The Hound of Culann: Cú Chulainn's Fury and Fate

Long before he became Ulster's most feared warrior, he was simply Sétanta, a child so eager to join the boy-troop at Emain Macha that he set off alone, ignorant of the custom that required him to first ask for the boys' protection. When he ran onto their playing field unannounced, the boys took his sudden arrival as a challenge and attacked him — and he answered with the ríastrad, the terrifying battle frenzy that would define his life, beating fifty boys single-handed before Conchobar mac Nessa, King of Ulster, intervened.

His birth was itself woven from wonder and scandal. In the earliest version of the tale, his mother Deichtine was the daughter and charioteer of Conchobar, and she sheltered with the Ulstermen from a magical snowstorm in a house that vanished by morning, leaving behind a child and twin colts. The god Lug later revealed himself as the child's true father, and after complications of lineage and betrothal, Deichtine bore a son she named Sétanta. In the later and better-known version, Deichtine is instead Conchobar's sister, and Lug himself is revealed as her husband that night, the child born to her directly.

Either way, Sétanta was raised among many foster parents, each chosen for what they could offer him: Conchobar himself; Sencha mac Ailella, who taught him judgement and eloquent speech; the wealthy Blaí Briugu, who protected and provided for him; the noble warrior Fergus mac Róich, who cared for him and taught him to protect the weak; and the poet Amergin, who educated him alongside his wife Findchóem, who nursed him.

The name Cú Chulainn came later, and violently. As a boy, he killed the fierce guard dog belonging to a smith named Culann, acting in self-defense. Rather than face punishment, he offered to serve as Culann's guard himself until a new dog could be raised — and so he became known as Cú Chulainn, the 'Hound of Culann,' a name that could also be read as 'Culann's warrior.'

His martial education came from the warrior-woman Scáthach, who trained him and gave him the terrible spear Gáe Bulg, a weapon whose wounds could not be healed. It was prophesied that he would achieve everlasting fame but die young — a fate he accepted without flinching. At just seventeen, he proved the prophecy's first half true: single-handedly, he defended Ulster against the invading armies of Queen Medb of Connacht in the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the Cattle Raid of Cooley, one of the great epics of Irish mythology.