Ancestor Veneration and the
Heroic Biography
The Lia Fáil, Tara, Co. Meath,
Ireland
Scholars involved with the Heroic
Biography Concept
Psychologists:
• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Totem
and Taboo 1913
• Carl Jung (1875-1961) Archetypes
• Otto Rank (1884-1939). The Myth of
the Birth of the Hero 1924.
• Joseph Campbell The Hero with a
Thousand Faces (1949). Monomyth
Psychological Approaches to the Heroic
Biography
• Freud: wish-fullfillment.
• Jung: Story Archetypes.
• Campbell: the Monomyth
Anthropologists
James George Fraizer (1854-1941)
The Golden Bough (1890)
Fitzroy Richard Somerset, 4th Lord
Raglan The Hero (1936).
Scholars of Mythology
• Jan de Vries Heroic Song and Heroic Legend
(1959)
Heroic Biography of Jan de Vries
I. The begetting of the hero.
II. The birth of the hero.
III. The youth of the hero is threatened.
IV. The way in which the hero is brought up.
V. The hero often acquires invulnerability.
VI. The fight with a dragon or other monster.
VII. The hero wins a maiden, usually after
overcoming great dangers.
VIII. The hero makes an expedition to the
underworld.
IX. When the hero is banished in his youth
he returns later and is victorious over his
enemies. In some cases he has to leave
the realm again which he has won with
great difficulty.
X. The death of the hero.
Anthropological Approaches to the Heroic
Biography
•
•
Lord Raglan, in THE HERO (1936) has classified the parallel life-patterns of
the mythical hero of tradition into twenty-two archetypal incidents. The
higher a particular hero scores, the closer he is to the UR-archetype of the
sacred hero-king of prehistoric religious ritual.
LORD RAGLANS SCALE: The hero's mother is a royal virgin . His father is
a king and . often a near relative of the mother, but . the circumstances of
his conception are unusual, and . he is also reputed to be the son of a god .
at birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or maternal grandfather, to
kill him, but . He is spirited away, and . Reared by foster-parents in a far
country . We are told nothing of his childhood, but . On reaching manhood
he returns or goes to his future kingdom. . After a victory over the king and
or giant, dragon, or wild beast . He marries a princess, often the daughter of
his predecessor and . becomes king . For a time he reigns uneventfully and
. Prescribes laws but . later loses favor with the gods and or his people and
. Is driven from from the throne and the city after which . He meets with a
mysterious death . often at the top of a hill. His children, if any, do not
succeed him. . his body is not buried, but nevertheless . he has one or more
holy sepulchres.
Tulach Ua Dedaid, Co. Clare Ireland 1996
Reenactment of a Féis ritual