Sometimes you Need a Second Blade

Posted on May 4, 2024 by - Blog

Much of the novel ‘FIONN: The Tightening Trail‘ concerns a difficult and dangerous journey across the wilderness of the Great Wild by Fionn and his guardians. On this occasion however, having learned from previous mistakes, Liath Luachra (The Grey One) is keen to ensure she has a spare blade in her sheath. This scene outlines some of her planning with Gnathad – another warrior – in this regard.

A small lean-to shelter had been constructed just inside the treeline and when the Grey One arrived, this was occupied by the fair-haired Gnathad and her foster son, Bran. Alerted to her approach by the rustle of movement through the foliage however, both had emerged to stand waiting, javelins raised, when she stepped out of the trees to their rear.

‘Grey One,’ greeted Gnathad. She lowered her weapon to rest the haft on the ground. ‘This is a surprise.’

Bran remained silent but he dipped his head to acknowledge the woman warrior’s appearance.

Liath Luachra returned their greeting with a cursory nod of her own.

‘A word with you, Gnathad.’

She glanced at Bran and, taking the hint, the youth kissed his foster mother on the cheek and started back along the summit path. Both women watched him go, waiting in silence until the sound of his footsteps had receded.

‘You should talk to him, Grey One,’ Gnathad suggested at last. ‘Bran still bears the shame of his actions from your last excursion together.’

The woman warrior shrugged.

‘Bran remedied his errors through his deeds on the return trip to Ráth Bládhma.’

‘Then perhaps you should make that clear to him. Young people don’t always grasp the unexpressed word. Sometimes it’s best to simply say it aloud.’

Liath Luachra made no response as she glanced back along the trail. The distant sound of Bran’s movement could now barely be heard. She turned her gaze back to the Coill Mór woman.

‘I have a task for you, Gnathad.’

‘A task?’

Gnathad’s curiosity was plain to see.

‘Yes. The travel party leaves at dawn tomorrow.’

The fair-haired woman perked up at that.

‘You’d have me join the travel party? Accompany you with the techtaire?’

‘No.’

‘Oh!’

The disappointment in her voice was audible.

‘I’d have you follow us.’

Gnathad went quiet at that, watching the Grey One warily because of the initial disappointment. Over the years, she’d taken to wearing her hair in tight braids in imitation of the Grey One. Some of these thick, fair strands had worked their way loose, and now she brushed at them fretfully to clear them back from her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked at last.

‘I’d have you follow the travel party. As a hidden rearguard.’

Liath Luachra paused and turned to look out over the green stretch of the western lands, the endless serrated horizon of green treetops against the blue-grey sky. Her features retained their usual dispassion and her voice remained steady as she spoke.

‘The last time we dispatched a travel party from Glenn Ceoch, events didn’t go as planned. Tadg mac Nuadat had a force waiting beyond the Bládhma hills. They took up our trail and stalked us in stealth, eventually arranging themselves at our rear so we were driven into an ambush.’

The woman warrior turned to fix her grey eyes on the other woman.

‘That’s a snare I’d skirt on this occasion.’

Gnathad considered her words for a moment.

‘It’s unclear to me what you’re proposing. What is it you’d have me do?’

‘Before I say more, I need to know if this is a task you’d be willing to fulfil.’

The Coill Mór woman didn’t hesitate.

‘Of course, it is.’

The Grey One grunted softly in satisfaction.

‘Then, tomorrow, once the travel party’s departed, gather what supplies and weapons you need in preparation for your own departure.’

‘My own departure? We don’t leave together?’

Liath Luachra shook her head.

‘And tell no-one of your intention to leave.’

‘No-one?’

‘Not even your children.’

Gnathad frowned at that.

‘My children are old enough to lead their own lives without my interference. All the same, that won’t prevent them from worrying should I disappear without trace.’

‘Then provide them with a plausible excuse. Tell them I’ve dispatched you to seek out new hunting grounds.’

The fair-haired woman mulled on that but made no contention, apparently satisfied that such a story would put her children at their ease.

‘When you leave Glenn Ceoch, keep two day’s distance from the travel party for the first six days. Any less, and you’re unlikely to spot sign of any pursuing party. If anything, it’s more likely you’ll expose your own presence.’

She shrugged.

‘There may be no pursuit, of course, but its a precaution we must take. Should you find no trace of activity to our rear, pick up your pace on the seventh day and reduce the distance between us. But stay out of sight.’

‘You don’t want me to enter the camp?’

‘No. I bear this techtaire no level of trust. It’s best he knows nothing of your presence. If any of the others know you’re there, they could inadvertently reveal your presence despite their best efforts.’

The Grey One paused to regard her closely.

‘You will be my second blade, Gnathad. The weapon I keep sheathed unless there’s a need to draw it free.’

Scáthach and Cú Chulainn

Posted on May 24, 2020 by - Blog, Folklore/Mythology

Scáthach – the Shadowed – is a woman warrior who turns up in the tenth century manuscript Tochmarc Emire (The Wooing of Emer). A supporting character to the narrative adventure that focuses on Irish hero Cú Chulainn, her main purpose is to add an element of depth and context to Cú Chulainn’s legendary fighting skills and, of course some 10th century feminine (cough) “pizzazz”. In the Tomharc Emire, advised by his friends that to complete his martial training he should learn from Scáthach, Cú Chulainn immediately sets sail for Alba (in modern-day Scotland) and the fortress where she’s based.

To be honest, whenever I think of Scáthach, I have this mental image of a longsuffering professional working woman, gritting her teeth and doing her best to hide her irritation at an extended visit from her daughter’s boorish boyfriend. To imagine Cú Chulainn’s visit as a pleasing or welcome one would be to ignore the other interesting elements of the tale. Most people sadly, enamoured by the romanticised aspect of a woman warrior teaching the mythological hero, tend to limit their focus on that.

When Cú Chulainn first arrives and enters Scáthach’s domain, he inveigles his way into her fortress by manipulating the romantic passions of her teenage daughter, Úathach. Despite Cú Chulainn breaking her fingers (and the slaying of the warrior Cochair Cruibne), Úathach is so besotted she casts any loyalty to Scáthach aside, advising her new beau on how to overcome her mother while she’s resting. Following Úathach’s advice, Cú Chulainn overcomes his host, places his sword between her breasts and threatens her with death unless she grants him three wishes:

• that she trains him without neglect,
• that she pays the bride price for him to marry Úathach; and
• that she uses her seer skills to warn him of anything that might befall him.

Over the course of Cú Chulainn’s visit, Scáthach puts up with her unwelcome visitor’s regular acts of violence and trains him as obliged without comment. When Cú Chulainn attacks Aífe and forces her to have his child (Úathach has disappeared from the narrative at this point), she continues to keep her silence.

In the end however, it’s Scáthach who has the last bitter laugh. Prior to his departure back to Ireland and Eamain Macha, she draws up her seer skills and recites the events she sees in store for him, foretelling the bloody slaughter of the Táin Bó Cuailgne. Cú Chulainn, preoccupied, pays her recitation as much attention as a blind man to the cinematic trailer of a subtitled movie.

The moment passes, nothing is learned.

I’m occasionally asked why I’ve never written a contemporary version of Cú Chulainn or An Táin, given that – in some ways – he’s far more well known to non-Irish, English-speaking audiences. The truth of it is I find it hard to write about characters I don’t particularly like. For a contemporary audience, the actions of the Iron Age Cú Chulainn are difficult to get across in a way that would remain true to the original stories. Particularly as, in many of those stories, he comes across as a violent meathead (and, to be honest, a bit of a bastard).

Just like some real life heroes, I suppose.

The Woman Warrior Branches Out

Posted on April 16, 2019 by - Blog, My Writing

After many (many!) hiccups trying to take it off the Amazon exclusive list, the second book in the Irish Woman Warrior Series (Liath Luachra: The Swallowed) is finally available on:

Apple (iBooks)
Kobo
Barnes and Noble
Smashwords
Google Play; and
Amazon

Instead of posting another picture of the cover, I’ve decided to celebrate with this gorgeous image of Liath Luachra by artist Vin Hill (and if you like this image, I’d highly recommend giving his site a look at https://vinhillart.wordpress.com/ ).

For those of you unfamiliar with the character, Liath Luachra (which means The Grey One of Luachair) was a woman warrior who had a very (very!) small role in Macgnímartha Finn (The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn).

In that narrative, she was one of two guardians to the mythological hero Fionn mac Cumhaill when he was just a child and she’s a great character to write.

The Truth About Irish Woman Warriors (Irish Mythology)

Posted on September 9, 2016 by - Blog, Folklore/Mythology

There’s a lot of fantasy out there when it comes to women warriors, particularly where it relates back to those in the Irish or Celtic realm. To be fair, the subject is hardly a new one. Since the development of literature itself, writers and readers have been enamoured by tales of fighting women (particularly Herodotus with his notes on the inaccurately-named Amazons), probably because they’re such a rarity in ancient warfare, an area generally dominated by men.

That’s not to say, of course, that woman don’t or didn’t fight. There are numerous historical and contemporary examples of women fighting to defend themselves or, more often, fighting to protect the ones they love. And, in most cases, that’s the key difference. Men were most often portrayed as fighting for abstracts like patriotism or glory. Women, less so. Women’s role in ancient warfare obviously differed within cultures but, in a (very) general sense, women were portrayed as fighting only when it was absolutely necessary or when it was necessary for some other element in the tale. People have different opinions on whether that’s a product of biology, society, upbringing or something entirely different. Either way, it’d be foolish to ignore the patterns of millennia across ancient (and modern) societies.

irish-woman-warrior

When it comes to the concept of women warriors in the ancient Irish mythological context, there’s certainly a lot more literary references compared to other contemporary societies of the same period. Some people use this fact to argue that female fighters were common in early Irish society and that it was a far more ‘gender equal’ society but that’s a pretty big leap to make. In general, most academics tend to agree that this discrepancy is simply due to the fact that the Irish mythological narratives (and here you can loosely use the term ‘Celtic’ as it also covers modern-day Scotland) were much more successively conserved in Ireland than they were in the other, more directly colonised countries.

Whatever you believe, the ancient tales still have to be treated with a lot of caution. The writers/recorders of that time were not above a bit of creative licence or prejudice. People forget that just because something was written a long time ago, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.

If we look at Irish mythology then, the best known women warriors tend to include:

  • Scáthach – a woman warrior who appears in the Ulster Cycle who was based in modern-day Scotland. She instructs Cú Chulainn in a number of martial feats and when he catches her with her guard down, is forced to take him as a lover
  • Aífe – a rival of Scáthach who Cú Chulainn forces to lie with him at swordpoint and subsequently bears him a son
  • Neasa (Ness) – a woman warrior forced into marriage at swordpoint by the warrior/druid Cathbad and future mother of the famous Conchobhar mac Nessa
  • Liath Luachra – a guardian of the young Fionn mac Cumhaill, briefly mentioned in the Fenian Cycle but for whom there’s very little information available

In the first three examples, one gets an overpowering impression from the literature that the character of the powerful woman warrior was created specifically to highlight the sexual accomplishment and domination of the male ‘hero’ who subsequently overpowers her (a pattern also found with other women warrior characters in the mythology). With the third example, Liath Luachra is actually a guardian to the young hero, a relationship that, in a sense, is desexualised.

Other women mentioned in the ancient Irish literature who are often offered as examples of women warriors include:

  •  Meadhbh (also spelt Medb, Maeve etc.) – Queen of Connacht in the Táin (The Cattle Raid of Cooley)
  •  The Morríghan (or Mór-ríoghain)

In fact, neither of these actually make the cut if you look at them in any kind of detail. All of the literary and archaeological evidence to date suggests the characters are personifications of female deities as opposed to warrior women. Articles or literary works suggesting that they are, generally indicates the author hasn’t done his/her homework or is pushing an argument that’s probably driven more by wish fulfilment than fact.

Over the last twenty years or so, representation of women warriors has become much more prevalent, particularly where entertainment aligns with more contemporary underlying themes of gender equality etc. Given the prevalence of characters in the Irish mythology, there’s also been a tendency to ‘borrow’ them for contemporary fictions but without any real consideration of the underlying cultural context. This occasionally results in works that are not only overly romanticised but which ignore some of the strong negative gender undercurrents associated with the characters, something of which the authors often seem – disturbingly – unaware.