face-to-face and chose to spare her because she was a woman. But the conflict wasn’t over.

Medb had sent the brown bull straight to Connacht to keep it safe. As soon as it arrived, it bellowed three times. The white-horned bull heard it and came racing to defend his territory. All the warriors watched this mighty duel, which lasted into the night and ranged over the entire island of Ireland.

In the morning, the brown bull reappeared, carrying the dead white-horned bull on his horns. He galloped back to Ulster, scattering bits of his enemy’s flesh as he went. When he arrived at the border of Cuailnge, his heart broke and he died. Medb and Ailill made peace with Cuchulain and the men of Ulster, and there was no fighting between them for the next seven years.

Truce or no, Medb spent the years of peace scheming to get revenge on Cuchulain. During the cattle-raid wars, he had killed a man named Cailidín, who had six children. Medb sent off Cailidín’s children to study sorcery. When they returned, she got them to make Cuchulain think that all of Ulster was overrun by invading armies. Deceived, Cuchulain prepared to go to battle.

Conchobar feared some trickery and sent Cuchulain to the Valley of the Deaf, where he wouldn’t be able to hear the fake battle cries. The children of Cailidín redoubled their efforts to convince Cuchulain that battle was nigh, and Babd, one of the girls (and also a goddess of war), went to the hero in the shape of his mistress and asked him to fight the men of Ireland. Cathbad the druid and Cuchulain’s real mistress tried to tell him that he had been bewitched, but he went off to fight anyway.