Mythology
The Heroic and Magic Myths
It was essential for heroes to die unconquered and without descendants, and when Cuchulinn's time came to die it was through super-natural means, in this case the machinations of the evil Queen Medb, who had trained many sorcerers as part of a long term plan to bring Cuchulinn down. Ritual acts, known as geis, were part of everyday life, and to ommit the was to encer trouble. The more complicated a life, such as the one led by Cuchulinn, were it was not just a question of hoping for a good harvest, the more the ritual acts accumiulated. It was Cuchulinn's misfortune to pass a hearth where three of Medb's sorceresses were roasting a dog at a hearth. When passing a hearth it was essential to taste the food, which he did, but another geis was not to eat dog, and as he ate a shoulder of dog his powers were diminished, not sufficiently to destroy him absolutely but to leave him vulnerable. Demands were then made upon him by a poet, but the demands were refused, even though the poet threatened to satirise him. This was a potent threat, and had the further effect of weakening Cuchulinn, until he fell mortally wounded. Early in his career as a hero he had been abliged to kill a gaurd dog. It had been for told that his first and last acts would be the killing of a dog. As he washed off the blood from his curious encounter with the poet ( satire rarely draws actual blood) he killed an otter ( or river dog) which came to drink from the stream in his death agonie he bound himself to a piller and defied his enemies until the end, so dying with his honour intact. Despite everything, Cuchulinn seems to have been a local rather than a universal hero, a defender of Ulster against all comers, natural or super-natural. Finn was conceived as less local, one of the band of the Fianna, the young worrior troops of the kind that permiatted mythologies ancient and modern, from the knights of King Arthur's Round Table to the valiant and doomed heroes of the American Western. The Fianna were not gods, but neither were they ordinary human beings, being possesed of super-normal powers and often in contact with the other world that ment so much to the anchient peoples. Finn in fact lived until he was 230. Unlike other figures in mythology he is a genuine historical figure.
The Fianna were merceneries, who had disdained the traditional tribal life, to hunt and fight. They were enveid by ordinary folk who only wished that they had the spirit to follow suit and were conscious that in the worrior orriented society that they were sadly lacking. Their constant presance in the myth tellers repertoire was not surprising. The Fianna were given credit for various enterprises, such as defending Ireland agianst the Norse attacks, in which they signally failed. There is a good deal of evidence, though, that, in their purely human capacity, they indulged themselves in attacks on Britain under the Romans. It is a curious feature of writers on Irish mythology that give emphasis to certain heroes / gods while almost completely neglecting others who are given extensive coverage by other writers. One possible reason is, as already mentioned, that the same gods turn up under totally different names. The reason for some of the divergent names is simple enough ; the oral myths were transcribed at different times by different people with their own specific linguistic peculiarities. Sometimes their is an honest doubt as to where the myths origianated ; some could have come come from any part of the " Traditional" Celtic world, comprising Ireland, Wales - where Finn, meaning white, is Glynn - Scotland, the south west of England, and Britanny, from anywhere where the Celts were based or to where they were forced to flee from stronger invading forces.
The Irish goddesses are largely obscure and lack the charisma of their counterparts(the verious evil Queens are more often heard about). They are basically mother goddesses of the kind that feature in all mythology, and are often confused with each other. There are also language problems. The gods of the Celts are frequently called the people of the goddess Danu, but this does not imply that she gave birth to them. The Dagda was refered to as her father , but this does not mean that he was really her father. Danu also carried the names Anu Anna, and may have been a triple goddess ( maiden, mother, crone), sometimes it seems that Brigit and Danu appear the same. Macha an Ulster goddess, was the wife of Nemed, one of the mythological invaders, though alternatively she was the wife of a mere peasant. Against her will and although pregnant she was forced to compete in a race with horses, and somewhat surprisingly won, but died giving birth to twins. In the throes of death she put a curse on the warriors of Ulster and for nine generations these warriors were subject to the pangs of childbirth for five days and four nights at times when they were in great peril. Once again, Macha is one of those deities who appear in contrasting rolls in various versions of a basic mother goddess fertility symbol myth.