Question: Were the Tuatha worshipped in Scotland as well as Ireland? I know that culturally Scotland and Ireland have a lot in common, but does that extend to their gods? (The question was brought on by watching Brave for like the 50th time and wondering who I’d make Merida a Scion of.)
Yep, they definitely were. Various Celtic gods are widespread across Scotland, and the Tuatha are the most major group of them, although their names are often slightly altered by the local dialects. Irish settlers crossed the water to Scotland around the second or third century and brought their deities with them, to mix with local figures as well as other imports from the Norse and even the Romans. Scotland's a giant melting pot that way, and is itself a mystical destination in several Irish legends, including the tale of Muireartach, the one-eyed goddess of the sea crossing between Ireland and Scotland who the Fianna claimed sometimes crossed the water to fight in their battles, or the story of Cu Chulainn traveling to Scotland to train under Scathach, the most demanding warrior woman known to the Irish.
Scotland does have a few figures that were probably deities of the local peoples, but for the most part their mythologies are imported from other nearby areas, and the Tuatha are the primary contenders when it comes to foreign gods with power in the area. If you're planning to mess around with the interplay between Scottish and Irish gods, you might be able to get some very interesting stories out of who came first, who took what territory from whom, and what kinds of political dynamics still remain in the area.
Personally, if I were statting Merida, I would probably set her up as a Scion of Scathach. I could see her running circles around Cu Chulainn at the same Legend level.
Just for the sake of argument, whyso? Setanta wasn't a slouch as a boy and Merida's archery prowess seems pretty one-note. It is also pretty character-destroying to make Merida the child of anyone but the parents of record. Particularly in the case of her mother.
ReplyDeleteThen again, I don't see Scathach as a goddess in any case, so I guess the argument is moot.
Mostly because Merida is, like Scathach, a female warrior with a talent for combat that shocks her male counterparts and makes her legendary, and both are thoroughly Scottish figures, which I'd prefer to making her one of the more Irish deities' children.
DeleteHey, I'm not the one who wanted to stat Merida as a Scion, that's the OP. I'm just giving my opinion on what I'd do if that happened to come up. :) (Although I would disagree that such a thing had to be character-destroying - Merida discovering that her mother wasn't her blood relation wouldn't make her any less her mother, or the themes of love and family in the movie any less real and important.)
I was more getting at what Merida's Hero level abilities were that make her able to able to run circles around Setanta. What is she inhumanly good at besides shooting arrows? He wasn't much older than her when he died.
DeleteDude, I am not statting Merida or young CC today. Both are legendary warriors (albeit from very different story traditions) who are the heroes of their tales - it doesn't need to be a competition. CC is a fierce warrior and tireless worker, and Merida is a crack shot and great at thinking on her feet, and both of them are great. If you favor one over the other, that's cool, but wanting concrete stats about who would win when they weren't even designed to inhabit the same universe is pretty silly. They're heroes with little basis for comparison - whichever one the reader/viewer prefers is probably the "winner".
DeleteI've never heard of Scathach being a goddess or even having enough Divine lineage to be a Scion. I wonder if perhaps I shouldn't submit a Blog Question asking more about her...
ReplyDeleteShe has no particular lineage given, so there'll be no help from the mythology itself about guessing where she came from. She's a sort of foreign power to the Irish, who leave her indistinct and mysterious, but I would say she's clearly not a mere mortal at the very least, based on the respect that they pay her and her status as a trainer of heroes (not to mention the fact that she's rocking the Gae Bolga before she hands it off to Cu Chulainn!).
DeleteIf you don't like her as a goddess, I think she could also make an excellent mid-level fairy creature. :)
If one were, hypothetically, to stat her as a parent, what Legend/Associated Attributes/Purviews would you eyeball her as having?
DeleteIf she's a goddess, start stating up Chiron as a god. Just saying...
DeleteI disagree, anon - Chiron comes from a mythic tradition that very clearly details his species, origins and powers and demarcates him as different from the gods, but we can't say the same of Scathach. Irish mythology is so heavily euhemerized that we can't even get it to admit that the Tuatha are gods most of the time, so while you can totally decide that the Scathach isn't a deity, she's hardly rocking all that much less proof than they are. It's a matter of taste, and I don't think any particular treatment of her is necessarily "wrong". (Except maybe making her a normal human, I think that's probably wrong.)
DeleteIf I were going to try to stat her as a goddess, though, she probably wouldn't be more than Legend 9 - probably has War associated, and that's about it. She might even be a former Scion who just happens to be a higher-level Demigod, and hasn't yet made the leap to actual divinity.