Note (return) — Chapter XXIII

The relation of Lug to Cúchulainn deserves further inquiry. While the god is reborn he is also existing as Lug, just as having been swallowed as a worm by Dechtire, he appears in his divine form and tells her he will be born of her. In the Táin he appears fighting for Cúchulainn, whom he there calls his son. There are thus two aspects of the hero's relationship to Lug; in one he is a rebirth of the god, in the other he is his son, as indeed he seems to represent himself in The Wooing of Emer, and as he is called by Laborcham just before his death.1209 In one of the birth-stories he is clearly Lug's son by Dechtire. But both versions may simply be different aspects of one belief, namely, that a god could be reborn as a mortal and yet continue his divine existence, because all birth is a kind of rebirth. The men of Ulster sought a wife for Cúchulainn, "knowing that his rebirth would be of himself," i.e. his son would be himself even while he continued to exist as his father. Examples of such a belief occur elsewhere, e.g. in the Laws of Manu, where the husband is said to be reborn of his wife, and in ancient Egypt, where the gods were called "self-begotten," because each was father to the son who was his true image or himself. Likeness implied identity, in primitive belief. Thus the belief in mortal descent from the gods among the Celts may have involved the theory of a divine avatar. The god became father of a mortal by a woman, and part of himself passed over to the child, who was thus the god himself.