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Description

I know that this painting remains a bit flat, but most importantly I have the depiction of ancient Ireland's answer to Achilles and Patroclus: CúChulainn and Ferdiad, childhood friends, foster brothers, comrades in battle, and perhaps sweethearts.

Cú Chulainn is a small but scrappy teenager who becomes The Hulk multiplied by 1000 when in his riastrad ("battle frenzy", "warp spasm") while Ferdiad has armored skin that cannot be pierced by weapons. Both are expert warriors despite their youth.

Cú Chulainn is often described as one of the fairest in the land, although his quasi-divine ancestry (he is supposedly the son of the god Lugh) makes for some unusual features (he has seven fingers on each hand, seven toes on each foot, claws in the place of nails, seven pupils in each eye, four colored dimples in each cheek (red, blue, yellow, and green), and his hair color is like he has three different heads of hair (brown closest to the skin, blood-red in the middle, and golden yellow at the crown) and each section is put into seven braids (men as well as women in ancient Ireland wore their hair long and in braids or coils)).

He is nonetheless terribly attractive to women; a charismatic and handsome youth, the men of Ulster fear that he will ruin their daughters and steal their wives and prepare to go to any lengths to find a wife for him (once he reached 18 years, marriageable age for men). Cú-Chulainn will only accept Lady Éimhear as his wife; her father, Forgall Monach, opposes this and suggests that Cú Chulainn should train in arms with the renowned warrior-woman Scáthach in the land of Alba (Scotland ), hoping the ordeal will be too much for him and he will be killed. Cú Chulainn takes up the challenge, travelling to her residence Dún Scáith (Fortress of Shadows) on the Isle of Skye and eventually makes Éimhear as his wife.

In the Táin Bó Cúailnge, he is just seventeen years of age and singlehandedly leads the armies of Ulster against the armies of Queen Maeve of Connacht. Cú Chulainn is known for his terrifying battle frenzy, or ríastrad[6] , in which he becomes an unrecognisable monster who knows neither friend nor foe, not unlike #thehulk. He fights from his chariot, driven by his loyal charioteer Láeg and drawn by his horses, Liath Macha and Dub Sainglend .

And he and his beloved foster-brother and best friend, #Ferdiad, seem like #Achilles and #Patroclus. Unfortunately, they find themselves on opposite sides of the war between Connacht and Ulster and unwillingly fight each other. They fight for three days and at the end of each day, tend each other's wounds and spend the night cuddled in each other's arms. #Cúchulainn kills Ferdiad at the end of the third day; heartbroken, Cú Chulainn carries Ferdiad to the Ulster side of the ford, away from treacherous Queen Maeve of Connacht, and grieves openly for his beloved friend as Ferdiad dies in his arms.

Interestingly, homosexual activity and pederasty in ancient times was not the exclusive domain of the Greeks and Romans. Athenaeus in the Deipnosophists states that the Celts also partook and despite the beauty of their women, they preferred the affections of adolescent boys. Some would regularly bed down on their animal skins with a lover on each side.

According to Aristotle , although most "belligerent nations" were strongly influenced by their women, the Celts were unusual because their men openly preferred male lovers (Politics II 1269b).[32] H. D. Rankin in Celts and the Classical World notes that "Athenaeus echoes this comment (603a) and so does Ammianus (30.9). It seems to be the general opinion of antiquity."[33] In book XIII of his Deipnosophists , the Roman Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus , repeating assertions made by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC (Bibliotheca historica 5:32), wrote that Celtic women were beautiful but that the men preferred to sleep together. Diodorus went further, stating that "the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused". Rankin argues that the ultimate source of these assertions is likely to be Poseidonius and speculates that these authors may be recording male "bonding rituals".[34]

Perhaps what most shocked the Greeks and Romans is that, among the Celts, the couples were generally age-mates rather than a grown man and an adolescent boy, which the Greeks and Romans found bewildering.

We may never know if Ferdiad and Cú Chulainn were ever lovers, but parts of of Cú Chulainn's lament for Ferdiad seems to have some strong implications of intimacy... in any case, these are two young men who clearly loved each other and were forced to fight each other against their will.

I knew that Cú Chulainn would be difficult to illustrate since his "normal" appearance would be scary for some people; I wanted to emphasize his physical beauty. Here, his multicolored hair is unbraided and neither he or Ferdiad are wearing cloaks or jewelry. The claws on his thumbs are visible as they prepare to embrace, as are the colored dimples running up his cheek. I think that, since they know each other so well, Ferdiad doesn't find Cú Chulainn's unusual physical features scary.

I used Colin O'Donohue as Cú Chulainn's model and Ronan Keating as Ferdiad's model

I wanted to catch them in a tender moment, away from battle and certainly away from their tragic fight at the ford. At the edge of a forest, Ferdiad has an oak tree behind him (symbolic of strength, eternal life, and held sacred by the people) whole Cú Chulainn has a wild apple tree (symbolic of health, fertility, and love) and a rose briar (symbolic of love and loyalty) behind him.

Description

I know that this painting remains a bit flat, but most importantly I have the depiction of ancient Ireland's answer to Achilles and Patroclus: CúChulainn and Ferdiad, childhood friends, foster brothers, comrades in battle, and perhaps sweethearts.

Cú Chulainn is a small but scrappy teenager who becomes The Hulk multiplied by 1000 when in his riastrad ("battle frenzy", "warp spasm") while Ferdiad has armored skin that cannot be pierced by weapons. Both are expert warriors despite their youth.

Cú Chulainn is often described as one of the fairest in the land, although his quasi-divine ancestry (he is supposedly the son of the god Lugh) makes for some unusual features (he has seven fingers on each hand, seven toes on each foot, claws in the place of nails, seven pupils in each eye, four colored dimples in each cheek (red, blue, yellow, and green), and his hair color is like he has three different heads of hair (brown closest to the skin, blood-red in the middle, and golden yellow at the crown) and each section is put into seven braids (men as well as women in ancient Ireland wore their hair long and in braids or coils)).

He is nonetheless terribly attractive to women; a charismatic and handsome youth, the men of Ulster fear that he will ruin their daughters and steal their wives and prepare to go to any lengths to find a wife for him (once he reached 18 years, marriageable age for men). Cú-Chulainn will only accept Lady Éimhear as his wife; her father, Forgall Monach, opposes this and suggests that Cú Chulainn should train in arms with the renowned warrior-woman Scáthach in the land of Alba (Scotland ), hoping the ordeal will be too much for him and he will be killed. Cú Chulainn takes up the challenge, travelling to her residence Dún Scáith (Fortress of Shadows) on the Isle of Skye and eventually makes Éimhear as his wife.

In the Táin Bó Cúailnge, he is just seventeen years of age and singlehandedly leads the armies of Ulster against the armies of Queen Maeve of Connacht. Cú Chulainn is known for his terrifying battle frenzy, or ríastrad[6] , in which he becomes an unrecognisable monster who knows neither friend nor foe, not unlike #thehulk. He fights from his chariot, driven by his loyal charioteer Láeg and drawn by his horses, Liath Macha and Dub Sainglend .

And he and his beloved foster-brother and best friend, #Ferdiad, seem like #Achilles and #Patroclus. Unfortunately, they find themselves on opposite sides of the war between Connacht and Ulster and unwillingly fight each other. They fight for three days and at the end of each day, tend each other's wounds and spend the night cuddled in each other's arms. #Cúchulainn kills Ferdiad at the end of the third day; heartbroken, Cú Chulainn carries Ferdiad to the Ulster side of the ford, away from treacherous Queen Maeve of Connacht, and grieves openly for his beloved friend as Ferdiad dies in his arms.

Interestingly, homosexual activity and pederasty in ancient times was not the exclusive domain of the Greeks and Romans. Athenaeus in the Deipnosophists states that the Celts also partook and despite the beauty of their women, they preferred the affections of adolescent boys. Some would regularly bed down on their animal skins with a lover on each side.

According to Aristotle , although most "belligerent nations" were strongly influenced by their women, the Celts were unusual because their men openly preferred male lovers (Politics II 1269b).[32] H. D. Rankin in Celts and the Classical World notes that "Athenaeus echoes this comment (603a) and so does Ammianus (30.9). It seems to be the general opinion of antiquity."[33] In book XIII of his Deipnosophists , the Roman Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus , repeating assertions made by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC (Bibliotheca historica 5:32), wrote that Celtic women were beautiful but that the men preferred to sleep together. Diodorus went further, stating that "the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused". Rankin argues that the ultimate source of these assertions is likely to be Poseidonius and speculates that these authors may be recording male "bonding rituals".[34]

Perhaps what most shocked the Greeks and Romans is that, among the Celts, the couples were generally age-mates rather than a grown man and an adolescent boy, which the Greeks and Romans found bewildering.

We may never know if Ferdiad and Cú Chulainn were ever lovers, but parts of of Cú Chulainn's lament for Ferdiad seems to have some strong implications of intimacy... in any case, these are two young men who clearly loved each other and were forced to fight each other against their will.

I knew that Cú Chulainn would be difficult to illustrate since his "normal" appearance would be scary for some people; I wanted to emphasize his physical beauty. Here, his multicolored hair is unbraided and neither he or Ferdiad are wearing cloaks or jewelry. The claws on his thumbs are visible as they prepare to embrace, as are the colored dimples running up his cheek. I think that, since they know each other so well, Ferdiad doesn't find Cú Chulainn's unusual physical features scary.

I used Colin O'Donohue as Cú Chulainn's model and Ronan Keating as Ferdiad's model

I wanted to catch them in a tender moment, away from battle and certainly away from their tragic fight at the ford. At the edge of a forest, Ferdiad has an oak tree behind him (symbolic of strength, eternal life, and held sacred by the people) whole Cú Chulainn has a wild apple tree (symbolic of health, fertility, and love) and a rose briar (symbolic of love and loyalty) behind him.