Lugh
Lugh or Lug is a figure in Irish mythology. A member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, a group of supernatural beings, Lugh is portrayed as a warrior, a king, a master craftsman and a saviour. He is associated with skill and mastery in multiple disciplines, including the arts. Lugh also has associations with oaths, truth, and the law, and therefore with rightful kingship. He is also associated with intelligence. Lugh is linked with the harvest festival of Lughnasadh, which bears his name. His most common epithets are Lámfada and Samildánach. This has sometimes been anglicised as "Lew of the Long Hand".
In mythology, Lugh is the son of Cian and Ethniu. He is the maternal grandson of the Fomorian tyrant Balor, whom Lugh kills in the Battle of Mag Tuired. Lugh's son is the hero Cú Chulainn, who is believed to be an incarnation of Lugh.
Lugh has several magical possessions. He wields an unstoppable fiery spear and a sling stone and owns a hound named Failinis. He is said to have invented fidchell, ball games, and horse racing.
He is the Irish manifestation of the pan-Celtic god Lugus, and his Welsh counterpart is Lleu Llaw Gyffes. The interpretatio romana has Lug correspond to the Romans god Mercury.
Name
Etymology
The meaning of Lugh's name is still a matter of debate. Some scholars propose that it derives from a suggested Proto-Indo-European root lewgʰ- meaning "to bind by oath", suggesting that he was originally a god of oaths and sworn contracts. When Balor meets Lugh in the Second Battle of Moytura he calls Lugh a "babbler".In the past his name was generally believed to come from another suggested Proto-Indo-European root leuk-, "flashing light", and since the Victorian era he has often been considered a sun god, similar to the Greco-Roman Apollo. However, the figure of Lugh in Irish mythology and literature seems to be a better match with a romanized god identified with Mercury, described by Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallico. There are serious phonological issues with deriving the name from leuk-, notably that Proto-Indo-European -k- never produced Proto-Celtic -g-; for this reason, most modern specialists in Celtic languages no longer accept this etymology.
Epithets
- Lámfada – possibly for his skill with a spear or his ability as a ruler
- Samildánach
- Lonnansclech
- Lonnbéimnech
- Macnia
- Conmac
Description
When he appears before the wounded Cú Chulainn in the Táin Bó Cúalnge he is described as follows:
A man fair and tall, with a great head of curly yellow hair. He has a green mantle wrapped about him and a brooch of white silver in the mantle over his breast. Next to his white skin, he wears a tunic of royal satin with red-gold insertion reaching to his knees. He carries a black shield with a hard boss of white-bronze. In his hand a five-pointed spear and next to it a forked javelin. Wonderful is the play and sport and diversion that he makes. But none accosts him and he accosts none as if no one could see him.
Elsewhere Lugh is described as a tall young man with bright red cheeks, white sides, a bronze-coloured face and blood-coloured hair.
In The Fate of the Children of Turenn Lugh's appearance is compared to the sun on several occasions. He is described by Bres as follows:
Elsewhere in the same passage, the following remark is made:
Mythology
Birth
Lugh's father is Cian of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and his mother is Ethniu, daughter of Balor of the Fomorians. In Cath Maige Tuired their union is a dynastic marriage following an alliance between the Tuatha Dé and the Fomorians. In the Lebor Gabála Érenn, Cian gives the boy to Tailtiu, queen of the Fir Bolg, in fosterage. In the Dindsenchas, Lugh, the foster-son of Tailtiu, is described as the "son of the Dumb Champion". In the poem Baile Suthain Sith Eamhna Lugh is called "descendant of the poet."A folktale told to John O'Donovan by Shane O'Dugan of Tory Island in 1835 recounts the birth of a grandson of Balor who grows up to kill his grandfather. The grandson is unnamed, his father is called Mac Cinnfhaelaidh and the manner of his killing of Balor is different, but it has been taken as a version of the birth of Lugh, and was adapted as such by Lady Gregory. In this tale, Balor hears a druid's prophecy that he will be killed by his own grandson. To prevent this he imprisons his only daughter in the Tór Mór of Tory Island. She is cared for by twelve women, who are to prevent her from ever meeting or even learning of the existence of men.
On the mainland, Mac Cinnfhaelaidh owns a magic cow who gives such abundant milk that everyone, including Balor, wants to possess her. While the cow is in the care of Mac Cinnfhaelaidh's brother Mac Samthainn, Balor appears in the form of a little red-haired boy and tricks him into giving him the cow. Looking for revenge, Mac Cinnfhaelaidh calls on a leanan sídhe called Biróg, who transports him by magic to the top of Balor's tower, where he seduces Ethniu. In time, she gives birth to triplets, which Balor gathers up in a sheet and sends to drown in a whirlpool. The messenger drowns two of the babies but unwittingly drops one child into the harbour, where he is rescued by Biróg. She takes him to his father, who gives him to his brother, Gavida the smith, in fosterage.
There may be further triplism associated with his birth. His father in the folktale is one of a triad of brothers, Mac Cinnfhaelaidh, Gavida, and Mac Samthainn, whereas in the Lebor Gabála, his father Cian is mentioned alongside his brothers Cú and Cethen. Two characters called Lugaid, a popular medieval Irish name thought to derive from Lugh, have three fathers: Lugaid Riab nDerg was the son of the three Findemna or fair triplets, and Lugaid mac Con Roí was also known as mac Trí Con, "son of three hounds". In Ireland's other great "sequestered maiden" story, the tragedy of Deirdre, the king's intended is carried off by three brothers, who are hunters with hounds. The canine imagery continues with Cian's brother Cú, another Lugaid, Lugaid Mac Con, and Lugh's son Cúchulainn. A fourth Lugaid was Lugaid Loígde, a legendary King of Tara and ancestor of Lugaid Mac Con.
Lugh joins the Tuatha Dé Danann
As a young man Lugh travels to Tara to join the court of King Nuada of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The doorkeeper will not let him in unless he has a skill he can use to serve the king. He offers his services as a wright, a smith, a champion, a swordsman, a harpist, a hero, a poet, a historian, a sorcerer, and a craftsman, but each time is rejected as the Tuatha Dé Danann already have someone with that skill. When Lugh asks if they have anyone with all those skills simultaneously, the doorkeeper has to admit defeat, and Lugh joins the court and is appointed Chief Ollam of Ireland. He wins a flagstone-throwing contest against Ogma, the champion, and entertains the court with his harp. The Tuatha Dé Danann are, at that time, oppressed by the Fomorians, and Lugh is amazed at how meekly they accept their oppression. Nuada wonders if this young man could lead them to freedom. Lugh is given command over the Tuatha Dé Danann, and he begins making preparations for war.Sons of Tuireann
and Cian, Lugh's father, are old enemies, and one day his sons, Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba spot Cian in the distance and decide to kill him. They find him hiding in the form of a pig, but Cian tricked the brothers into allowing him to transform back into a man before they killed him, giving Lugh the legal right to claim compensation for a father rather than just a pig. When they try to bury him, the ground spits his body back twice before keeping him down, and eventually confesses that it is a grave to Lugh.Lugh holds a feast and invites the brothers, and during it he asks them what they would demand as compensation for the murder of their father. They reply that death would be the only just demand, and Lugh agrees. He then accuses them of the murder of his father, Cian, and sets them on a series of seemingly impossible quests. The brothers go on an adventure and achieve them all except the last one, which will surely kill them. Despite Tuireann's pleas, Lugh demands that they proceed and, when they are all fatally wounded, he denies them the use of one of the items they have retrieved, a magic pigskin which heals all wounds. They die of their wounds and Tuireann dies of grief over their bodies.
Battle of Magh Tuireadh
Using the magic artefacts the sons of Tuireann have gathered, Lugh leads the Tuatha Dé Danann in the Second Battle of Mag Tuireadh against the Fomorians. Prior to the battle, Lugh asked each man and woman in his army what art he or she would bring to the fray. He then addressed his army in speech, which elevated each warrior's spirit to that of a king or lord. Nuada is killed in the battle by Balor. Lugh faces Balor, who opens his terrible, poisonous eye that kills all it looks upon, but Lugh shoots a sling -stone that drives his eye out the back of his head, killing Balor and wreaking havoc on the Fomorian army behind.After the victory Lugh finds Bres, the half-Fomorian former king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, alone and unprotected on the battlefield, and Bres begs for his life. If he is spared, he promises, he will ensure that the cows of Ireland always give milk. The Tuatha Dé Danann refuse the offer. He then promises four harvests a year, but the Tuatha Dé Danann say one harvest a year suits them. But Lugh spares his life on the condition that he teach the Tuatha Dé Danann how and when to plough, sow, and reap.