The Evolution of the Celtic Hero

Celtic literature is a literature about heroism. As Celtic society has changed through time, so has the Celtic definition of a hero. This metamorphosis is shown through literature. From the classic warrior-hero of Cuchulainn in The Tain to the reluctant hero of Christy Mahon in J.M. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, the hero has evolved, but still exists.

There are several methods one can use to distinguish a Celtic hero in any of its forms. One is the ‘naming’ of the hero. This is done to set apart those destined to be heroes from the rest of society. Another is the association of the hero with an animal. This connection is made so that the hero can appropriate the animal’s martial spirit. Thirdly, the mysterious emergence of the hero within the story. This is usually to add suspense and to make the hero stand-out even more.

Celtic society, like the rest of the world has become modernized. With this modernization, comes a maturing of Celtic literature. Celtic literature is still about heroes, but the way a hero is represented has changed. The evolution of the Celtic hero is that of a supernatural warrior-hero developing into a realistic hero that anyone can aspire to.

Cuchulainn of the Medieval Irish epic The Tain is the best known and perhaps the best example of a Celtic hero there ever was. Many of the aspects that made him a great hero are the same to be used over and over again by future writers of the Celtic hero.

Cuchulainn has two supernatural births. First, a woman gives birth to a boy at the Brug at the same time as a mare gives birth to two foals. Deichtine, King Conchobor's sister, nurses the boy. In the morning the house and couple have disappeared, leaving only the boy whom Deichtine takes to Emain Macha to raise. There, he catches a illness and dies. His second birth comes when Deichtine swallows a creature in her glass and: "she slept that night and dreamed that a man came toward her and spoke to her saying she would bear a child by him - that it was he who had brought her to the Brug to sleep with her there, that the boy she had reared was his, that he was again planted in her womb, and was to be called Setanta, that he himself was Lug mac Ethnenn . . ." Lug mac Ethnenn is the god Lugh one of the Tuath de Danann. Cuchulainn's having a god for a father explains his supernatural powers of fighting like the warp-spasm.

In The Tain, the hero has two names. The name he was born with was "Setanta." He earns his other name "Cuchulainn" by killing the hound of Culann. He offers as a repayment to Culann to act as his hound. By his killing of the hound, Setanta appropriates its martial spirit. Cathbad the Druid recognizes this and renames Setanta: "Cuchulainn shall be your name, Hound of Culann." Setanta now becomes famous because of his deed and because of his name.

This renaming is also evidence of the hero's association with an animal, in this case a hound. A hound is a guardian; Cuchulainn first becomes the guardian of Culann's property then later becomes the guardian of Ulster. The association with dogs or wolves is also seen in the Fenian cycle: "The fian's wildlife was expressed in the wearing of wolf skins or wolf heads, which is reflected in the proliferation of names incorporating elements meaning wolf: such an element is cu, which signifies both the canine and lupine kind. Members of a fian were traditionally credited with the ability to experience ecstatic distortions. Both of these features, the canine/lupine aspect and the distortion, are expressed in the warrior-hero of The Tain."

Cuchulainn is also associated with another animal. When Cuchulainn is born the first time, his birth coincides with the birth of a pair of foals. The foals were given to Deichtine to be reared with him. In Celtic myth, horses tended to symbolize fertility. However, their use here may mean to symbolize the hero's abilities later on in his life will be similar to that of a horse (strength, agility, power, and speed).

Before the Connacht army meets Cuchulainn, the prophetess Fedelm warns the army of Cuchulainn: " 'I see a battle: a blond man with much blood about his belt and a hero-halo round his head. His brow is full of victories.' " The Connacht army's first encounter of Cuchulainn is not with him, but with a spancel-hoop that he fashioned. Here, suspense is created and allows for Fergus to tell of Cuchulainn's Boyhood deeds.

Cuchulainn also qualifies as a Celtic hero in that he has one mortal parent and one supernatural one. Deichtine is his natural mother and the god Lugh is his father. This is reminiscent of many other hero figures in other myths. For example, Ancient Greece's Hercules's father was the god Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene.

Cuchulainn furthermore has not just one, but several hero goddesses. When he is at Emain Macha, all the women there admire his beauty, one very important requirement for a hero at this time. Emer also works as a hero goddess since Cuchulainn through his courtship of her proves himself an even greater hero, and a poet-lover. Without Medb, Cuchulainn would never have been given the chance to show off his supernatural hero abilities. Finally, the Morrigan acts as his dark hero goddess, whom Cuchulainn rejects: " 'It wasn't for a woman's backside I took on this ordeal!' " Without these women, Cuchulainn would not have been the hero that he became.

Cuchulainn is the classic definition of the Celtic hero. Without him, perhaps Celtic identity would not have developed in the way that it did. All Celtic heroes to appear after him are all modeled after him.

In the first branch of The Mabinogion: "Pwyll: Prince of Dyved," Pwyll's son has an extraordinary birth. The night after his birth Pwyll and Rhiannon's son disappears. After his disappearance, a child appears at the home of Teirnon Twrvliant. Teirnon has a mare that foals every May Eve, but the colts always disappears. This year, Teirnon decides to stand watch, when the mare foals, a giant claw grabbed the colt. Teirnon hacked the arm off and found a small boy outside.

The boy is given the name: "Gwri Golden Hair, because what hair was on his head was as yellow as gold." As the boy grows older it becomes obvious that he is an extraordinary child: "before he was a year old he could walk and was sturdier than a well-grown three-year-old. At the end of the second year he was as strong as a six-year-old, and by the time he was four he was bargaining with the stable boys to let him water the horses." Soon, Teirnon and his wife hear that Pwyll and Rhiannon have lost their child and notice the similarity between their foster-son and Pwyll. They decide to give Gwri back to Pwyll and Rhiannon. Rhiannon renames her son 'Pyderi.' As a footnote in her translation of The Mabinogion, Lady Charlotte Guest translates Pryderi as: "the word Pryder or Pryderi means anxiety." This name represents all the events that took place before his renaming, the disappearance and Rhiannon's subsequent punishment, and what will take place after it, the adventures that take place in the forth branch of The Mabinogion.

Pyderi's birth, like Cuchulainn's, is coincided with the birth of horse(s): "the birth of Pyderi like that of [Cuchulainn], is associated with that of colts - perhaps a totem animal." Pyderi's mother is also symbolized by a horse, since she rides in on one when Pwyll first discovers her. Here, the horses are again most likely to represent Pyderi's future abilities.

Also, Pyderi, like Cuchulainn, has one natural parent and one supernatural one. Pwyll is the Lord of Dyved and Rhiannon, who is mostly associated with being a hero goddess. Pwyll only truly becomes a lord after he gains Rhiannon and rescues her from Gwawl. Rhiannon also confirms Pryderi's heroism since she is the one who gives birth to him and renames him.

Pyderi is a lot like Cuchulainn. They are both products of a Celtic Medieval society, one still concerned with the supernatural abilities of the hero and not realism.

Sir Walter Scott's Rob Roy comes approximately 500 years after The Tain firmly established the Celtic hero. Here, we find one stereotypical Celtic hero, Rob Roy, and one man who becomes the new standard for the Celtic hero, Frank Obaldistone.

Frank Olbadistone was brought up in an English Protestant mercantile society. When he rejects his father's plans for him, he rejects this societal identity and is sent to Scotland where he discovers a new one. Here, he meets first a man named Mr. Campbell. Frank sees him physically as any other Lowlander or Englishman would: "his dress was as coarse as it could be, being still decent; and at a time when great expense was lavished upon the wardrobe, even of the lowest who pretended to the character of gentleman, this indicated mediocrity of circumstances, if not poverty." However, Frank can see beyond this to the hero located within.

Like Cuchulainn and Pyderi, Rob Roy has different names. Frank and the reader are first introduced to him as Mr. Campbell, then as MacGregor, then as Rob Roy, then as the outlaw: " 'We seek the outlaw, Rob Roy MacGregor Campbell.' " Campbell is his Lowland name, MacGregor is his clan name, and Roy meaning red is his hero name. Without each of his names, he would not be able to function in each of these societies.

One of Rob Roy's most distinguishing characteristics that procure him as a hero is his mysterious appearances in the novel. The reader has no idea when or where Rob Roy is going to appear and almost every time he has a new name.

Like Cuchulainn and Pryderi, Rob Roy is also associated with animals. At one point in the novel, Rashleigh Obaldistone calls Rob Roy a "kill-cow." He becomes a hero at the same time that he becomes an outlaw, which is linked like Cuchulainn, to cattle: "His life as an outlaw started when he was unable to repay money that he had borrowed from the Duke of Montrose to fund his growing cattle trade."

Other readers of Rob Roy have argued that Frank is the hero of the novel. In this period of Celtic history, not everyone wants to be a warrior-hero anymore. At one time in Celtic history, warriors were the aristocracy. Scott's world is a different world, where a different kind of hero is needed; one who can be a hero in the traditional sense, and one who is able to communicate his ideas to the new aristocracy: "forging a new national identity, [Scott] constructed Scottish cultural memory or myth to unite two contrasting cultures, the Catholic Highland and the Protestant Lowlands. Scott achieves this synthesis in Rob Roy by presenting Scottish history in terms of a private story." In this world: "the Highlands have no glamour, the Highland life is represented not by a heroic rebel like Fergus MacIvor [from Scott's novel Waverly], but by the outlaw Rob Roy."

A character like Frank has one identity, that of his father's society, that he rejects, and one that he acquires from being in his "native north" and from Rob Roy. Frank recognizes this connection: "it seemed that his fate was doomed to have influence over, and connection with my own."

Frank like the other heroes we have encountered also has different names. Francis is what his father calls him; Frank tries vehemently to not be known by that name. It is likely that Scott did not arbitrarily choose Frank as the name for his narrator, especially since Frank's character is frank. He is not a romantic poet, like he first fancied himself to be, but is an honest man who tells it like he sees.

In the novel Diana Vernon works as Frank's hero goddess. When they first meet, Frank is very timid, especially in light of Diana's overwhelming masculinity: "she wore, what was then somewhat unusual, a coat, vest, and hat, resembling those of a man . . ." The fact that Frank ends up marring Diana shows that Frank does find a suitable identity as a hero.

Frank is never meant to fully be a Celtic hero in the traditional sense, the audience of this novel were not the Highlanders, but others in Frank's position: "To censure Scott for the woodenness of his heroes - characters like Edward Waverly, Francis Obaldistone, and many others - is to misunderstand their function. They are not heroes in the ordinary sense, but symbolic observers."

The fact that both Frank and Rob Roy are more realistic heroes, with tragic flaws which make them more human, shows that the Celtic identity has transformed from being more devoted to the supernatural warrior to a more practical one.

In J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World, the Celtic hero has once again evolved. Here, we see him change into an even more unlikely hero than Frank Obaldistone.

Christy is not born a hero, but develops into one. Christy feels terrible about his plight and is amazed that the new people he meets are not only sympathetic to his situation, but craft him into a hero. Pegeen who is stuck in typical a Irish female's life and supposed to marry a typical Irish man, she sees Christy as her way out. She makes him into her hero, and slowly he begins to evolve into the character: "beginning in anonymity and squalor, Christy moves, via eloquent fiction, to fame and glory."

Like Cuchulainn and Rob Roy, Christy's first appearance is unusual. Christy just emerges out of nowhere: "Christy is one of those Synge characters who comes in out of the open air, out of Nature." Yet, he is instantly taken in by the people of the town without any criticisms of what he has done.

Christy Mahon is an intentional play on the name of Jesus Christ. His character is, however, is one of an antichrist. Christy not only rejects his father as Frank Obaldistone did, but actually tried to kill him. Not a single character in the play, except for Christy himself, actually calls him Christopher which is his full name. Pegeen, again fashioning Christy into her hero, draws on the 'greatness' of his name: "you with a kind of quality name, the like of what you'd find on the great powers and potentates of France and Spain." He also becomes more known by an outlaw epitaph like Rob Roy: "that's the man killed his father." He then becomes known as: "the playboy of the western world."

Christy, like our other heroes is likewise associated with animals. When Pegeen's sheep begin eating cabbages in a neighbour's field, Christy goes out to help since he is: "handy with ewes" This is a reference to cattle-raiding. In act three, when Widow Quin, Philly, Jimmy, and Old Mahon are inside, they hear people cheering outside. They look to see Christy winning a mule race. Animals have always been important to Celtic society since it was always its main source of power. The fact that Christy is associated with barnyard animals instead of with hounds or horses may symbolize Synge's mocking of the traditional heroic code.

Michael James asks Christy if he killed his father with a hilted knife, Cuchulainn also carried an ivory-hlited knife. Also, like Cuchulainn, Christy is shy with most women, however, when Christy meets Pegeen, like Cuchulainn and Emer, Christy becomes a lover-poet: "there's torment in the splendor of her like and she a girl any moon of midnight would take pride to meet, facing southwards on the heaths of the Keel." In a mocking fashion, Synge uses the Celtic hero symbol of the champion's portion to show that even though Christy has done a horrible thing and the residents of this town should be shocked and terrified, they instead make Christy their champion.

Pegeen is Christy's hero goddess. Christy first appears painfully shy with women, like Cuchulainn. That is until he meets Pegeen, who brings out the hero in him, like Diana does for Frank. She flatters his appearance: "you a fine, handsome young fellow with a noble brow." He grows to have more confidence as the play goes on: "how would a lovely handsome woman the like of you be lonesome when all men should be thronging around to hear the sweetness of your voice."

Synge makes it seem that Ireland has no more heroes, unless they create them theirselves: "the literature of the Irish Revival is, in essence, an heroic literature; or more precisely perhaps, it is a literature which draws heavily on the idea that the revival of heroism is a necessary and predictable ambition in Irish circumstances." However, Celtic society would cease to exist without its heroes, since it is the most essential pat of its identity. Even if Celtic society has to produce their heroes instead of them developing on their own, he still shows that heroes are needed.

The hero has always been at the center of Celtic society and in Celtic literature. Without the hero, Celtic society would never have had an identity. As times have progressed, so has Celtic society and Celtic literature. Yet, the hero is still very important to the Celtic identity. However, what constitutes the new Celtic hero is not as explicit as when The Tain and The Mabinogion were written. In order to fully be a hero in the modern Celtic literature, the hero must be a hero in the traditional sense and to function as a normal member of modern society.

The essential themes that make a Celtic hero have not changed, nor are they likely ever to change, for Celtic society, Celtic literature, and Celtic identity would not exist without its heroes.

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