Scáthach

Scáthach, Scáth, Scáthach nUanaind, Skatha [OIr. scáth, shadow, shade; shelter; under protection of]. Amazonian warrior with otherworldly resonances in Old Irish literature who teaches martial arts to Cúchulainn and other heroes. Some texts describe her as living in Alpi, which most commentators have understood as implying Alba [Scotland]. Other texts link her specifically with the Hebridean Isle of Skye, which is then called Dún Scáthaig(e)/Scáith for her. Cúchulainn completed his training under Scáthach, and from her he mastered his famous aggressive leap, the torannchless [thunder feat], and also received his spear, the Gáe Bulga. In return he aided her against her enemy, Aífe (1), who may be Scáthach's double. She granted him three wishes: to continue to instruct him most carefully; to give him her daughter Uathach [spectre] without paying the brideprice; and to predict his future career. Accounts of Cúchulainn's amorous adventures with Scáthach vary. Usually he is seen as having gained ‘the friendship of her thighs’, which may derive from now-forgotten sexual rites of warrior initiation. Earlier, while battling Aífe, he also slept with her, producing the son Connla, who would follow Cúchulainn back to Ireland in seven years. Eventually he battles this son in Aided Óenfhir Aífe [The Tragic Death of Aífe's Only Son]. Additionally, he also enjoys intimacies with Uathach, Scáthach's daughter. Modern commentators see these sexual alliances as an indication not so much of Cúchulainn's lubriciousness as of the union of the apprentice with his heroic calling. Scáthach of the Ulster Cycle should probably be distinguished from Scáthach daughter of Énna in the Fenian Cycle; she lulls Fionn mac Cumhaill to sleep with magic music in a sídh. Her own son is Cúar.

Bibliography

See Whitley Stokes , ‘The Training of Cúchulainn’, Revue Celtique, 29 (1908), 109–52;
P. L. Henry , Celtica, 21 (1990), 191–207.