: Muirthemne was the home of the mythological Cùchulainn in
: Leinster. Cùchulainn was a well known hero from Irish
: legend who bears a resemblance to Balor. Incidentally,
: Balor was also a character from Irish myth. You can
: read more about this and other similarities in my
: article on Celtic Myth Cycles, right here in the
: relics section:
: http://myth.bungie.org/legends/relics/celtic.html
I'm reading through some of this celtic stuff on the web now (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cuch/)... Curoi is one of the names in the text, and Connaught is a place that's mentioned. Trying to put together a picture of how Myth was written, I'd say that for most of the story--i.e. the actual plot, a lot was borrowed from The Black Company. But then for background stories and histories, Bungie hit up the Nordic myths. To round out the story and give some variety to the names, Celtic lore was brought in too. Braveheart was also a new release while yth was in development, so I imagine that played some sort of role as well.
"Cath", by the way, also seems to be Celtic in origin. Still looking for "bruig" though.
I also think I may have arrived at the logic for naming Muirthemne Muirthemne. As the Celtic story goes, Muirthemne is a city that was destroyed. "The whole province is trampled down by the men of Ireland", says the text. I think a line like that would play in perfectly to what Bungie ended up calling the history of Muirthemne in Myth:TFL.
There's a lot of other good stuff in there too, so I'm guessing Bungie used this or a similar source to add the finishing touches to the Myth flavor.
"And he bid the men of Ireland to give out shouts, and Cuchulain came against them in his chariot, doing his three thunder feats, and he used his spear and his sword in such a way, that their heads, and their hands, and their feet, and their bones, were scattered through the plain of Muirthemne; like the sands on the shore, like the stars in the sky, like the dew in May, like snow-flakes and hailstones, like leaves of the trees, like buttercups in a meadow, like grass under the feet of cattle on a fine summer day. It is red that plain was with the slaughter Cuchulain made when he came crashing over it."
--Stinger
