A Brief Excursion into Yeats and Irish Mythology

I remember being pretty indifferent to the poetry that we read in our pre-modern sampler (namely Yeats and Hardy) a few weeks back, but when the references to Irish mythology appeared in the Yeats section, man, I got excited. Mythology is one of those things for me, an automatic way to get me interested. We read two Yeats poems with obvious ties to Irish mythology: “The Hosting of the Sidhe” and “Cuchulain Comforted.”

On first reading, I liked “The Hosting of the Sidhe” more, probably because what Niamh said immediately made me think of Tír na nÓg. The imagery also struck me much more vividly, which I suspect is an important factor in influencing how I react to a poem. I liked “Cuchulain Comforted” a little less because I found it slightly confusing the first time through—meaning, I wasn’t entirely sure what was supposed to be going on. That’s probably because it didn’t seem to be referencing the Cuchulain stories I remember the best, which are ones like his slaying of Culann’s hound, his affair with Fand, and some of the Cattle Raid of Cooley (that curse on the men of Ulster? Best curse ever). Before I could form a final opinion on either of the poems, though, my logical next step was research.

Said research was conducted mostly by means of the textbook from my mythology class last summer (The Friendly Guide to Mythology) and the ever-handy Wikipedia. I also flipped through my “new” copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology (courtesy of my mother’s sudden urge to clean out her closet), and discovered that it only contains one short Cuchulain story—Bricriu's Feast, the one that bears the most resemblance to Gawain and the Green Knight, which figures.

Imagine my glee when I discovered that the goddess Niamh is actually a queen of Tír na nÓg, so my original gut response was spot-on. I was also excited to learn that Caoilte is apparently a nephew of Fionn MacCumhail, and that Niamh had a relationship with Oisín, who was Fionn’s son. Also, Knocknarea is a huge limestone hill, and the Sidhe (more accurately the aes sidhe) are the “people of the mound.” I love finding out all these connections. Official verdict: “The Hosting of the Sidhe” is pretty darn cool.

Next up, Cuchulain. After doing my research, I’m now fairly convinced that “Cuchulain Comforted” is about Cuchulain’s death. According to my mythology textbook, during the Cattle Raid of Cooley, Cuchulain killed a man called Cailidín, who was one of Medb’s soldiers. Cailidín’s widow later gave birth to six children, three boys and three girls, whom Medb sent to study sorcery. After many years, they returned with the goal of killing Cuchulain. I’m seeing a connection between the six children and the “six mortal wounds” mentioned in Yeats’ poem, because nowhere can I find that Cuchulain was actually wounded more than once (this death-blow coming in the form of a magical spear thrown by Lugaid, whose father Cuchulain had also killed). The shroud connection to his death seems pretty straightforward, because the word shroud is most commonly used to refer to a burial covering. Then there’s the bird connection as well; a raven/crow, depending on the source, lands on Cuchulain’s body as a sign that he has died. That’s why I see the use of “bird-like” at the beginning of the poem and “the throats of birds” at the end as an indication that Cuchulain is about to die.

So I definitely like “Cuchulain Comforted” a lot more after having done my research and figured out some of the connections in the poem. I’d be really curious to read other Yeats poems based on Irish mythology (although maybe not other Yeats poems in general, as I don’t think I was terribly impressed by him on a whole).

Oh, and one more thing: My textbook tells me that Niamh was a lover of Cuchulain. Bam! I’ve just connected the two poems. I knew it would be a good idea to keep that book.