I don't know the particular song you mention (tho' I can suggest a few sources you might try), but the story is, in outline, as you mention. It shares some features with other traditional tales, such as "Sohrab and Rustum" of which the nineteenth-century English writer, Matthew Arnold, made a long narrative version. Here goes:

Cuchullain did not know he had a son; this boy, who was, I think, called Connla, had been brought up in a distant land, perhaps Scotland, by his mother, and educated in all the ways of the warrior. Cuchullain knew he MIGHT have a son, having spent a romantic afternoon with some princess or other after - I think - defeating her retainers in combat. Well, diplomacy was different and more direct in those days. He had said to the princess that should there come a male child of their encounter, let him be called Connla. When the lad was of an age to seek his fortune in the world, he set sail for Ireland; whether he had any intention of seeking out his father, or whether it was by the kind of misfortune typical of folk-tales that he found him, I know not (I'll check further this evening; doing this from memory at present). Anyway, whilst Cuchullain and some comrades were hunting near to the sea, they saw a lad sailing a boat towards shore, alone. They go to meet him, and, he being a stranger, they call to him to tell them his name, his race, whence he came, &c. He - being young and foolish - immediately challenges any of them, their greatest champion, to fight (well, this is ancient Ireland, land of heroes and quick-tempered bowsies). Cuchullain, laughing, accepts, confident that he will quickly overpower the youth. Things don't quite go like that, and soon enough Cuchullain finds himself with a real fight on his hands, and is near to being drowned in the surf. Enrages, he calls to the shore for one of his companions to throw him "The Gae Bolg". Now, at this point we require a footnote*
Having read the footnote, you'll have guessed the end of the story of Connla, inevitable as the Greek Tragedies. The lad, mortally wounded and fallen in the bloody foam, gasped that his name was "Connla", and Cuchullain knew all in a flash. To conclude, he swore never to use the Gae Bolg again, since the first time of using it he had killed his dearest friend, and this time he had killed his only son.


As I say, I don't know the particular song you mean, but this evening I'll check a few sources I have, and suggest a couple of others here: First, for Hebridean Songs, you might like to try Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser, "Songs of the Hebrides", tho' these are really nineteenth-century "art songs" based upon Highland melodies and a rather Victorian impression of what the Gaels and their songs were like. Rather more esoteric is the eighteenth-century work of James MacPherson; let no-one tell you the usual lie that his "Ossian" publications are forgeries from end to end. A more considerable scholar than those who reiterate this lie, Ruaridh MacTomas (D.S.Thomson) brought out a book some twenty years ago, "Gaelic Sources of MacPherson's Ossian", indicating the traditional tales from which MacPherson wove his own epic. Ossian, the Irish Oisin (Usheen), was the son of Fionn MacCumhaill (Finn McCool), a hero of a later date than Cuchullain. There were some songs taken from, or based upon, MacPherson's "Fragments of Ancient Poetry", his "Fingal" and his "Temora", and a couple of these appeared in the six volumes of "The Scots Musical Museum" (1787-1803, partly edited - and, indeed, partly written - by Burns). Continental composers were greatly taken by these tales, and perhaps the best known of all foreign versions is "Pourquoi me reveiller" from Massenet's opera "Werther"; Goethe's hero had a taste for Ossian, you see! Finally, in the 1890s W.B. Yeats wrote a few verses full of "embroideries from the old myhologies", among these being "The Wanderings of Oisin" and "The Death of Cuchullin". Among his literary circle was Lady Gregory of Coole Park, and she had written "Cuchullin of Muirthuimne" (or similar spelling), which I haven't ever read, but you might find this a worthwhile "link". Finally (2), look at "Emer's Farewell" in the Mudcat directory here, for yet another nineteenth-century Romantic interpretation of Celtic myth. Now, I must mount my chariot and avoid the ridge of war.

mise le meas,

An Buachaill Caol Dubh.




* Here we go! The Gae Bolg, the "Belly Spear", was a contemporary Weapon of Massive Destruction, which filled the victim's body with barbs and was invariably fatal. There was no defence. Some time before our main story, when Cuchullain (The Ulster hero) had fought Ferdia, the champion of Connaught, Ferdia bound a great flat stone across his torso because he knew C. might use the Gae Bolg. He knew this because he was - in the way of these tales - a childhood friend of C. The stone was of no avail; it shattered and F. died in C's arms. Now, back to Connla.