The Tain seems mostly to be a litany of quick battles between many brave men and the fighter Cu Chulainn. Instead of mentioning that several fights happened and and several people died, The Tain mentions every specific fight that took place and what warriors were killed in that battle. Most of these are one-on-one because of the pact that Cu Chulainn made with the Irish. Why do you think the book tells the tale of so many individual deaths instead of briefing on some? What significance does this imply to the reader when this epic tale was created?
The Tain. Trans by Ciaran Carson. New York, New York. Viking, the Penguin Group. 2007.
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I think by detailing each and every battle Cu Chulainn won it shows his great power. There is one passage that lists all of his feats, and it's quite a hefty paragraph. I think these confrontations allow the reader to see all different aspects of his warrior capabilities. I think there is more power in chronicling every fight rather than just saying he is a talented warrior and killed many men.
ReplyDeleteThere was also a lot of details in the battles and deaths from the other two myths we read as well. This is quite a simple answer, but my speculation is because that is what makes the poem epic.
ReplyDeletePresenting Cuchulainn's battles as a gauntlet builds him up as a larger than life character. It changes what could be a war movie like Troy into an action movie like Die Hard. I'd say that the nature of Cu's war makes him more similar to our Hollywood notion of a hero than any other culture's heroes so far.
ReplyDeleteI think the telling of every battle helps in remembering the story better. They had to pass the myth verbally and this helps make the story unique and memorable. Plus maybe they did that so if one battle was forgotten, there was more to tell because there were many more battles. I also think that it adds more to the story. If they had just said that Cu Chulainn killed many warriors, it would not have the same impact as telling how he killed each man and what their story was. It makes Cu Chulainn a true hero and more than just a brute warrior who was good at killing other men.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I noticed throughout The Tain was the significance of geography to Celts. My assumption is that as Celts and Irishmen considered the Tain to be a part of their history, that detailing each battle helped to teach people why or how geographic locations (fords, cliffs, rivers, etc) attained their names. I think it sort of made the land "come alive", which given the Druid/Wiccan/ancient Celt belief system, could be important because of their deep connection to nature.
ReplyDeleteI think that the book describes numerous deaths because I think it is important to understand the suffering the society went through. By explaning the countless deaths, the message of the myth is more clear than it would be had the writer only briefed on a a few.
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