EMER. WIFE OF CÚ CHULAINN.

THE MYTHOLOGY

Emer was a warrior herself and the match for any man but she fell in love with the wild youth warrior Cú Chulainn, the Hound of Culainn.
Cú Chulainn would be remembered as the greatest Ulad (Ulster, an Irish province) warrior in ancient times, a young man who singlehandedly held off the armies of Queen Mebh invading Uladian territory until he died strapped to a pillar stone fighting to the last.

It was not easy to live with a young warrior like Cú Chulainn when he was loved by so many young women but the only other woman who held his interest was the fairy princess Fann, renowned as ‘The Pearl of Beauty’.

Fann was in love with the young warrior much to the distress of Emer so she decided to kill off her love rival.
They were stalked by her spies until she discovered their love nest.
Without hesitation, Emer and her warriors attacked and swiftly overran the lookouts guarding it, then confronted the fairy princess face to face.
When she realised how much Fann was in love with her young warrior she backed off and even offered to prove her own love by offering to leave her love rival with her lover and consort, Cú Chulainn.
But this magnanimous offer affected Fann, who realised just how much Emer loved Cú Chulainn, so Fann decided to step back and allow her rival to win this lover’s contest.
Fann returned to her own consort and lover, the powerful sea god Manannán Mac Lir.

Manannán then shook his cloak between Fann and CúChulainn and drew a heavy mystical veil between the two so they both could never be together again.
But this spell caused CúChulainn to fall sick with despair with the loss of Fann so the druids of the Ulad gave him a Draft of Forgetfulness.

Emer too took the magical potion and soon she too forgot and thus was the affair forgotten forever.

In the ancient tale recorded in Tochmarc Emire, ‘The Tale of the Wooing of Emer’ the men of Ulster searched for a suitable wife for Cú Chulainn, but Cú Chulainn had other ideas and would have no one but the beautiful black-haired pearl, Emer, daughter of the warrior and local chieftain in Lusk, in north county Dublin, Forgall.

He wooed Emer with a series of cryptic riddles but Emer would only accept Cú Chulainn as her husband if he could prove himself as a real warrior and his deeds justified it.
Forgall disguised himself as a druid and went to Ulster, convincing Cú Chulainn to go to Alba (Scotland) and train under the legendary warrior-woman Scathach.
Cú Chulainn, after a year of training with Scathach, returned to Ulster but still, Forgall refused to allow him to marry Emer so the young warrior stormed the fortress of Forgall, beheaded twenty-four of Forgall’s men, abducted Emer, and stole Forgal’s treasure.
Thus, by proving his prowess, Emer now agreed to marry him and that is the tale of ‘The Wooing of Emer’.

Note: The name Forgall is a name given to anyone from the northlands so my guess is that Forgall is of Scandinavian descent, an ancient Viking Irish king, living in harmony with his Gaelic and Viking subjects, many centuries before the Northmen became aggressive pirates, rapists, and raiders.

The secondary part of the name of Forgall, ‘Gall’ is a Gaelic word for ‘foreigner’, usually meaning ‘a Northman’ while ‘For’, ‘Fior’ looks to me similar to Fionn=blonde, as in FionnGall, ie a fair-haired foreigner.
I live in Sutton-Howth, in an area called Fingal = FionnGall, ‘the territory of the Fair Foreigners’ and allies of the Gaelic kings.
Just my own opinion but I read tons of this research and love trying to see how the rare incomers, like the Northmen and even Scythian warriors, integrate into an ancient clan-based Gaelic warrior society.

The attacks by Viking raiders did not start until around the 700s so this Northman’s descendants would have stood fast against these kin invaders and, like at the famous Battle of Clontarf centuries later in 1014, would have stood shield to shield with their Gaelic allies against these new Northmen, the infamous and much feared Viking raiders, and defeated them in that historical encounter.

Finally, here’s an interesting fact for any real history buffs: around the corner from where I live today on the Burrow Beach, in Sutton, North Dublin, there is a little side road beside the new church, called Church Road.
It was locally known as Sacks Lane and this was where, after the slaughter at the battle of Clontarf in 1014, the bodies of the dead Vikings and their Irish allies were wrapped in sacks, taken on a donkey and cart to Sutton, and buried there, hence the name, Sachs Lane.

EMER. THE ARTWORK

I always loved this story so it was a real challenge to paint this intriguing warrior woman who was probably also of royal lineage.
For my first drawing, I used a friend as a model but later changed the face and figure to that of another close friend, a beautiful young woman who lived nearby and also worked as my assistant in Hunter Advertising when I was an art director. She was also a dancer, extremely beautiful, sensual, and graceful so I tried to show that sexual energy too in a slightly subtle manner.

I’m pretty sure I produced a drawing or two before I went for the final pen and ink art but it is buried somewhere up in my large attic, in piles of heavy black plastic photopaper bags.
Nothing is ever lost, just buried.

The line version was produced for a Dutch publisher, Verkerke Editions, in 1977, when I lived in the USA, and used later for the first time in my own publication from 1980, ‘Jim FitzPatrick. The Celtia Portfolio’.

This painting was one of a pair, designed for both posters and greeting cards, published in 1977, by Verkerke.
The second image was of the goddess Cruitne, shown here, again using the same model for inspiration.

Later sometime in the 1990s I reworked the circular areas of both and added a thick layer of sprayed gold and silver for effect and reworked the hair of Emer too. It made a real improvement.

I look back on that period as one of the craziest of my life as an artist: I was in the process of emigrating to the United States with my family plus a forty-foot container of our possessions and all my studio equipment, including the massive five foot high Grant repro camera. That’s a story for itself later.

I was working on a set of twelve images for Verkerke, I was writing and sketching out the plans for The Book of Conquest and looking for somewhere to live near New Haven, Connecticut and Philip Lynott was looking for me, in those days before instant contact via mobile phone or text (we only had cumbersome, expensive landlines back then), to do a cover for his band Thin Lizzy.

The first eight artworks for Verkerke Cards were of an acceptable standard but this tapered off for the last four and they are all a little substandard, I have to admit, but the other eight paintings, done under immense time pressure, were sometimes damn good, thank heavens. Considering a painting like this one of Emer takes me about a month and there were twelve to finish the final result was pretty good and a few have stood the test of time.

This final version of my painting of Emer is one of my better works and one of my own favourites. It also brings back the memory of a beautiful friend of mine, sadly now passed.

I also used this model friend for the sister image of Emer, that of the goddess Cruitne.
Together, after a bit of repainting, they now look as I wished them to look back in 1977 before I ran out of time and had to meet crazy deadlines.