Lug (also Lugh; Lug Lámfhada; Lugh Samildánach)

Region/Culture: Northern Europe / Gaelic Ireland
Mythos: Irish Mythology, Celtic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: Master of every art and craft, a warrior and sorcerer who wields the unerring spear and a killing sling.
Role in Mythos: The youthful champion of the Tuatha Dé Danann who leads them to victory over the Fomorians and slays his own grandfather, Balor.
Relation to Humans: He gave his name and his harvest festival, Lughnasadh, to the peoples of Ireland, founding its funeral games in memory of his foster-mother. Later tradition made him the divine father of the hero Cú Chulainn, watching over his mortal son on the battlefield.

The watchman on the ramparts of Tara saw the light before he saw the man. It came along the western road like a second sun brought down to the level of the fields, moving with a company of riders, and at the heart of the brightness sat a young stranger in the war-gear of a king. He drew rein at the closed gate of the fortress and asked to be let inside.

No one entered Tara without offering the household a skill it did not already possess. The doorkeeper asked what art the stranger practised. A wright, said the young man. We have a wright. A smith, then. We have a smith. He went on down the list, champion and harper, poet and historian, sorcerer and physician, cupbearer and worker in bronze, and to each the answer came back the same: that man is already within. So the stranger asked a single question. Go and ask the king whether he has one man who is all of these at once. There was no such man. The gates opened, and Lugh walked in to take the seat of the sage, and from that day the Tuatha Dé Danann called him Samildánach, skilled together in every art.

He was young where the other gods were old, and he shone. The stories return again and again to the radiance of his face, a countenance no one could look at directly, as though he carried the sun behind his eyes. His other name was Lámfhada, the long-armed, and it had nothing to do with the reach of his limbs. It meant the reach of his weapons, the spear and the sling-stone that could cross a battlefield and strike a mark no ordinary arm could touch. In his war-gear he wore the gold of a king and the calm of someone who has never yet been beaten.

His blood ran in two directions. His father was Cian of the Tuatha Dé Danann; his mother was Ethniu, daughter of Balor, the one-eyed tyrant of the Fomorians. A prophecy had told Balor that he would be killed by his own grandson, so he shut his daughter away in a tower on a sea-cliff, far from the sight of any man. It did not hold. Cian reached her, and a child was born, and Balor ordered the infant drowned. The sea gave him back. He was fostered and raised in secret, in some tellings by the smith of the gods, in others by Manannán of the waves, and he grew up carrying the one fact his grandfather most feared. He was of Fomorian stock, like Bres, the half-Fomorian king the Tuatha Dé had already suffered under, and he was the exact opposite of Bres in every way that counted.

When Lugh came to Tara the Tuatha Dé were groaning under Fomorian tribute. Nuada, their king, looked at this newcomer and saw the leader the coming war would need, and he gave over his own seat to him. Before the fighting Lugh did what he was made to do. He went around the assembled army on one foot and with one eye closed, chanting, working the old battle-magic that turns dread into resolve, and the warriors rose behind him steadied and eager. That was the whole of him in a single image: the craftsman, the poet, and the sorcerer all bent to the one work of war.

Then Balor came onto the plain of Mag Tuired with his eye. It was a thing of slaughter, an eyelid so heavy that four men hauled it open by a ring set through the lid, and whatever the eye fell upon withered. It opened, and Nuada died. Then Lugh came within range. As the great lid began to rise he cast his stone, and it struck the eye clean and drove it back through Balor’s own skull, so that the killing gaze now fell on the Fomorian ranks massed behind him. The host that had crossed the sea to rule Ireland was broken by the light of its own champion’s eye.

His gifts were the sum of every specialist the gods could put in the field. He carried the Gáe Assail, one of the four treasures the Tuatha Dé brought to Ireland, a spear so eager for blood that it could not miss and had to be kept with its head quenched in a cauldron to stop it catching fire. He had the sling. He had the crafts of the smith and the wright, the long memory of the historian, the hands of the healer, and music that could make a hall weep or sleep or laugh. Where the older gods each owned a single domain, he owned the connective skill that let him walk into any of them.

For all that, his fate was knotted into the same blood that made him. The prophecy that armed him against Balor bound him as tightly as it bound his grandfather; he was born to a killing before he was born to anything else. And the many-skilled god was not himself beyond reach. In the tradition that follows him past his triumph he kills Cermait, a son of the Dagda, and Cermait’s three sons hunt Lugh down in revenge and drown him in a lake that afterward carried his name. Even the god of every art could be killed. In these later stories the gods were sliding out of Ireland toward the hollow hills and the fairy people they would become, and Lugh slid with them.

What he left in the human world was a season. He founded the festival of Lughnasadh at the start of August, the turn into harvest, and he made it a funeral game for Tailtiu, the foster-mother who had cleared the forest off a whole plain for planting and died of the labour. The fairs and the horse-races and the marriages held on that hill were his memorial to her, worn permanently into the calendar. He reached into mortal life once more besides. The stories make him the father of Cú Chulainn, and when that son lay spent and wounded on the battlefield it was Lugh who came down, a shining stranger again, to stand over him and let him sleep.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Lugh in Irish mythology?

Lugh is a god of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish mythology, famed as Samildánach, the master of every art and craft. He is at once a warrior, poet, smith, healer, and sorcerer, and he led the Tuatha Dé to victory over the Fomorians at the second Battle of Mag Tuired. He also gave his name to the Gaelic harvest festival of Lughnasadh.

How did Lugh kill Balor?

Lugh killed Balor, his own grandfather, at the second Battle of Mag Tuired. As Balor’s deadly poison eye was being levered open by four attendants, Lugh struck it with a sling-stone that drove the eye back through Balor’s skull, turning its withering gaze onto the Fomorian army behind him. A prophecy had long foretold that Balor would die at the hand of his grandson.

What weapons does Lugh use?

Lugh is best known for two weapons: a sling, with which he killed Balor, and the Gáe Assail, an unerring spear that was one of the Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The spear was said to be so bloodthirsty that its head had to be kept quenched in a cauldron to keep it from bursting into flame.

What does the name Lugh Lámhfhada mean?

Lugh Lámhfhada means “Lugh of the Long Arm” or “the long-handed.” The epithet refers not to the length of his limbs but to the reach of his weapons, the spear and sling-stone he could cast across great distances. His other great title, Samildánach, means “skilled in all the arts together.”

Why is Lughnasadh named after Lugh?

Lughnasadh, the Gaelic harvest festival held around 1 August, is named after Lugh because he founded it. He established it as funeral games in memory of his foster-mother Tailtiu, who died of exhaustion after clearing Ireland’s plains for farming. The festival marks the beginning of the harvest season.