keen eyes marked him out as a warrior on the first day of his life; he was
already standing up in a cuirass.^60 The fair or yellow hair is characteristic of
heroes in Greek epic (ξανθ: Μενλαο etc.) and in Irish and Welsh saga:
Táin (I) 2345, 3593, 3606, (L) 165 (findbuide, forórda), 3474 (bude); Cath
Maige Tuired 47 Gray (órbuide‘gold-yellow’); Pwyll Prince of Dyfed 546
(kyuelynet oed a’r eur‘yellow as gold’), Math son of Mathonwy 302 Ford
(brasuelyn‘thick yellow’), Culhwch and Olwen 470.
Like gods, and for the same reason (p. 149), the child hero grows up
with miraculous speed. This is typically expressed by saying that he grew at a
multiple of the normal rate. We find this motif in Irish, Welsh, Persian,
Armenian, Ossetic, and Serbo-Croat narratives. ‘A week after the woman’s
lying-in was completed, the boy had two weeks’ growth; and he maintained
that increase for seven years, until he had reached the growth of fourteen
years’ (Cath Maige Tuired 75–7). ‘Before he was one year old he was walking
firmly, and he was bigger than a boy three years old who was of great growth
and size. And the second year the boy was nursed, and he was as big as a child
six years old’ (Pwyll Prince of Dyfed 548–51 (trs. G. and T. Jones), cf. Math son
of Mathonwy 327–34). ‘After but a single month had passed, it was as though
[Sohrab] was a full year old... At three years old he began the exercises of the
battlefield; by his fifth year he had acquired the courage of lion-like men, and
when he reached his tenth year there was no man in the land who would
stand in combat with him’ (Sha ̄h-na ̄ma, Levy (1967), 67 f.). ‘The twin boys
grew in a day as much as other children grew in a year... At one year of age
they were as big as other children who were five years old’ (Sassountsy David
15 f., cf. 160, 239). The Nart Batradz, the son of Hæmyts, ‘grew as much in
a month as other children in three years’ (Sikojev (1985), 159, cf. 290 f.;
Colarusso (2002), 306 f.). ‘When the child was a year old, he was like another
of four, and when the child was two years old, he was like another of eight’
(SCHS ii, no. 32. 464–7).
Boyhood featsBefore he is of an age to perform on the battlefield, the hero typically shows
his qualities in feats with animals. The newborn Heracles strangled two
snakes that Hera had sent to kill him (Pind. Nem. 1. 38–47). While Achilles
was with Chiron, ‘often his hands threw the short iron javelin, and fighting
swift as the winds he dealt death to ravening lions, killed boars, and brought
their gasping bodies to the Centaur –– six years old to begin with, and ever
(^60) Helgakviða Hundingsbana A 6, cf. (for the eyes) B 2, 4; Gering–Sijmons (1927–31), i. 360.
428 11. King and Hero