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You know the Pogues songs, “The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn.”
You know the original, harrowing tale—Serglige Con Culainn—from Irish mythology’s Ulster cycle. (FYI: The earliest, extant version of the story appears in the twelfth-century Book of the Dun Cow.)
But did you know that The Sick-Bed of Cú Chulainn a.k.a. The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulainn may have inspired a 2019 folk-horror film?
The Lighthouse, starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, was written and directed by Robert Eggers, whose previous effort, The Witch, proved there was an appetite for New England-set folk-horror cinema.
But The Lighthouse, to be sure, hearkens back to more than just New England folklore.
Its script owes a debt to the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and potentially to those ancient Irish storytellers and medieval scribes who made sure The Sick-Bed of Cú Chulainn would persist into modern times.
Without further ado, here is my analysis, my cockamamie theory, and incidentally (well, not really), the first video on my new YouTube channel, Folklore in Film:
Want to read a text-version of Folklore in The Lighthouse Everyone Missed? I’ve got you covered over on FolkloreInFilm.com
☘ Further Reading ☘
Books About Cú Chulainn
Cú Chulainn of Eirú – Book I: The Isle of Shadows by Richard Roche and Derek Fennell
Celtic Warrior: The Legend of Cú Chulainn by Will Sliney
The Tain: Translated from the Irish Epic Tain Bo Cuailnge by Thomas Kinsella
Introduction to Early Irish Literature by Muireann Ni Bhrolchain
Ireland’s Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth by Mark Williams
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