man’s head would go into his mouth. Every hair on him would be as sharp as a spike
of hawthorn and there would be a drop of blood on every hair.^31
A further terrifying feature of heroes is their ability to utter a war-cry of
overpowering volume, with devastating effect on the enemy’s morale.^32
Achilles, with the divine flame rising from his head, goes from the Achaeans’
defensive wall to the ditch and gives three mighty shouts (which Athena
reinforces with her own voice), causing such confusion in the Trojan
ranks that twelve men die in the press of their own spears and chariots (Il. 18.
215–29). Hanu ̄ma ̄n advises Bhı ̄ma, ‘when you go into battle, raise your lion’s
cry, and I will reinforce it with mine, uttering fearful roars that will rob your
enemies of their lives’ (MBh. 3. 150. 14 f., cf. 6. 42. 8–12). Cú Chulainn, seeing
the four provinces of Ireland ranged against him,
shook his shield and brandished his spears and waved his sword, and he uttered a
hero’s shout deep in his throat. And the goblins and sprites and spectres of the glen
and demons of the air gave answer for terror of the shout that he had uttered. And
Némain, the war goddess, attacked the host, and the four provinces of Ireland made a
clamour of arms round the points of their own spears and weapons so that a hundred
warriors among them fell dead of fright and terror in the middle of the encampment
on that night (Táin (I) 2081–7, cf. 2238).
In one of the Ossetic Nart tales Batradz goes to Borata’s house and lets out a
great shout; it shakes the rafters, and plaster falls on the heads of the feasters,
many of whom faint just from the shout (Sikojev (1985), 175). We may also
note the episode in the Armenian epic where David is shot by his daughter,
and she dies of fright at his cry of pain (Sassountsy David 334 f.).
Sometimes the hero is depicted not just as strong and brave but as the
master of a special repertory of expert manoeuvres in hand-to-hand fighting.
There is only perhaps a hint of this in Homer, when Hector declares that he is
afit match for Ajax, being well acquainted with battle and slaughter: ‘I know
how to ply the sere ox(hide) to right, to left... I know how to charge into the
fray of swift horses, I know how to dance for fierce Ares in the standing fight’
(Il. 7. 238–41). In Indian and Irish narrative there is a more elaborate and
formalized body of techniques.
Armed with that scimitar he suddenly began to career in circles over the arena,
displaying, O monarch, the fourteen different kinds of manoeuvres... all those
(^31) Táin (I) 1651–7, cf. 2245ff.; Fled Bricrenn 27. In Egils saga 55 a Viking gives notice of his
anger by lowering one eyebrow to his chin and raising the other to the roots of his hair; but this
is probably something borrowed from Celtic, not an independent survival in Germanic
tradition.
(^32) Cf. Miller (2000), 230–2.
- Arms and the Man 457