예이츠는 켈트 신화를 초기 시의 소재로 사용하여 아일랜드에서 문예부흥 시대의 지평을 열 개 된다. 켈트 신화는 고대 아일랜드 지역과 현재 아일랜드를 연결하는 매개물로 작용하여 아일랜드 사람들에게 역사, 문화, 민족 정체성, 독립의 중요성을 계몽하기에 이른다. 이에 골 왕, 퍼거스 왕, 쿠훌린과 같은 신화적 인물은 아일랜드 사람들에게 전형적인 인간의 원형이 된다. 그래서 예이츠는 아일랜드에서 고대 켈트 시대의 문화가 새로운 문예부흥으로 복원되어 고대사 연구에 새로운 전기를 마련하는 계기가 되게 한다.

아일랜드 독립을 추구하는 방법으로 민족주의자들과는 달리 예이츠는 비폭력적이고 문화적인 방법을 취했다. 초기의 아르카디아와 인도를 소재로 한 작품에서 벗어나 고대 켈트족의 영웅 전설을 작품화한 장시『어쉰의 방랑』은 예이츠 문학 일생에서 중요한 전환점을 보여준다. 어쉰이라는 고대 켈트족 영웅 이미지를 완성하기 위해면서 예이츠는 세 가지 켈트적 요소를 도입하고 있다. 첫째로, 고대 아일랜드의 영웅의 일화를 다룸으로써 민족의 단합과 고대 켈트족의 가치 부활을 시도했다. 둘째로, 아일랜드의 자연을 부각시키면서 자연과 민족성 및 종교를 연관시키고 있다. 셋째로, 고대 아일랜드의 영광을 부활시키는 수단으로 음악성을 강조하고 있다. 요약하자면 켈트족 영웅인 주인공 어쉰에게 시인 자신을 투영시켜 조국 독립을 위한 민족의식을 고취시키려고 한 것이다. 예이츠는 사회적으로 중요한 역할을 했던 고대 켈트족 음영시인(바드)의 전통을 이어받아 용사이자 시인인 어쉰의 묘사와 예를 통해 조국을 재 건설하고 민족적 자존심을 되살리려고 시도하고 있다.

This essay is a comparison between Celtic myth and Korean myth with emphasis on hero Cuchulain and Jumong. Cuchulain is a Celtic Irish mythological hero who appears in the stories of the Ulster Cycle. In this study the main text of Cuchulain is Lady Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne. Jumong, whose birth name was Dongmyeongseongwang(東明聖王), was the founding monarch of Goguryeo. The best known version of the founding myths of Goguryeo is the Dongmyeongwangpyeon of the Dongguk I Sanggukgip(Collected Works of Minister Yi of Korea) by Yi, Gyu Bo. According to Jeseph Campbell's idea of monomyth the standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation−initiation−return. A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder, fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won, and the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man. Cuchulain and Jumong's hero-journey show the nuclear unit of the monomyth. Their stories exhibit with extraordinary clarity all the essential elements of the classic accomplishment of the impossible task. Cuchulain is the son of the sun god Lugh and Deichtire(a daughter of Maga, the child of the love god of Angus). Jumong is the son of Hae Mosu(解慕漱: the son of heaven) and Yuhwa(柳花:daughter of the river god Habaek(河伯). Cuchulain and Jumong are the child divine yet born of human mather. They are sons of sun and abandoned by their divine father. The characteristic adventure of Cuchulain is winning of the bride, Emma. The adventure of Jumong is going to succeed to his father-the father is the invisible founder of Buyeo. Cuchulain's adventure had given him the capacity to annihilate all opposition. At the age of seventeen Cuchulain single-handedly defends Ulster from the army of Connacht in the Tain Bo Cuailnge. Jumong's adventure had given him the capacity to rule his subjects. At the age of twenty-two, in 37 BC, Jumong established Goguryeo, and became its first "Supreme King." Goguryeo considered itself a successor to Buyeo. Cuchulain, the Irish Achilles, is the symbol of all those who fought for independence of Ireland. Jumong, the korean Achilles, is the symbol of the pride of Korean. The aim of this essay is that my comparative analysis contribute to the sense of universal understanding of the human condition.

This paper examines animal motifs related to Cuchulain in Ulster Cycle, especially Lady Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne and Celtic culture. In the preface of the text Yeats said that she will have given Ireland its Mabinogion, its Morte d’Arthur, its Nibelungenlied. The Ulster sagas are documents surviving from a Celtic culture unaffected by the Latin civilization of the rest of Europe. Set a century before the time of Christ, the Ulster stories posit an older world than any known in other European vernaculars. The narrative materials were transcribed as early as 8th century continued to be part of living literature until 18th. Esteem for the Ulster Cycle passed into English during the 19th century, when nationalists searched ancient literature for heroes to replace those imposed on Irish children by English-run schools. During the generation of Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats and John Millington Synge the Red Branch Cycle fostered widespread adaptation in English. Lady Gregory expected to let Irish students know that the Cuchulain stories were put into permanent literary form at about the same date as Beowulf, some 100 to 250 years before the Scandinavian mythology, at least 200 years before the oldest Charlemagne romance, and probably 300 years before the earliest draft of Nibelungenlied. In Cuchulain of Muirthemne there are twenty stories in English. Lady Grogery have exchanged for the grotesque accounts of Cuchulain’s distortion into the appearance of a god. In the Cuchulain’s stories still remains the ancient heart of Ireland and Celtic culture. In the Celtic supernatural world animals can talk, move about like humans, jest, warn and shapeshift. The Celts not only relied on animals for their survival but they respect them, learned them, and honoured them. The legendary Irish warrior and solar hero, Cuchulain, son of the god Lugh, exhibited the ‘hero light,’ a flaming aura, around his head when he entered the state of battle frenzy. As a lineage of Angus the hero fell in love with a swan goddess Fand. And was unsuccessfully wooed by the Morrigan in her raven aspect. Cuchulain, whose name means “Culan’s Hound,” was a Gaelic hero likened in his exploits to both the Greek Hercules and Achilles. He is said to have been able to perform a ‘salmon’s leap.’ In the War for the Bull of Cuailgne the hero single- handedly defends Ulster against the depredations of Connacht, as led by Medb and Ailill. The young Cuchulain, a superhuman, semi-divine hero has two chariot- horses, the Black of Saingliu and the Grey of Macha. The clairvoyante Grey cries tears of blood at the foreknowledge of his death. when the Ulster hero Cuchulain is finally killed, he has such a fearsome reputation that it is not until one of the raven-goddesses alights on his shoulder that his enemies believe he is dead and dare to approach and behead him. To the Celts, animals were special and central to all aspects of their world

In reading Yeats’s works rooted in the ancient Irish tradition it will be helpful to understand celtic myth. Among extraordinary women from the ancient celtic tradition I studied three Irish women in W. B. Yeats's works: Queen Maeve in The Old Age in Queen Maeve, Deirdre in Deirdre, and Emer in The Only Jealousy of Emer. Moyra Caldecott’s Women in Celtic Myth provides much knowledge about Irish women characters. For the Irish stories the writer consulted Jeffrey Gantz’s Early Irish Myths and Sagas, Lady Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne and Gods and Fighting Men, and T. W. Roleston’s Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race. Maeve is the most written about among the Irish heroines: she is beautiful, forceful, strong, proud, devious, clever, lusty, and bloodthirsty. Daughter of Eochaid, the High King, she married a relatively minor king, Ailell, son of Ross Ruadh, king of Leinster. Their castle was on the plain of Magh Ai in the province of Connacht. Although Ailell was no weakling, he was, without a doubt, secondary to Maeve in many ways. She had property of her own: cattle, treasure and land that couldn’t match what he had. In fact the whole bloodbath of war to steal the Brown Bull of Cuailnge was brought about because there was one possession Ailell had that outshone her own: Ailell had a better bull. Maeve is the Queen most quoted as showing the privileged position of celtic women in the Iron Age. They were equal in every respect to men, and in some cases they were superior. They owned property; they could, as kings did, “divide gifts” and “give counsel”; they could ride chariots, fight battles, and dispose of lives. And with all this power and freedom went the recognition that women’s sexual needs were as legitimate as men’s. In The Old Age of Queen Maeve Yeats rehandling a given myth depends upon a combined knowledge of the myth that he learned and Yeats’s personal vision, sometimes even his personal affairs. Yeats’s love Maud Gonne is compared to Queen Maeve. A god of love, youth and poetry, Aengus who is crossed in love reminds us of the poet himself. In celtic myth there is a story of the love between Deirdre and Naoise: love with a lot of risks and sacrifices. This love is contrasted with the possessive and destructive lust of Conchubar. Then there is a theme of honor and dishonor. And finally there is beauty. Much is made of the extraordinary beauty of Deirdre, and it is a male reaction to her beauty that brings about “the sorrows.” In Deirdre Yeats selected certain elements which seem to be characteristic of the tale and dramatic in themselves, and introduced three wandering musicians, who are not in the myth. Deirdre was the Irish Helen, and Naisi her Paris, and Concobar her Menelaus. Yeats’s thematic structure provides the clearest link between the Irish myth and heroic romance. He wrote it in praise of the heroic woman, of “wild will”, and of passionate love and the powerful and joyous shattering of common codes and lives. Emer is the admirable wife of a great hero Cuchulain. She is beautiful, healthy, strong, intelligent, and vigorous. Her love for Cuchulain is the best of human love. In The Only Jealousy of Emer Yeats elevates Emer to the same tragic stature as Deirdre, the heroine of his Deirdre. Told by Bricriu that she must renounce her love for Cuchulain as the price for his return to life, Emer decides at the last moment to accept this bitter choice and return Cuchulain, ironically, to the arms of his mistress. These celtic women’s beauty may be representative not only of physical beauty but also the high aspirations of the soul. They are not virgins but mothers or wives. The heroic women show us that love makes humans mature. In these Plays Yeats turned to romantic dreaming, the tradition of nobility in the ancient celtic myths.