So, today we're going to be talking about some Celtic mythology. But, on the subject of Celtic myths, this video is sponsored by the Legends Myths and Whiskey podcast, who've released a mythosymphony of Beowulf It's a part dramatic reading, part literary analysis of our favorite story of a compulsive drinker turned giant wrestler turned Dragon killer so stay tuned til the end of video for more information. Why isn't Celtic mythology well known? I mean; Scotland and Ireland are like right next to England, and God knows England couldn't help but get their culture all up in everywhere. But for some reason, despite the cultural proximity, Celtic mythology really isn't all that widespread. Well here's the thing... in the 5th century Christianity steamrolled into Ireland and Scotland and proceeded to royally screw up all the local lore. Scottish goddesses got revamped as simple magical warriors or hags, while the poor Tuatha De Danaan went from being Irish gods to being ancient human kings, queens, or in the fancier cases, fallen angels Because Christianity has this *thing* about worshipping other gods, the local deities had to be reimagined into something that wasn't gods but they had to do it in a way that wouldn't totally piss off the locals and, as a consequence, the mythology ended up being flattened into quasi-historical folklore about ancient kings or queens who just happened to have fabulous godlike power. The reason why Celtic mythology isn't well known is because the 5th Century missionary efforts to Ireland and Scotland did their absolute damndest to pretend it wasn't a mythology and because they're the ones that wrote that stuff down, their version is what we have to go on. This makes the anthropologist in my heart very sad. But the good part about this is that, because the missionary efforts focused on writing all their stuff down, most of the stories actually survived to the Modern Day (albeit stripped of context). Little bits of the mythology managed to survive almost completely unaltered because they weren't about gods. They were about extraordinary people from the get-go. As a result the Christianization efforts didn't squash or rewrite their stories because they weren't doing that "no gods before me" thing. The most notable of these cases is the tale of a magnificent human disaster by the moniker of Cú Chulainn. Now Cú Chulainn has a metric butt-ton of stories and to be honest it's not totally accurate to say he wasn't a god because several scholars on the subject agree he's probably an incarnation of the warrior King Lugh a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann and God of all things protagonist-y. Further confusing matters, Lugh is also his..... father... Practically speaking Cú Chulainn being an incarnation of a god never factors into the story so we're free to pretend like this lineage makes even a modicum of sense. So Cú Chulainn starts his life with a story that has too many versions to be consistent but it boils down to: special baby, conceived three times, dad is probably Lugh. As a kid, he gets up to all kinds of adorable shenanigans including murdering Chulainn the Smith's guard dog and offering to guard his house to make up for it, earning him the name Cú Chulainn Which literally translates to "hound of Chulainn" because see he's basically a substitute guard dog. He also manages to rope himself into a particularly tragic prophecy at the ripe old age of seven, where he doomed himself to glory and fame at the cost of a very short life. Then he Hulks out and kills these three guys, but he's brought down by the power of boobs. Oh, the Hulking thing isn't just hyperbole. Cú Chulainn has this thing called a Warp Spasm where his body kind of turns inside out? And he turns into this giant pile of sinew and rage and then kills everything. Metal. The boob thing isn't a hyperbole either. The men of Ulster had to calm him down somehow so they embarrass him with boobs and then dunk him in a barrel of water until he changes back. I wish more characters used this tactic when their friend turned evil. So Cú Chulainn gets a little older and becomes a really pretty teenager so all the Ulster dudes decide they need to marry him off as soon as possible or he'll start magnetically attracting all their wives and daughters. So Cú Chulainn is obviously down for a bride but he's got his heart set on a very specific bride: Emer, the daughter of this guy Forgall Monach who doesn't want a great hero for a son-in-law for some reason and as always happens in stories like these, sends the lad off on a quest in the hopes that it'll kill him. In this case he suggests that Cú Chulainn go and train with the warrior goddess Scáthach on the isle of Skye. So Cú Chulainn trains with Scáthach, an impossibly badass warrior woman who teaches him how to use this absolutely terrifying spear called the Gae Bulg which you stab someone with and then it snaps out these spines and... Frankly it sounds like cleanup alone would make it impractical to use, but, whatever. Also training under Scáthach is the warrior Ferdiad who becomes close buds and battle brothers with Cú Chulainn. So Scáthach mentors Cú Chulainn and Ferdiad and trains them in the art of war but unfortunately, a dark shadow from her past comes back to haunt her in the form of- -and I'm not making this up- -her evil twin sister Aífe. She knows that fighting her sister might end up killing her and she doesn't want to involve the children in her personal battles so she slips Cú Chulainn a sleeping potion to keep him safe and out of the fight. But, in case Cú Chulainn wasn't anime protagonist enough yet, he sleeps off the potion in less than an hour and dives into the fray to help. He ends up defeating Aífe with the old "look behind you" trick and spares her life on the condition that she call off her blood feud with Scáthach and also have his kid. Which she does. ...cool?... How old is he again? So Cú Chulainn returns home, now like three times as badass, to marry Emer. But unfortunately Forgall still doesn't him want to marry her, so Cú Chulainn storms the castle, kills a bunch of guys, aaand runs off with Emer. And then Forgall dies. I love fairy tale endings! Now the chronology is a little screwy and at some point Cú Chulainn unknowingly kills his son because Aífe forbade the kid from telling him his name and Cú Chulainn doesn't respond to being denied well. But when Cú Chulainn is 17 he ends up having to single-handedly take down an entire army led by Queen Medb who's invading Ulster to steal a prized bull. ...Priorities, lady... The single handed part is because the Ulster army is incapacitated thanks to an ancient curse from the goddess Macha who'd been forced by the king of Ulster to run a foot race against horses while pregnant with twins. She won the race, then cursed the men of Ulster to suffer from labor pains in their hour of need, because *seriously* dude, dick move! But because Cú Chulainn was just 17 (you know what I mean) he didn't count as a man yet and was free to fight. So Cú Chulainn holds off the army and then invokes the right of single combat and fights Medb's army one at a time over the course of several months. In true protagonist-y fashion, despite rampant cheating from Medb's armies, Cú Chulainn continues to flawlessly hold them off for quite some time. After a little misadventure with the goddess Morrigan, Cú Chulainn ends up facing down a significant portion of Medb's army all at once, armed only with two spears a sword and a shield... And he ends up getting severely injured as a result. However! Upon seeing the shenanigans he's been getting up to, Cú Chulainn's father, Lugh, pops out of fairy land to give him a hand. So Lugh is like, "Hello Cú Chalainn, it is I, your fairy dad-mother." And then knocks him out for three days, so he can heal him with Magic. But unfortunately there's still the army thing, and in the absence of Cú Chulainn the only people who can fight are the Youth Corps. A group of young royal children being trained as warriors. Unsurprisingly, they all die. So when Cú Chulainn wakes up and learns all his little buddies are dead, he Warp Spasms like he's never Warp Spasmed before and slaughters a large chunk of the enemy army as payback. Then they do the whole single combat thing again, culminating in Cú Chulainn having to fight his buddy Ferdiad from back when they trained together under Scáthach. Very sad, and all that. He ends up having to uses his ultimate secret technique: The Gae Bulg to take down the battle brother he once trained beside. This is also when we see exactly what the Gae Bulg does! See, you throw it with the foot at the intended target and then, once the Gae Bulg enters the body, these barbs explode outward and spread through the veins and arteries until Ferdiad is basically a thornbush with skin Metal! Soo yeah Ferdiad dies, and the men of Ulster get over their collective labor pains, and actually start contributing to the battle. Now in some versions this is where Cú Chulainn dies of injuries sustained fighting his battle brother. In another version of his death story, Queen Medb conspires with this guy, Lugaid, to have Cú Chulainn killed. First they need to break his geas on not eating dog meat, which weakens him spiritually. Then Lugaid uses these three magical spears to kill, first his charioteer, then his horse, and then him. Cú Chulainn, however, doesn't go down easily and ties himself to a standing stone so that he can face his enemies on his own two feet, even after death. In this case, his enemies don't believe that he's dead until a raven lands on his shoulder at which point Lugaid goes to cut off his head, at which point Cú Chulainn explodes with holy light and his sword falls down, chopping off Lugaid's hand. Because, even in death, Cú Chulainn will ruin your day. METAL. SO, as we said earlier, we got us a sponsor for this video. And it's a good one! The Legends Myths and Whiskey Podcast have put together a mythosymphony. "What's a mythosymphony," you ask? These guys go chapter by chapter, reading it all aloud and discussing the themes, symbolism, and character development in-depth. You know, all the good stuff we don't have time for. OH, and did we mention it has its own god-damn musical score? Yeah they made a soundtrack, which is also available to download! That's, y'know, kinda where the.. symphony.. part... comes in. So if you like our stuff, and you want a wayyy more in-depth look at Beowulf than we could ever give you, go check it out!
I mean, Journey to the West is the direct foundation for a bunch of anime. That one feels like cheating.
All of it? honestly can't think of one that's isn't. Even the bible has some hype ass anime protagonist moments.
I haven't actually read any Indian Mythology, but from what I hear, it makes DBZ and Gurren Lagann seem tame in terms of how anime it gets.
Warp Spasm is one hell of a Super Mode
Cú Chulainn: So anime that the Fate version is somehow less anime
A lot of mythologies, honestly.
The very first written piece of literature is an anime.
Beowulf is like if Platinum Games was around during the Anglo-Saxon era and they made a book.
Hindu mythology is probably the most anime of all. Being the oldest recorded myth probably has a lot to do with that.