#leapt right into my lap which promptly got muddy pawprints all over the page

[bean-chaointe]

I've never been big on heroic literature, personally, and Cú Chulainn is one of those figures that I didn't really have any strong feelings for, whether positive or negative or whether we're talking from the perspective of being a polytheist or literature nerd. Gimme cosmological myth and folklore instead, pls.

But right now I'm writing a term paper on the ways in which Cú Chulainn actually defies the traditional hypermasculine power fantasy dude hero and he's SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING THAN I THOUGHT???

If you're curious, I highly recommend checking out at least the following:

Sarah Erni, "Inside Out...And Upside Down: Cú Chulainn and his riastrad" (JStor)

Jeremy Lowe, "Kicking Over the Traces: The Instability of Cú Chulainn" (JStor)

KimMcCone, "Aided cheltchair maic uthechair: Hounds, Heroes and Hospitallers in Early Irish Myth and Story" (JStor)

@finnlongman's thesis, "What Manner of Man Is This Hound? Gender, Humanity and the Transgressive Figure of Cú Chulainn" (available for free on his personal site, go check it out, my own little trans heart went 😍!!!)

The first three can be found on JStor with a free account, which gives you 100 articles/month.