LUGH: THE MANY-SKILLED, LONG-ARMED BOY-HERO ©
by Dillon Carlyon
The multidimensionality of the Celtic deities is a fascinating subject and will, I think, be explored in much more depth as new generations continue to uncover and explore the many details and nuances that are present in Celtic myth. For me, this multifacetedness takes Robert Graves’s concept of maiden, mother, and crone (a system of association that has been reflected on male deities as youth, father, and sage) a step further.(1) Just as there are the three realms in shamanism – the Shining Country, the Deep Country, and the Wide Country, or in other words, the worlds above, below, and in between – each deity, I think, also has three natures, three forms, three faces, and three within those, and three within those, and so on. This is one of many ways in which the Gods and Goddesses are representations of the infinite.
Lugh, the Samildánach (“the many-skilled one”), is no exception. There is much more to Lugh than the Macnia, or “boy-hero” aspect, the side of him most revealed and explored in the literature available to us today. Lugh, of course, is the great hero of the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh, having appeared at Tara’s doorstep just in time to be made king when a new king was needed. He defeats the Fomorian champion Balor by driving out his evil eye, which is capable of vanquishing anyone with a mere glance. This, however, is not the end of Lugh’s story by far. He went on to be a great King of the Tuatha De Danann for forty years.(2) The Dindshenchas, or place-name stories, also have it that he married the two daughters of a king of Britain, Buí (“yellow”) and Nás, the latter of which gave her name to one of the sacred sites where sporting games were played at Lughnasadh.(3) The tradition of Lugh being married is corroborated in the Auraicept na nÉces where it is written that the first message in Ogham was a warning to Lugh to use seven birches to guard his wife from being stolen away into the Otherworld.(4) This married and kingly Lugh is the God in his fatherly aspect. If we borrow an idea from the Arthurian stories, Lugh is at this point at the top of Fortuna’s Wheel, and all are protected by and prosper through him.
The story of the Sons of Tuireann occurs when Lugh is moving from his boy-hero aspect to his more fatherly aspect. Lugh turns the pain and difficulty of his father’s death at the hands of the sons of Tuireann into an opportunity to gain some important and useful magical treasures–the Seven Treasures of the World–before the Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh begins.(5) An interesting detail about this story is Lugh’s unbending stinginess at the end when he will not allow the sons of Tuireann to use the magical pigskin that they have retrieved to heal their fatal wounds. This detail seems unnecessarily cruel, but it may have been a dramatic device intended to explain Lugh’s undoing, not to mention the importance of showing that any leader who perpetuates a blood feud will probably not live long. The circumstances of Lugh’s death many years later are very similar to those surrounding his father’s death. Lugh kills Cermait, a son of The Dagda, because Cermait has had an affair with Lugh’s wife, and as a result, three more sons of The Dagda–Mac Cuill, Mac Greine, and Mac Cecht–take their revenge.(6) Here we can see Lugh as a living agent or perpetuator of fate–he dies at the hands of three brothers just as his father did, and his death is also the result of a blood feud. This role as a dealer or maker of fate recurs in Baile in Scáil, when Lugh and Flaithe (“Sovereignty”) appear to Conn of the Hundred Battles, prophesy his greatness, and offer him a drink of red ale from a golden vessel.(7)
We see some of Lugh’s dark side in the story of the sons of Tuireann. Lugh is also a trickster god and this trait is even more apparent in his “old man” aspect. Peter Ellis makes the very interesting suggestion that the Cluricaun or Leprechaun is a manifestation of Lugh and that the very word “Leprechaun” comes from “Lugh Chromain” or “little stooping Lugh.”(8) Leprechauns are shoemakers, and in the Mabinogion, the Welsh Lleu is disguised as a shoemaker when he tricks is mother Arianrhod into naming him.(9) Leprechauns are also associated with rainbows, and Lugh’s sling-rod is said to be the rainbow. The story “Clever Tom and the Leprechaun” also has Tom sighting a Leprechaun during the harvest “holiday,” which is very likely a reference to Lughnasadh.(10)
Lugh is associated with several different animals in the Irish legends, two of which are physically or symbolically linked with the land. The pig or swine reoccurs frequently with Lugh: his father Cian takes the form of a grazing pig when he is killed, and the magical pigskin retrieved by the Sons of Tuireann has already been mentioned. Swine are a symbol of prosperity, but if we consider the domesticated pig alongside of its wild counterpart, the boar, we have the power and tenacity of the warrior transferred to the more orderly and settled tribal lifestyle, the head of which is the king or chieftain. Lugh is also associated with horses, which are a symbol of Goddesses of the earth throughout the Celtic world. In the Second Battle of Mag Tuireadh, the twelve chariots of Lugh are given names by Loch Lethglas (“half-green”), as are each of the twelve horses that pull the chariots; the naming of the items and the horses may have had a cult or ritual significance that is unclear today. In any case, this association with the horse further links Lugh with the spirit of sovereignty and with warriors.
As a precursor to Mabon, or the Autumn Equinox, Lughnasadh is very much a time of balance. The sun and the earth–Lugh and Taltiu–hang in a perfect harmony, and the fruits of the harvest are brought to the table for all to enjoy. Working with Lugh’s three facets, and the three within those, and the three within those can help each of us to achieve the inner and outer balance that is a precursor to bringing healing and maintaining long term well-being.
REFERENCES
1 “Triple Goddess.” Wikipedia. Online, Internet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/triple_goddess [Return to Article]
2 “Lugh.” Wikipedia. Online, Internet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugh [Return to Article]
3 The Metrical Dindshenchas Vol. 3 Poem 5. Online, Internet. http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T106500C/index.html [Return to Article]
4 The Ogham Tract. Online, Internet. http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/ogham.html [Return to Article]
5 The Fate of the Sons of Tuireann. Online, Internet. https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cwt/cwt08.htm [Return to Article]
6 Lebor Gabála Érenn, Ch. 64. Online, Internet. http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/lebor4.html#55 [Return to Article]
7 Baile in Scail. Online, Internet. http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/phantom.html [Return to Article]
8 Ellis, Peter Berresford, p. 124. The Druids. London: Constable and Company Ltd., 1994. [Return to Article]
9 "Math son of Mathonwy", from The Mabinogion. Online, Internet. http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/mab26.htm [Return to Article]
10 Kneightly, Thomas. “Clever Tom and the Leprechaun.” From The Fairy Mythology. Online, Internet. http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/tfm133.htm [Return to Article]
Currently living in Houston, Texas, Dillon Carlyon is an Oak Grove Ogham Master and is currently in Year 1 of the Faery Shaman's Apprenticeship. A graduate of Loyola University New Orleans where he earned a B.A. in English, he has been studying history, religion, spirituality, the Celts, the Oghams, and shamanism for over ten years and hopes to move on to graduate work in the field of Old and Middle Irish. In his spare time he studies the Gaelic languages, Shotokan Karate, the Tibetan art of Boabom, and squeezes in reading, writing, making music, and DJing where he can. Contact Dillon at carlyond@gmail.com.
Lugh: The Many-Skilled, Long-Armed Boy-Hero copyright © 2008 by Dillon Carlyon, all rights reserved. Used with permission. Top of Page
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