Ancestor Veneration and the Heroic Biography

The Lia Fáil, Tara, Co. Meath, Ireland

Scholars involved with the Heroic Biography Concept

Psychologists:• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Totem

and Taboo 1913• Carl Jung (1875-1961) Archetypes• Otto Rank (1884-1939). The Myth of

the Birth of the Hero 1924.• Joseph Campbell The Hero with a

Thousand Faces (1949). Monomyth

Psychological Approaches to the Heroic Biography

• Freud: wish-fullfillment.

• Jung: Story Archetypes.

• Campbell: the Monomyth

Anthropologists

James George Fraizer (1854-1941) The Golden Bough (1890)

Fitzroy Richard Somerset, 4th Lord Raglan The Hero (1936).

Scholars of Mythology• Jan de Vries Heroic Song and Heroic Legend

(1959)

Heroic Biography of Jan de Vries

I. The begetting of the hero.II. The birth of the hero.III. The youth of the hero is threatened.IV. The way in which the hero is brought up.V. The hero often acquires invulnerability.VI. The fight with a dragon or other monster.VII. The hero wins a maiden, usually after

overcoming great dangers.

VIII. The hero makes an expedition to the underworld.

IX. When the hero is banished in his youth he returns later and is victorious over his enemies. In some cases he has to leave the realm again which he has won with great difficulty.

X. The death of the hero.

Anthropological Approaches to the Heroic Biography

• Lord Raglan, in THE HERO (1936) has classified the parallel life-patterns of the mythical hero of tradition into twenty-two archetypal incidents. The higher a particular hero scores, the closer he is to the UR-archetype of the sacred hero-king of prehistoric religious ritual.

• LORD RAGLANS SCALE: The hero's mother is a royal virgin . His father is a king and . often a near relative of the mother, but . the circumstances of his conception are unusual, and . he is also reputed to be the son of a god . at birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or maternal grandfather, to kill him, but . He is spirited away, and . Reared by foster-parents in a far country . We are told nothing of his childhood, but . On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom. . After a victory over the king and or giant, dragon, or wild beast . He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor and . becomes king . For a time he reigns uneventfully and . Prescribes laws but . later loses favor with the gods and or his people and . Is driven from from the throne and the city after which . He meets with a mysterious death . often at the top of a hill. His children, if any, do not succeed him. . his body is not buried, but nevertheless . he has one or more holy sepulchres.

Tulach Ua Dedaid, Co. Clare Ireland 1996

Reenactment of a Féis ritual