Cú Chulainn

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Cú Chulainn [ kuːxuɫin̠ʲ ] ( Irish : "Dog of Culann", non-Irish spelling also Cuchulain , Cúchulainn , Cuchulinn or Cuchullin ) is a figure from the Celtic mythology of Ireland . He is the most important fighter and hero of the warriors' association of the "Red Branch", the followers of Conchobar mac Nessa , a legendary king of Ulster who ruled around the birth of Christ. Cú Chulainn's deeds were recorded in the Irish-Gaelic Ulster Cycle , a collection of ancient and central Irish stories.

Origin and meaning of the name

Cú Chulainn is the son of Deichtire , a sister (or, according to another tradition, daughter) of Conchobars. Who his father was is controversial. In some stories it is the god or Elf Lugh , in other places it is said that his mother swallowed a mayfly and thus became pregnant and still others name Sualtam as the father, after whom he is also called Sualtaim ("son of Sualtam") . His foster parents are Finncháem , Deichtire's sister, and Amairgin mac Ecit Salaig , his home is the Mag Muirthemne plain .

Although a god may have been his father, Cú Chulainn is mortal. After he was born, his foster parents gave him the name Sétanta [ ˈʃeːd̪ˠɔn̪ˠd̪ˠə ]. He got his real name "Dog of Culann" at the age of six, when he killed the blacksmith Culann's dog, which was considered invincible and who was supposed to protect his property, with a sling (see also Aided Cheltchair maic Uthechair , "Der Tod Cheltchars, des Son of Uthechar ”). Sétanta then promises the blacksmith to take over this task and receives the name Cú Chulainn from the druid Cathbad , his grandfather. One of his tutors is the poet and adjudicator ( fili ) of King Conchobar mac Nessa, Sencha mac Ailella , who is always looking for balance .

His loyal companion and charioteer is Loeg mac Riangabra , his two favorite horses are Liath Macha and Dub Sainglenn . The sickle chariot driven by Loeg can only be found as a vehicle of Cú Chulainn and is otherwise not mentioned in the Irish sagas.

The superhuman abilities

In the first of his youthful deeds, the five-year-old defeated the "three times fifty-headed" group of boys ( mac [c] rad ) at the court of Conchobar in all their games, such as robbing clothes, diving into water, running and swimming. He takes wild deer, which he catches effortlessly, to be horses and harnesses them together with a few swans to his chariot.

The warrior princess or goddess Scáthach teaches Cú Chulainn martial arts and teaches him the famous fighting jump, the "salmon jump", in which he can fight while floating in the air. She also gives him the Gae Bolga , a spear with numerous barbs. Scathach also teaches him other tricks ( cles , Mz. Cleasana ), such as the torannchless (" thunder trick "), a development of noise that terrifies the enemy, as well as artful sword strokes, throwing the hurling stick, balancing on the lance tip and the wheel trick - a heavy wheel a house wall has to be rolled up. His other teacher is his second foster father Fergus mac Róich , whose son Fer Diad he later kills with the Gae Bolga in a three-day fight.

In combat he changes into the "distortion of anger", in the "Cattle robbery of Cooley" ( Táin Bó Cuailnge , see below) this transformation is described:

“This was when the first distortion occurred in Cú Chullain, so that he made something terrible, multi-faceted, wonderful, unheard of of himself. [...] He did the twisting trick of anger out of his body in the middle of his skin. There came his feet, and his shins, and his knees, so that they were on his back; it came his heels and his calves and his buttocks so that they were in front of him. […] He pulled one eye into his head, […] The other eye popped out so that it was on the outside of his cheek. He pulled his cheek from his jaw, so that the inside of his throat could be seen. "

But he is also beautiful to look at if he wants to impress the women of Ulster, with tri-colored strands of hair (brown, red, gold-colored) that are artfully wrapped around the head, pupils like jewels, and seven fingers and toes (which he also in who has anger - probably always -).

At the age of 17, he stopped the Connacht army all by himself , although he tied himself to a tree so as not to fall over and could only fight with one hand. In Mesca Ulad ("The Drunkenness of the Ulter") he saves his countrymen from the deceit of Cú Roís .

He is also unbeatable when dealing with other Ulster heroes, for example in the story Fled Bricrenn ("Bricrius Fest") and in King Cú Roís Castle Cathair, he outdoes the two warriors Conall Cernach and Loegaire Buadach in the competition for the hero bite .

Cooley's cattle robbery ( Táin Bó Cuailnge )

Cú Chulainn is the central hero of this epic poem . It tells of the fight against the warriors of Connacht, who came to Ulster on behalf of the warrior queen Medb and King Ailill mac Máta to rob the legendary Donn Cuailnge , the brown bull of Cooley . Since the warriors of King Conchobar are all weakened by a curse and are in labor, only Cú Chulainn can stop the invasion. When he is incapable of fighting for a short time after the fight with Fer Diad , the old hero Cethern mac Fintain steps in for him and is also fatally injured. Most of the material on Cú can be found in the passages preserved in Lebor na hUidre ("The Book of the Dark Cow"), Lebor Laignech ("The Book of Leinster") and Leabhar Buidhe Lecain ("The Yellow Book of Lecan") Chulainn. In the legends surrounding this story, his foster son Furbaide Ferbend is mentioned as the murderer of Queen Medb.

Cú Chulainn's lover

A number of women were lovers of Cú Chulainn. The best known among them are Aífe von Alba ( Scotland ), Scáthach's daughter Uathach , Fedelm Foltcháin , Fedelm Noíchride , Fand , Bláthnat and Emer , the daughter of Forgall Manach , who became his wife. However, he refuses the daughter Findabair offered to him by Queen Medb and King Ailill mac Máta . His love for Bláthnat ends unhappily with her death.

Aífe is the only woman he has a child with, his son Connla . Without knowing who he is facing, he kills his son when he is looking for him. This is reported in the story Aided Oenfir Aífe, which is also part of the Ulster cycle . The motif that the father kills or has to kill the son occurs in a similar form in some depictions, for example in the Hildebrandslied or in the Persian epic about Rostam and Rostam and Sohrab .

A series of stories describe the tasks that Cú Chulainn must fulfill in order to win Emer's love.

But found is not a mortal. She is one of the Sidhe (" fairies "), the wife of Manannan , who left her. When three Formors who want to rule the Irish Sea attack her, she asks Cú Chulainn for help. The latter only agrees on the condition that she then has to become his wife. Reluctantly, she agrees, but falls in love with him when she sees him; Cú Chulainn is no different. However, since Cú Chulainn is mortal, this love threatens to endanger the land of the Sidhe. That's why Manannan intervenes and erases both memories of each other.

No mistress of Cú Chulainn is Mugain , Conchobar's wife, who meets him naked with the other Ulter women because he threatens to attack his own men in a fight frenzy. He then shamefully hides his face in his hands and can only be calmed down with three barrels of cold water.

“Emain's men immediately seized him and threw him into a barrel full of cold water. This barrel burst around him. The second barrel it was thrown into boiled over in fist-sized bubbles. He heated the third barrel in which he then came so that the heat and cold were even.
Then he got out and Mugain, the queen, brought him a blue cloak with a silver clasp and a tunic with a hood. "

Cú Chulainn's death

In the course of his life, Cú Chulainn had made quite a few powerful enemies. As with many Gaelic warriors, his life was also affected by taboos , that is, spiritual regulations called geis .

In his case there were two gessi : on the one hand, he was not allowed to refuse a banquet to which he was invited; on the other hand, he was forbidden from eating dog meat because of its name (“dog of the culann”). Breaking one of these prohibitions means for him the loss of his superhuman abilities. His enemies take advantage of this potential dilemma, invite him to a meal and serve him dog meat. They can now kill those weakened by this after a hard fight.

Cuthullin in the Ossian

Cuthullin , also Cuchullin , is in the allegedly traditional Celtic epic Ossian , which was actually written by the Scottish poet James Macpherson himself, the guardian and general of the young King Cormac of Ireland. As a model for the literary figure, Macpherson took the legendary hero Cú Chulainn, who was not at the time of King Cormac mac Airt in the 3rd century AD, but according to Irish tradition at the court of King Conchobar mac Nessa around the time of Christ's birth should have lived. In the song Fingal it is reported that Cuthullin fought in vain a campaign by the Scandinavian King Swaran of Lochlin , the son of King Starno , against Cormac's empire.

“Tell him, that heart of pride, the ruler of Lochlin: Cuchullin does not give way! I offer him the dark blue return trip across the ocean, or graves here for all his escort! "(Ossian: Fingal )"

Only through the intervention of Cormac's ally, Fingal , is Swaran defeated, forced to peace and sent back to Scandinavia. Cuthullin is killed fighting a rebel named Torlath .

Macpherson derives the name Cuthullin wrongly from Cuth-Ullin ("the voices of Ullin") and gives his ancestry with the son of Semo and grandson of Cathbad . This suggests that he was not familiar with the Ulster cycle with the legends about Cú Chulainn.

Modern reception

In Frank McCourt's novel The Ashes of My Mother , the father of the first-person narrator tells the boy the story of how Cuchulain (the spelling of the German translation by Harry Rowohlt ) got his name. Little Frank regards the story as "his" story to such an extent that he beats up a boy in the neighborhood to prevent the story from being told to him too. His father makes it clear to Frank that the boy next door, who comes from a Jewish family, has other stories, such as that of Samson , and that he therefore doesn't need Cuchulain's.

With Der Hund des Culann (2003) the German writer Manfred Böckl wrote a modern novel version of the Cúchulainn epic; In the epilogue of the novel, the author pleads for a time to the last century BC.

The composer Patrick Pföß composed a chamber opera entitled "Cuchulinn", which premiered on April 9, 2016. Eight scenes from the cycle of legends are set to music in it. Jürgen Arnold wrote the libretto.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Cú Chulainn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 15.
  2. ^ Bernhard Maier: Lexicon of the Celtic religion and culture . P. 89 f. (entire chapter)
  3. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 422.
  4. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Pp. 666 f, 703, 807, 1093 f.
  5. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Pp. 640, 958 f.
  6. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 968 f.
  7. a b c Wolfgang Meid: The Celts. P. 199 f.
  8. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 970.
  9. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. Pp. 640, 965 ff.
  10. Helmut Birkhan: Celts. Attempt at a complete representation of their culture. P. 807.
  11. a b Bernhard Maier: Lexicon of the Celtic religion and culture . P. 92.
  12. James Macpherson, Michael Denis (trans.): The poems of Ossian, an ancient Celtic poet . P. 40.
  13. Helmut Birkhan: Nachantike Keltenrezeption. P. 357.