Studia Celtica Fennica VII (2011), 40–50, ISSN 1795–097X, © Finnish Society for Celtic Studies Neither Burned nor Bloody: the learning and legacy of Heroic Feats

abstract: one of the singular marks of the hero in early Irish literature is his ability to perform heroic feats. this article explores the acquisition of these feats, known in old Irish as cles (plural clis or clessa), by heroes in various branches of the tradition. the scant available evidence indicates that the hero only learned a feat when he could perform it without injury. this correlates well with the warrior ethos in early Irish literature and with the frequent descriptions of heroic male beauty in old and Middle Irish. the fascination with warrior beauty in medieval Irish literature carries into the Modern Irish period and is detectable in elegies composed by bardic praise poets. Finally, it is possible that the ethos of the vain warrior can be traced as far back as the Continental Celts, but this connection can only be advanced with caution. One of the primary characteristics of the warrior in Early Irish literature is his ability to perform heroic feats, known most commonly in Old Irish as cles (plural clis or clessa, depending on inflection).1 The importance that the medieval redactors placed upon the feats as marks of the hero can be gauged by the frequency of their appearance throughout the sagas. It has long been remarked that the feats came to be especially associated with the supreme Ulster warrior Cú Chulainn (Sayers 1983, 69), and lists of the feats are common in the tales that constitute his heroic biography. The famous Ulster hound is depicted performing his martial arts in both early recensions of the Táin (TBC I ll. 1712–26, transl. p. 173; TBC II ll. 1830