FICTION AND MYTH

Like most writers who have tried to turn a legend into a modern novel, I have taken liberties with my source material. This is not, as I heard one writer accused of, an arrogant attempt to make the myth into what I think it should have been, but rather to adapt it as the backdrop for a coherent, emotionally engaging story for a modern reader.

So, true confession time for some of my worst sins:

First, my heroine. The best-known sagas don’t mention any daughter of Cuchulainn and Emer, though I did come across one reference to Finscoth, who is listed as Cuchulainn’s daughter in Names from Myths and Legends prepared by Bruce L. Jones. However, no other heroes’ young children are named in the sagas either—I assume because they were not germane to the action, not because they did not exist. So it’s a fair bet that Cuchulainn and Emer could have had a child, and since Cuchulainn’s son by Aoife is referred to as his “only” son, any other offspring would have been female.

Luaine, who was betrothed or married to Conchobor and then beset by Aithirne and his sons, is said in various versions to be the daughter of a chieftain of the Sidhe, or of a low-profile fellow named Domanchenn. And she dies from the satirists’ attack. I have made her Cuchulainn’s daughter, rescued her and invented a reason for her true identity to have been suppressed.

The story of Cuchulainn’s many wounds in the battle for the bull of Cooley, and his strange sleep and subsequent visit with the Otherworld woman, Fand, are based on two separate incidents which I have blended into one.

The food-poisoning disaster at Dun Lethglaise I have made up, but it is inspired by an existing story of Cuchulainn’s anger at not being told of a feast (held by one Conall mac Gleo Ghlais), and a remark by Maeve, who insists her invasion will go well since not only are the Ulstermen stricken by the pangs of Macha, but one-third of them are up with Celthair in Dun Lethglaise. The pangs of Macha were a curse dating even farther back in history than Cuchulainn’s day, consigning the men of Ulster to the pains of a woman in labor at the time they were most beset by enemies.

Last, but not least, I have rather unfairly made Conchobor into a villain. There is plenty of evidence that his attitude toward women left something to be desired by today’s standards, but no suggestion that he actually engineered Luaine’s death.