Let us now come back to Cúchulainn's training in Scáthach's Island: he went there when he was only six years old,[1] and returned as soon as he had learned all that could be taught him there. But the details of his journey homewards are not given; we are, however, told that on his way he visited the court of Red, king of the Isles;[2] but there must have been a story or stories representing him coming to Erinn, on this or some other occasion, direct from Britain along a more southerly route, and I must now briefly explain why I think this deserving of mention. The Sun-god is a great traveller: thus Lug, for example, arrives from a distance to help the Tuatha Dé Danaan, and Conall Cernach has to be sought for in foreign lands.[3] Like them, Cúchulainn travels too. Moreover, there was a remarkable difference of race, to be noticed later, between him and the other heroes of the Ultonian cycle. On the other hand, he had the charge of a special district consisting of the Plain of Murthemne, which, roughly speaking, meant the level portion of the modern county of Louth. In case, then, he was at any time represented to come to his favourite haunts from another land, what land could more naturally have been regarded the one he journeyed from than the nearest part of Britain lying in the same latitude? This would be the coast from the Mersey to
- ↑ Bk. of the Dun, 58b.
- ↑ Ib. 126a: according to O'Curry, p. 280, he returned by way of Cantire and the island of Rathlin.
- ↑ See the Bk. of Leinster, 171b, where, besides Scythia, Dacia, Gothia, &c., we have the remarkable words: 'icrichaib léodús in insib cadd ⁊ in insib or.,' 'in the territories of Lewis, in the Islands of Cat and in the Islands of Orkney (?).'
