The Irish Hero and the Archetypes

Abstract

Three collections of Irish folktales and myths were gathered by a Smithsonian ethnographer named Jeremiah Curtin in the 19th century, and they were titled: Hero-Tales of Ireland, Tales of the Fairies and the Ghost World and Myths and Folk-lore of Ireland. Contained within them are various stories that Curtin himself transcribed as he listened to Irish narrators tell the stories, and some are different versions of the same stories, yet the symbolism and structures used are completely different at times. Two volumes, Hero-Tales of Ireland and Myths and Folktales of Ireland are chosen for the purpose of this study, and they contain 44 stories. The theories of Joseph Campbell on psychoanalysis and mythology are applied in order to help the reader grasp the world view of ancient Irish people in the myths, recurring archetypes and characters and their roles and their connection to the collective unconscious and the three steps of Departure, Initiation and Return which he finds in the hero’s journey and its relation to the Monomyth.