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.

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.

The mythic world of William Butler Yeats is a composite whole of Christian, Celtic, Greek, and Roman myths as well as of Irish folklore. Under the influence of Nietzsche, Yeats introduces the form of drama into his mythical world, and discovers Cathleen in an attempt to enhance national culture and patriotism. Yeats also appropriates the thought of Plato, Plotinus, Heraclitus, Blake, Swedenborg, and Boehm, and channels their ideas into his own theory of representation. In this context, The Countess Cathleen has been understood as a play in which the gyres turn into a sphere, and the antinomies are resolved; where the contradictiories, through the very intensity of their opposition, call upon the unity which transcends them. The myths of redemption and natural love represent the binary opposition of good and evil, and Cathleen, who represents the good, sacrifices herself to control the evil and is rewarded for it. To conclude, The Countess Cathleen is a beautiful lyric poem in that Cathleen symbolizes Ireland. In the dramatic atmosphere of the final lines, she arrives at a moment of revelation, of passionate perception.