Cuchulainn

Cuchulainn Europe
Semi-legendary Irish hero, said to have lived in the first century. His father was Lug, a Tuatha chieftain. Cuchulainn was a youth of extraordinary beauty, stature, and gaiety, the favourite of ladies and poets, yet he changed into an appalling spectacle ‘when the battle-frenzy was upon him’. His body trembled violently; his heels and calves appeared in front; one eye receded into his head, the other stood out huge and red on his cheek; a man's head could go into his mouth; his hair bristled like hawthorn, with a drop of blood on each single hair; and from the ridge of his crown there arose a thick column of dark blood like the mast of a great ship. The archetypal warrior, seized by such a paroxysm, was terrible to behold. On one occasion, when his chariot was ‘graced with the bleeding heads of his enemies’, he charged round the fortress of Emain Macha screaming for a fight. Very quickly, a way had to be found to abate his immense...

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