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KellySchot — The Wooing of Emer
#celticmyth #celticmythology #cuchulainn #warriorwomen #dressupdoll #dressupgame
Published: 2017-01-29 02:33:58 +0000 UTC; Views: 1026; Favourites: 8; Downloads: 1
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So I recently watched The Song of the Sea with a few friends (an absolutely gorgeous movie), and got inspired to do some characters from Celtic myth. Let's just say that entering a new and unfamiliar realm of myth can be quite confusing, so I will be very basic with this information and try to keep my opinions to a minimum. From left to right we have Emer, Scathach, and Aoife (and people think Greek is hard, I can barely figure out the pronunciation of Celtic names). These three women actually all appear within the same story, "The Wooing of Emer". The great hero Cu Chulainn was determined to marry the beautiful Emer, however her father Forgall did not approve of the match and told the young man to train in arms with the warrior woman Scathach of Scotland. He said this, hoping that the ordeal would kill Cu Chulainn. However, he was to be left disappointed as not only did our hero survive, but he learned all the arts of war from Scatach...and also slept with her sister/rival Aoife...and left her pregnant. Seriously, did he not remember the reason he was there in the first place? Did he really think this would not come back to bite him in the ass later?Anyway, Cu Chulainn returned, having succeeded in his task, but Forgall still would not allow him to marry Emer and had even tried to marry her off to another man during Cu Chulainn's time in Scotland. So what did our hero do? Why he stormed the palace, killed several of Forgall's men, abducted Emer, and stole all her father's treasure. Don't worry, her father didn't need to get her back, he fell from the ramparts and died during the whole kerfuffle. And then the two were married.
...Yeah, part of me kinda wonders if Emer had some ulterior motives of revenge when she agreed to marry him after that. Apparently she never showed jealousy when her husband took numerous lovers (despite having gone through all the trouble to marry his wife), save for one occasion. And to be honest, I'm rather confused as to why she cared that one time. Part of me actually sorta wonders if Emer maybe hated her husband and was just waiting for him to die...but that just might be the feminist in me talking. If anything, I find this character's silence and obscurity more interesting than her actual few deeds because it just makes me think so much as to what the hell was going on in her head.
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Comments: 5
Interesting! I read a little about Celtic mythology in my teens, but I have forgotten almost everything.
I agree, why go through all that trouble to marry Emer if he just was going to sleep around anyway? And what was really going on in Emer's head? Did they portray her as some kind of ideal wife who didn't make a big deal of her husband's affairs?
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I mean, you could ask the same thing with a lot of other mythological heroes and gods like Heracles and Zeus. Zeus turned into a cuckoo bird to get close to Hera to seduce her and get her to marry him. Perhaps Emer was supposed to be portrayed as the ideal wife, the sort that allowed her husband to do as he pleased and just be a good wife. But given the fact that he abducted her, an action which resulted in her father's death, I can't help but feel that that's not quite the case. I feel there had to be some bit of resentment there. Unless her father was a complete jerk, I doubt she was totally unaffected by the fact that Cu Chulainn's actions caused his death.
The story also makes me curious as to why Emer's father disapproved of Cu Chulainn in the first place. Did he fear for his daughter's safety or happiness with him? Did he fear Cu Chulainn's warp spasm (aka battle frenzy that made him very powerful and scary) might harm Emer at some point? Did he just want to marry her to someone else? And if so, why? The whole tale just left me with so many questions as to what Forgall and Emer were thinking.
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I thought about Zeus, too. I've always thought that he married Hera partly for her status, that she was not just very beautiful but also a worthy bride. Maybe it was something similar with Cu Chulainn and Emer?
It's always so frustrating when a myth or fairy tale doesn't explain the characters' motivations for doing what they do.
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I've considered that too. Like they didn't marry their wives so much out of love, but because being married to a woman who was incredibly beautiful and powerful would only add to their own status. That would make sense with Emer and Cu Chulainn I think since in the story, the men of Ulster (his home) were actively trying to seek out a suitable woman for him to marry as they were afraid he would sleep with all their wives and daughters, yet the only woman he wanted was Emer. They continuously tried to discourage him from pursuing Emer yet he insisted on marrying her, but he never says why she must be his bride. So perhaps he simply wanted to have a famously beautiful and wise wife to add to his own reputation. Also, it seems the two of them never had children. For all I know there might be some piece of text or information somewhere that disproves me, but I have one or two ideas about that.
True. But it does give writers and artists more room for interpretations and perhaps fill in the gaps through character development.
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