Myths & Legends of the Celtic RaceRolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race
Rolleston, T. W. (Thomas William)
Celts -- Religion; Mythology, Celtic
This was done as Cuchulain lay in his trance, and when he awoke, refreshed
and well, and heard what had been done, his frenzy came upon him and he
leaped into his war-chariot and drove furiously round and round the host
of Maev. And the chariot ploughed the earth till the ruts were like the
ramparts of a fortress, and the scythes upon its wheels caught and mangled
the bodies of the crowded host till they were piled like a wall around the
camp, and as Cuchulain shouted in his wrath the demons and goblins and
wild things in Erin yelled in answer, so that with the terror and the
uproar the host of men heaved and surged hither and thither, and many
perished from each other’s weapons, and many from horror and fear. And
this was the great carnage, called the Carnage of Murthemney, that
Cuchulain did to avenge the boy-corps of Emania; six score and ten princes
were then slain of the host of Maev, besides horses and women and
wolf-dogs and common folk without number. It is said that Lugh mac Ethlinn
fought there by his son.
*The Clan Calatin*
Next the men of Erin resolved to send against Cuchulain, in single combat,
the Clan Calatin.(152) Now Calatin was a wizard, and he and his
seven-and-twenty sons formed, as it were, but one being, the sons being
organs of their father, and what any one of them did they all did alike.
They were all poisonous, so that any weapon which one of them used would
kill in nine days the man who was but grazed by it. When this multiform
creature met Cuchulain each hand of it hurled a spear at once, but
Cuchulain caught the twenty-eight spears on his shield and not one of them
drew blood. Then he drew his sword to lop off the spears that bristled
from his shield, but as he did so the Clan Calatin rushed upon him and
flung him down, thrusting his face into the gravel. At this Cuchulain gave
a great cry of distress at the unequal combat, and one of the Ulster
exiles, Fiacha son of Firaba, who was with the host of Maev, and was
looking on at the fight, could not endure to see the plight of the
champion, and he drew his sword and with one stroke he lopped off the
eight-and-twenty hands that were grinding the face of Cuchulain into the
gravel of the Ford. Then Cuchulain arose and hacked the Clan Calatin into
fragments, so that none survived to tell Maev what Fiacha had done, else
had he and his thirty hundred followers of Clan Rury been given by Maev to
the edge of the sword.
*Ferdia to the Fray*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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