Murthemne's Plain,[1] or the Warrior and the Prince of it; and he defended it more strenuously than any other district against the ravages of the Western hosts. When Setanta offered to watch Culann's cattle and other property, the druid present exclaimed that this should henceforth be his name, Cú-Chulainn, that is to say, Culann's Hound. Such is the old account of the way in which little Setanta obtained the name by which he is best known; but when this tale of the killing of Culann's dog comes to be compared with others in point, it is found that Culann must have originally been a form of the divinity of the other world, and that his terrible hound[2] may doubtless be compared with the Cerberus of Greek mythology. The sun as a person makes war on the powers representing darkness and the inclemency of nature; but with these last would naturally be associated evil of all description, including death, the greatest of all ills: these then are the demons and monsters, under their many names, with which Cúchulainn repeatedly fights. But none of them can withstand him, and his warfare with them is briefly described in the words:
'Proud is he and haughty, of valour sublime,
Woe to the demons he pursues!'[3]
- ↑ Windisch, pp. 216, 221.
- ↑ The Irish is ár-chu, and ár moans slaughter of any kind, including of course slaughter in war; and Cúchulainn himself is called Archu Emna, or the Slaughter-hound of Emain, in the Bk. of Leinster, 87b, printed by O'Curry, iij. 452. But while recalling the dogs trained for war which used to be imported by the Gauls from Britain (Strabo, iv. 5, 2), it is to be noticed that the story in the Bk. of the Dun makes the smith's dog an imported one from Spain, a name sometimes used instead of that of Hades (pp. 90-1).
- ↑ This I take to be the sense of a verse in the Bk. of the Dun, 48b, which reads iu the facsimile: uallach uabrech árd lagol mairg fri
