We saw in the story of Arthur, and of many of his knights, frequent references to unusual birth circumstances. This is a very common Celtic theme. The success of the tarbhfhess or bull dream to discover the next rightful king, or the drawing of the sword from the stone, or any of the variants of that theme, are predicated on the notion that the rightful king already exists - he simply has to be found. The question as to whether there was any interaction between early druidism and early Pythagoreanism is highly speculative, but there does seem to be in Celtic mythology at least some suggestion of the idea of an eternal, immutable soul which may undergo transmigrations from one existence to another. Even the begetting of the child seems predetermined, as, for example, in the case of Uther Pendragon’s sudden and insatiable lust for Ygraine, which produces Arthur. In the Tain, there is a similar predetermined moment:
Nes the daughter of Eochaid Salbuide of the yellow heel was sitting outside Emain with her royal women about her. The druid Cathbad from the Tratraige of Mag Inis passed by, and the girl said to him:
‘What is the present hour lucky for?’
‘For begetting a king on a queen,’ he said.
The queen asked him if that were really true, and the druid swore by god that it was: a son conceived at that hour would be heard of in Ireland for ever. The girl saw no other male near, and she took him inside with her.
She grew heavy with a child. It was in her womb for three years and three months.
And at the feast of Othar she was delivered.
The child born of the union is Conchobor (pronounced Kon-chov-or or Kon-chor), otherwise known as Conchobhar Mac Nessa, High King of Ireland. The unusual gestation period amounts to thirty-nine months; that number; with factors 3 and 13, held particular significance in druidism. Another king, Noidhiu Noimbreathach (‘of the Nine Judgments’) is born of his mother Fingel after she has been impregnated by a sea spirit and has carried the child for 9 years and 9 months.
From this willingness to accept and even welcome the inevitable coming of the king or hero there developed the decidedly unChristian practice, later much abused in Scotland as the ius primae noctis (‘right of the first night’), mercheta mulierum or Laird’s Right, of allowing the king or lord to sleep first with any newly married girl. It happens with Conchobhar, too:
Ulster grew to worship Conchobor. So high was their regard for him that every man in Ulster that took a girl in marriage let her sleep the first night with Conchobor, so as to have him first in the family. . . .
Any Ulsterman who gave him a bed for the night gave him his wife as well to sleep with.
There are different versions of the story of the conception and birth of Cu Chulainn (pronounced Koo-hull-in). Conchobhar travels with his sister (or daughter) Dechtine (or Dechtire) in pursuit of a flock of birds which has grazed the plain of Emain to destruction. They take shelter from snow in the newly built house of a young couple. That night, the host’s wife gives birth to a son. At the exact same moment, a mare outside the house drops two foals, which the man presents to the child as a gift. In the morning, the mysterious birds, the house, and the host couple have all disappeared: only the child and the two foals remain. Conchobhar and Dechtine bring them back to Emain. Here the child dies. Dechtine, stricken with grief, drinks from a copper vessel, and a tiny creature leaps from the drink into her mouth: it is the child again. She becomes miraculously pregnant with the little creature and calls him Setanta (pronounced Shay-dan-da) meaning ‘Miracle’. However; Conchobhar now betrothes her to Sualdam Mac Roich:
She was ashamed to go pregnant to bed with her husband, and got sick when she reached the bedstead. The living thing spilled away in the sickness, and so she was made virgin and whole and went to her husband. She grew pregnant again and bore a son, and called him Setanta.
Although the story is laughable to a modern, scientific sensibility, the underlying mythological point is very clear: this hero spirit, the Setanta or Miracle who is to become the great warrior Cu Chulainn, is so eager to be born into the real world and fulfil his destiny that he is willing to be conceived three times, rather than the normal once.
(Cu Chulainn acquired his heroic name, meaning ‘Culainn’s Hound’, because, while still a child, he killed Culainn’s ferocious guard dog, which could only be restrained by three chains, with three men on each chain, and then, to make amends for the deed, agreed to guard Culainn’s flocks until a replacement guard dog could be reared and trained.)
The king’s or hero’s physical appearance is also frequently unusual, although there is sometimes a very fine difference between what constitutes noble distinctiveness and what might be considered a blemish. The description of Cu Chulainn’s handsomeness includes the following:
In each of his cheeks a spot red as blood, a green spot, a blue spot and a spot of pale purple.
Seven lights in his eye -
He is not one to be left sightless.
It has the ornament of a noble eye; a dark, blue-black eyelash.
A man known throughout Eriu is already good; and this one has hair of three different colours this young beardless lad. . .
(The hair of three different colours was probably achieved with herbal dyes and limewash.)
We have already mentioned the stories of Cormac being born on a wood pile and taken away to be raised by a she-wolf (see page 176), and of Mes Buachalla, ‘foster-child of the cowherd’, who slept with the bird-god Nemglan and produced the hero Conaire Mor, destined to be High King of Ireland (see page 176). In The Wooing of Etain, the heroine is transformed into the shape of a fly and falls into the cup of the wife of Etar, an Ulster hero. Etain is subsequently bom of the wife, and called Etar’s daughter.
Many of these stories imply individual reincarnation - the hero is bom at the precise moment of his father’s death - but even when the connection is not that precise, the underlying theme is very consistent. The true king or hero is destined to fulfil his role. He comes from a timeless place by a magical or mysterious process, does the work he has to do among mortals, and then returns to the timeless place from which he came. He is not bom of a regular marriage, like ordinary men, because he has to have qualities which are beyond the ordinary; therefore, he is the product of incest, or adultery, or intercourse between humans and gods, especially gods in animal form.
Interestingly, many of the Celtic saints also have stories of unusual birth circumstances. St. Alba, St. Bairre and St. Ciwa are all suckled by wolves.
St. Brendan the Navigator is suckled by a wild doe. St. Colm Cille’s mother is visited during her pregnancy by an angel, who brings her a cloak which then floats away to Heaven. St. Finian’s mother is impregnated by a salmon while bathing in Loch Lein. St. Cadoc, St. David and St. Cynog are all born of an act of rape. St. Beuno is born of elderly parents, who have not had sexual intercourse for twelve years previously. The saint’s birth is often foretold by another saint, by an angel, or (apparently incongruously) by a pagan druid. Very often, the saint’s mother is given a vision of the saint’s future charaaer and greatness, in the form of a star, or a ball of light, or even as an image of the saint as a fully grown man or woman, bathed in a glowing radiance and with a halo about his or her head.
World History
