Well, some of the fairy stuff doesn't seem to be connected much to the
major heroic myth cycles any more than folk tradition in Catholic cultures
ties into the Bible, but IIRC a good deal of Celtic 'fairy' lore is
post-Xtian bastardization of earlier stories of Lugh and the rest of
the Tuatha de Danann, who weren't exactly humans.
Cuchulainn and Fionn each come out of their own separate heroic myth
cycles, the Ulster saga and the Fenian cycle respectively. Basically Big C
was the hero dude of Ulster and Fionn was the hero dude from
Leinster/Munster and Connacht was the enemy a lot in both stories. There's
a fourth major Celtic myth cycle but I don't remember it right now. Some
of the Ulster material is basically the Celtic equivalent of the Iliad
while the Fenian cycle is more like 'stories about cool guys who did
awesome stuff' with no religious elements, really.
And of course this stuff is all Irish; the Welsh and the Bretons had their
own variants, with Lugh Mac Ethlenn being Lleu Llaw Gyffes and so on, while
the Fenian stories crossed over into Scotland.
no subject
Well, some of the fairy stuff doesn't seem to be connected much to the major heroic myth cycles any more than folk tradition in Catholic cultures ties into the Bible, but IIRC a good deal of Celtic 'fairy' lore is post-Xtian bastardization of earlier stories of Lugh and the rest of the Tuatha de Danann, who weren't exactly humans.
Cuchulainn and Fionn each come out of their own separate heroic myth cycles, the Ulster saga and the Fenian cycle respectively. Basically Big C was the hero dude of Ulster and Fionn was the hero dude from Leinster/Munster and Connacht was the enemy a lot in both stories. There's a fourth major Celtic myth cycle but I don't remember it right now. Some of the Ulster material is basically the Celtic equivalent of the Iliad while the Fenian cycle is more like 'stories about cool guys who did awesome stuff' with no religious elements, really.
And of course this stuff is all Irish; the Welsh and the Bretons had their own variants, with Lugh Mac Ethlenn being Lleu Llaw Gyffes and so on, while the Fenian stories crossed over into Scotland.