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Ceist: Who was Setanta, he who became Cú Chulainn? Ní Ansa…
The Ulster cycle of Ireland’s lore centres around a time of heroes and kings in ancient Ireland. It is full of tales of martial prowess and conflict, yet the Otherworld is an ever present factor not to be ignored.
Though there is much we can discuss of the Otherworld influences in the Ulster cycle, today we will focus on the origins of Cú Chulainn. Here we will talk about the Tragedy of Setanta Mac Súaltam, the boy who would be a hero.
✨ Post by Jon O’Sullivan
The Three Births of Setanta
It all begins with Dechtre. Sister of Conchobar mac Nessa, the king of Ulster, she and fifty of the maidens went missing from Emhain Macha.
When later a flock of birds came and ravaged the lands around the fort, the druid Cathbad identified them as the missing women, magically transformed by the powers of the Otherworld. So began the quest as the king rose up with warriors to recover the women.
The warriors tracked the birds until they became lost in a mist. There in the mist they found a house and were welcomed and feasted there in that hall by a strange man and his many women. Many of the warriors shared a bed with one of the women of that house that night, including the king.
When they awoke the next day, the house was gone and the women were recognised as those that had gone missing. Also in that morning there was a small child found in the fold of Conchobar’s cloak. This child was given to Dechtre to be raised but soon died of a plague.
Soon enough, Dechtre was to be wed to Súaltam, a loyal follower of Conchobar and lord of Muirthemne. Before the wedding though the strange man from the Otherworld appeared to Dectre and this time identified himself as Lugh of the Tuatha Dé Danann.
He said that Dechtre was to bear him a son and that the child would be called Setanta. Yet Dechtre would not carry another person’s child into her marriage, and so the pregnancy was ended so that she could be wed whole to her new husband.
As she had willed it was so, but not long after her wedding she became pregnant and bore Súaltam a son, and the name she gave to this child was as she had been instructed, Setanta.
The Arrival of Setanta at Emhain Macha
Though the birth of the boy was much confused, the ability and power of the child was not to be missed. He grew by leaps in strength and speed and with a willfulness that could not be contained.
When he heard a tale about the Macraid, the boys troupe of Emhain Macha who played games each day before the king, he demanded to attend. His mother knew that he was as yet too young to be presented to the king and that the Macraid’s ‘play’ was so rough as to be considered training for the youths to take their place as warriors in Ulster.
Yet Setanta would not be deterred and demanded the directions from his mother so that he might go at once to play with these other boys. The willfulness of Setanta was not to be overcome, and he left that day for the court of Emhain Macha.
When he arrived he saw the boys’ troupe playing hurling, and without introduction, invitation nor promises of protection, Setanta waded in. Invading the game with a will, he moved among the larger and older boys with such speed and power that he overcame them all and caused many a hurt.
When this disruption finally brought him in range of the King, Conchobar called for the lad to be stopped. The deed took none other than Fergus to resolve, as the young Setanta was lifted bodily from what had – by then – stopped being a game and become a melee.
Once extracted, the boy was chastised for his rough play and his name and family demanded of him. When Setanta named himself as son of Súaltam and Dechtre, Conchobar knew it was his own nephew arrived at court.
Yet though there was blood between them, that did not excuse the roughness of the ‘play’ he had set upon the Macraid. The child volunteered to play a new game and to set himself against all of the Boys troupe so that things might be fair.
This the king agreed to, thinking it might teach the lad humility to be trounced by the best lads in Ulster, and result in sending him home til he came of age. This was not to be the case.
Instead the boy placed much hurt upon all the youths of Ulster so that the ‘play’ had to be stopped before the hurts became too permanent. This then is how Setanta came to Emhain Macha.
Setanta Takes Up Arms
The next stage in the tales of the young Setanta comes not long after his arrival in Emhain Macha. Though years had passed, the child was still small and nowhere near his coming of age.
The youths of Emhain Macha were taking lessons with Cathbad the druid of Ulster, as was usual for them, when his powers overcame him and she spoke a prophecy. He said that the warrior that took arms that very day would become the greatest hero in all of Ulster.
As these words fell upon the young Setanta his will became set that he would be that warrior, and despite his youth that very day he would take up arms.
Going straight to the king, Setanta told Conchobar that Cathbad had said he was to take up arms today.
Though this worried Conchobar, he had long trusted the worlds of his druid and so he agreed to allow Setanta to take up arms. He promised him weapons and armour for himself… thinking there would be little the boy could find that would fit or he could lift.
The boy entered the armoury at Emhain Macha and set about testing all of the weapons to see what suited him best. Almost everything that came to hand was splintered and destroyed with the first swing leaving the arms of Emhain Macha very much destroyed. That is of course until the boy came upon and took up the very best of gear which could sustain his strength.
When Setanta returned, the king found that it was his very own weapons and armour which the child had taken. Bound by his promise, under the believed weight of Cathbad’s judgement, Conchobar had no choice.
The child then took up the king’s own chariot and took off for the borders of Ulster, to cement his status as warrior by taking the heads of his enemies. When the king sent for Cathbad to update him on the boy’s progress he found that he had been lied to, but by then the boy was far out from Emhain Macha.
The child would indeed incite battles, taking his talents and adding taunts to justify his need for conflict. He even overcame Conall Cernach with guile in order to leave Ulster and pursue his rampage.
Yet for all that he was too young, too small, too inexperienced… he still returned to Emhain Macha with the heads of his enemies, as well as a gathering of swans, birds and deer all tied to the chariot.
From here this boy of battles was in many ways doomed for his prowess and success.
The Tragedy of Setanta Mac Súaltam
Setanta would of course go on to take up his famous name of Cú Chulainn, but even here this name carried the will of Cathbad in it as the weight of his prophecy.
Time and again the child, who was acknowledged for his prowess, was used to fulfill the tasks set to him by others. He became the guardian, the champion, the enforcer, and always there was a cost in blood and bodies to his deeds. Even his own child fell beneath his spear.
Burdened with glorious purpose as defined by the will of kings and druids, the child Setanta became the warrior Cú Chulainn, became the weapon of Ulster.
Even now we are handed tales of his bravery and sacrifice as an example of what it is to love and serve one’s country. Even now the youth of our island and other places of the world are handed battles as defined by the will of modern day kings and druids, and told that old lie, that it is sweet and fitting and glorious to die for one’s country.
The tragedy of Setanta Mac Súaltam is that a child of huge potential of strength, skill, and indeed intellect, was used as nothing more than a weapon to cause harm, such a weapon that even the warriors of Ulster feared to wake him from his sleep for fear of their lives.
The tragedy of Setanta Mac Súaltam is that the deeper lessons to be learnt from his tales are lost behind the rhetoric of violence and sacrifice.
The more I know of our Ulster cycle lore, the more I find that I do not revere Cú Chulainn. I pity Setanta, and the loss of the boy who could have been more than just a weapon.
Where To Now?
If you think that Ireland’s Ulster Cycle is interesting, and might even be something you’d like to explore further, you can always:
>>>Take our Cú Chulainn – A Life of Stories Class
Or… Take a Free Class to Learn More about Irish Paganism
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