Culain's hound

[Cocaloch]

I was in my forth or fith reread of the series, before I noticed the name of the Inn where Alanna bonds rand in LOC,Culain's hound. Which is a kind of obvious refrence to Cuchulainn ,the greatest Irish hero. Its kind of funny really since my Cocaloch is a deliberate misspelling of Cuchulainn. I sure this has been mentioned before, but I felt like bringing it up.

[DuDZiK]

Good catch, I hadn't noticed that before.

 

But it seems likely, as Jordan like most fantasy authors borrowed alot of names and motifs from old mythology.

[Cocaloch]

It has to be really since Cuchulainn means Culainn's hound.

[DuDZiK]

The literal translation is "Hound of Culainn"; Cu coming from the Irish Gaelic word for hound or dog, and Chulainn being the genetive case for the name Culainn (genetive = pronoun + lenition; lenition = add 'h' to first letter unless the word starts with l, n, or r).

 

The story behind the name is that when Cuchulainn, who hitherto was named Satana or something like that, was a boy and was returning from the boys' war games while there was a feast going on at Culainn's fort. Now his fort was guarded by a great beast, a hound that was near the size of the fort itself, and it attacked Satana while everyone was in the fort thinking he was an intruder. Satana, however, killed the great beast to the immense surprise of all. Culainn was upset because the great beast who protected his fort was now dead, and Satana promised the man that until he found another beast he himself would become his hound... hence the name "Hound of Culainn"

 

Just a nifty background info for those who don't know  ;)

[Guest Toad]

Neat cstch.  But is there significance to the story?  Did Allana become Rand's hound by bonding him?

[Avery]

Maybe not Rand's hound, but later in LoC after the forced bonding she led the Salidar embassy sisters plus Bera and Kiruna to the Tower embassy who had kidnapped Rand.

[DuDZiK]

Neat cstch.  But is there significance to the story?  Did Allana become Rand's hound by bonding him?

 

Probably nothing beyond simply RJ borrowing a name. He might not have even done it on purpose; I know for my story I have tried to think of original names but ended up picking ones that already existed. I can't for the life of me ever remember having learned them, but there are too many for them to all be coincidence (and given they are all Celtic names, odds are I did hear them once in passing and didn't realize it).

 

At the very least, I can see no connection between the story of Cuchulainn and the Inn - obvious or more subtle. There was no formal bond or anything like that between Cuchulainn and the man, in fact I can't recall that man ever being mentioned again in the Saga; his sole importance was in being part of the origin story to Cuchulainn's name. Cuchulainn also took it upon himself to be his 'hound' while with Rand it was anything but voluntary.