JonikW
09-19-2018, 11:02 PM
Someone must have noticed this before me so I'd love to know more. I was reading the Táin in English a few months back (I only wish I could read it in the original; I've got Ciaran Carson's lively Penguin translation) and underlined many passages in what I found to be an enthralling read full of gripping fights on chariot. One thing that interested me was the description of Cú Chullainn in his battle frenzy:
‘The Torque seized him. His hair stood on end: you’d think each hair had been hammered into his head. Each hair seemed tipped with a spark, so sharply did they shoot upright. He closed one eye as narrow as the eye of a needle; he opened the other as wide as the mouth of a goblet."
And later:
"Then he made a red cauldron of his face and features: he sucked one of his eyes so deep into his head that a wild crane would find it difficult to plumb the depths of his skull to drag that eye back to its socket; the other popped out on to his cheek. His mouth became a terrifying, twisted grin."
Not long after I was leafing through Cunliffe's The Ancient Celts one weekend evening and was struck by this image (below) of the pattern on an Iron Age terret ring (a horse harness fitting for charioteers) from northern France, or Gaul. It's on P113 if you've got the book. Look familiar?
I'm sure a lot of you know this already, but the introduction to my Táin points out:
"There may be some justification for seeing the Táin as ‘a window into the Iron Age’. Whether or not it is an Irish Iron Age is another question. For instance, it is undeniable that the social and warfaring practices embedded in the narrative bear remarkable similarities to those of the Gauls or ‘Celts’ of continental Europe, as described by Diodorus Siculus in around 60 BC: 'In their journeyings and when they go into battle the Gauls use chariots drawn by two horses, which carry the charioteer and the warrior… They first hurl their javelins at the enemy and then step down from their chariots and join battle with their swords...'
The passage is especially telling when one considers that for all the chariot-fighting in the Táin, the archaeological evidence for chariots in Ireland is almost entirely lacking."
So I'm left wondering whether the image is one of a kind of proto Cú Chullainn celebrated throughout the ancient Celtic world...
26057
‘The Torque seized him. His hair stood on end: you’d think each hair had been hammered into his head. Each hair seemed tipped with a spark, so sharply did they shoot upright. He closed one eye as narrow as the eye of a needle; he opened the other as wide as the mouth of a goblet."
And later:
"Then he made a red cauldron of his face and features: he sucked one of his eyes so deep into his head that a wild crane would find it difficult to plumb the depths of his skull to drag that eye back to its socket; the other popped out on to his cheek. His mouth became a terrifying, twisted grin."
Not long after I was leafing through Cunliffe's The Ancient Celts one weekend evening and was struck by this image (below) of the pattern on an Iron Age terret ring (a horse harness fitting for charioteers) from northern France, or Gaul. It's on P113 if you've got the book. Look familiar?
I'm sure a lot of you know this already, but the introduction to my Táin points out:
"There may be some justification for seeing the Táin as ‘a window into the Iron Age’. Whether or not it is an Irish Iron Age is another question. For instance, it is undeniable that the social and warfaring practices embedded in the narrative bear remarkable similarities to those of the Gauls or ‘Celts’ of continental Europe, as described by Diodorus Siculus in around 60 BC: 'In their journeyings and when they go into battle the Gauls use chariots drawn by two horses, which carry the charioteer and the warrior… They first hurl their javelins at the enemy and then step down from their chariots and join battle with their swords...'
The passage is especially telling when one considers that for all the chariot-fighting in the Táin, the archaeological evidence for chariots in Ireland is almost entirely lacking."
So I'm left wondering whether the image is one of a kind of proto Cú Chullainn celebrated throughout the ancient Celtic world...
26057