<p>Cuchulainn was an unstoppable warrior hero in Irish legend who was renowned throughout the British Isles for his unmatched prowess in combat, his superhuman deeds, his&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dmVU08zVpA" target="blank">Justin Timberlake</a>-like good looks and his infamous "Warp Spasm" - a violent bloodthirsty berserker rage which caused his face to contort into hideous positions, made his hair to stand up on end, and prompted one of his eyes to bulge out of his head, making him look like the sort of like the "pwned" face&nbsp;<img src="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/emot-pwn.gif" alt="" align="top" />&nbsp;while he totally flipped out, felt no pain and cut down his enemies like a lawnmower hacking up grass at a country club for rich jerks.</p>
<p>As a young man, Cuchulainn was a champion at Hurling, the traditional Irish sport where a bunch of guys take these big-ass shillelaghs and whack lead cannonballs at each other's heads (think field hockey meets baseball meets 17th century nautical warfare).&nbsp; But Cuchulainn wasn't the sort of guy who would be satisfied just by being the Michael Jordan of the National Hurling League, so one day he headed out to join the illustrious order of warriors known as the Red Branch Knights.&nbsp; Well his first day on the job he was supposed to go to a party at the home of this guy named Culain.&nbsp; Culain was well-known throughout the island as having the biggest, meanest, most ferocious and fearsome guard dog in all of Ireland, sort of like Clifford the Big Red Dog crossed with a starving Pit Bull and a food processor.&nbsp; Well Cuchulainn showed up late to the party, and this dog completely flipped out and started trying to tear him a new esophagus.&nbsp; In self-defense, Cuchulainn swung his hurling stick and killed the fucking crazy dog.&nbsp; When everybody saw what he had done, they gained considerable respect for Cuchulainn's strength but were understandably pretty upset that this kid had just moked out their friend's dog.&nbsp; Cuchulainn volunteered to act as Culain's personal guard dog until he could train a replacement, and he proved to be one of the best guards Culain ever had (Cuchulainn actually translates to "The Hound of Culain", a nickname Cuchulainn loved so much he used as his own personal name from this point on).</p>
<p>For the next few years, Cuchulainn rose through the ranks of the Red Branch Knights.&nbsp; He was young, beardless, and by all accounts one of the most attractive men in the country, so obviously he had all these chicks falling all over him all the time.&nbsp; Since most of the guys around him were starting to a little jealous (and a little worried that he was going to pull a dickbox on one of their desparate housewives), they told Cuchulainn that he needed to hurry up and get married.&nbsp; Cuchulainn eventually fell in love and decided he wanted to marry the beautiful princess Emer, daughter of Lord Forgal the Wily.&nbsp; Well when Cuchulainn finally got up the sack to ask Emer for her hand in marriage, she was all like, "yo I don't want no scrubs", and told him he wasn't distinguished enough to be her man, and that she also couldn't marry someone who wasn't at least a Level 10 Fighter with +1 to beard growing.</p>
<p>So Cuchulainn headed off to Dun Scaith, the Fort of Shadows, on the Isle of Skye in Scotland to train with the hardass warrior goddess Scathach.&nbsp; He passed several tests in his effort to brave the countryside and reach her, leaping gorges, climbing mountains and fording rivers.&nbsp; When he finally got to her, she agreed to train him in the art of warfare.&nbsp; For many years he studied under her, learning all he could about combat and finally being trained in the use of the Legendary Gae Bolg Spear.</p>
<p>The Gae Bolg was a huge barbed spear constructed from the bones of a giant sea monster, and served as Cuchulainn's personal weapon from this point on.&nbsp; He would swing it around, and then kick it at his enemies.&nbsp; As soon as it penetrated a man's skin, thirty barbs would shoot out of it, killing the person instantly.&nbsp; Since the barbs sort of made it act like a hardware anchor, the only way to remove it from a person was to cut it out of their dead body with a sword.&nbsp; Now that's hardcore.</p>
<p>Now towards the end of Cuchulainn's training, Scathach's bitchy sister Aoife showed up on the island to battle her as part of their neverending blood feud.&nbsp; Cuchulainn offered to help fight Aoife, but Scathach didn't want to risk it.&nbsp; Aoife was the most dangerous fighter in the world, and Scathach knew that Cuchulainn wouldn't be a match for her in combat.&nbsp; So on the day they were supposed to have their duel she slipped a bunch of NyQuil into Cuchulainn's coffee to make him pass out and sleep through the epic clash that was about to take place.&nbsp; Well Cuchulainn had a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/glossary&amp;term=Glossary_dnd_Constitution&amp;alpha=+%22" target="blank">CON</a>of like 17, so this shit didn't work on him.&nbsp; He woke up right as the contest was starting and rushed out to defend his master.&nbsp; Cuchulainn and Aoife dueled for several hours, before Cuchulainn finally bested her.&nbsp; He offered to spare her life if she swore to end her feud with Scathach, which she did.&nbsp; Then he seduced her and they got busy.&nbsp; Booya.</p>
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<p align="center"><img src="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/cuchulainn5.jpg" alt="" vspace="8" /></p>
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<p>With his training complete, Cuchulainn headed home on his war steed, Grey of Battle.&nbsp; As he reached his homeland of Ulster he found it under attack by the warriors of Nechtan.&nbsp; Seeing his kinsmen fighting for their lives set Cuchulain off into his Warp Spasm and he started flipping out like a ninja, decapitating Nechtan warriors all over the place and lacing them in the gut with the Gae Bolg.&nbsp; Even after the enemies were all killed, Cuchulainn continued to flip out like a psycho and attack anything that moved, so King Conchobar of Ulster sent like 100 hot naked babes to go chill him out.&nbsp; Now we all know that no man worth his flipping-out ability would attack a hot naked babe for no reason at all, and when Cuchulainn saw all these topless babes running towards him he decided to put his weapons away and maybe stop using so much&nbsp;<a href="http://www.consideryourselfwarned.com/" target="blank">Tag body spray</a>.</p>
<p>Now that he had proven himself as a war hero by fucking up the Nechtans, Cuchulainn went back to the castle of Forgal the Wily to ask again for Emer's hand in marriage.&nbsp; Lord Forgal did not approve of Cuchulainn at all, but Emer was in love with him and agreed anyways.&nbsp; Forgal heard this and flipped the fuck out.&nbsp; He locked Emer in a castle tower and started trying to marry her off to other nearby lords.&nbsp; Well this shit didn't fly with Cuchulainn.&nbsp; He stormed the castle like Sir Lancelot in&nbsp;<em>Monty Python and the Holy Grail</em>, killing twenty-five guards and knocking Forgal the Wily off the castle walls with a Bruce Lee style front kick.&nbsp; Cuchulainn broke into the tower, rescued Emer, and then sacked Forgal's treasury just for the fuck of it before riding off into the sunset and marrying the girl of his dreams.&nbsp; Now if that isn't awesome then I don't know what is.</p>
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<p>A few years later, the men of Ulster went to war with the armies of Queen Medb of Connacht.&nbsp; The Queen put the Ulstermen under a spell that would make them feel labour pains constantly, and while women are tough and can handle physical pain like eyebrow plucking and waxing their bikini lines and birthing and shit, men are total pussies when it comes to that stuff.&nbsp; So the Ulstermen were all rolling around crying and complaining and doing nothing, and Queen Medb sent her forces in to invade the now-undefended land of Ulster.</p>
<p>Now Cuchulainn was still very young and still very beardless, and for some unexplained reason this meant he was unaffected by Queen Medb's bizarre ability to simultaneously kick every single man in the nation of Ulster directly in the ballsack over and over again.&nbsp; Driven by his duty to protect his homeland, he alone marched out to meet the Queen's forces.&nbsp; When he finally came face-to-face with the Connacht army, he challenged them all to a Rite of Combat.&nbsp; He boasted that he would battle one champion from the Connacht forces each day in the ford of the River Dee.&nbsp; The Queen agreed that her army would not invade Ulster as long as Cuchulainn controlled the ford, and she would send one of her greatest warriors out to duel him every single day until he was finally defeated.</p>
<p>For roughly two weeks Cuchulainn slaughtered all challengers he faced.&nbsp; At one point, Medb actually sent the Druid Calatin and his twenty-seven kids out to face him.&nbsp; All the Druid's kids poisoned their spears, but Cuchulainn was still able to defeat all of them, thanks to a timely run-in by his foster father Fergus.</p>
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<p>Finally, Queen Medb got sick of this shit and sent her greatest fighter out to battle Cuchulainn - the knight Ferdidad.&nbsp; Ferdidad and Cuchulainn had trained together as boys and were good friends and blood brothers.&nbsp; They duelled for three days straight before Cuchulainn finally dropped him with the Gae Bolg.&nbsp; Unfortunately, the battle had left him so drained and wounded that he could not continue to defend the ford.</p>
<p>The next morning, as things were looking their worst, the Ulstermen snapped out of their curse and formed up for battle.&nbsp; In the ensuing fight, the men of Ulster were able to defeat Medb's army and drive them out of their homeland.&nbsp; Cuchulainn had saved the day, single-handedly holding off the Connacht army until reinforcements could arrive.</p>
<p>Many years later, Cuchulainn inadvertently pissed off the goddess Morrigan by refusing to boink her when she showed up at his front door wearing nothing but a silk robe and some sexy lingerie.&nbsp; She was so pissed at him that she tricked him into breaking his lifelong oath never to eat hound meat, and then sent a group of Druids out to murder him.&nbsp; Cuchulainn fought the Druids, killing several of them, but eventually was mortally wounded by a magical spear.&nbsp; Dying, Cuchulainn stumbled over to a large rock and tied himself to it so that even in death he could face his enemies standing.&nbsp; His death was later avenged by Conall the Victorious.</p>
<p>Cuchulainn is considered by many to be the greatest hero of medieval Ireland.&nbsp; He was brave, strong, and knew how to flip out and kill people when he had to.&nbsp; He got all the babes, he had a crazy magical weapon, he rescued the girl from a castle tower and he single-handedly defended his country against an entire army.&nbsp; He even had his death avenged.&nbsp; That's everything you could ask for from a medieval badass.</p>
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<p align="center"><img src="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/cuchulainn6.jpg" alt="" vspace="8" /><br />Statue of Cuchulainn tied to the rock.</p>
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<p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;">Links:</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.shee-eire.com/magic&amp;mythology/Warriors&amp;Heroes/Warriors/Males/Cuchulainn/Page1.htm" target="blank">The Celtic Warrior Cuchulainn</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cuch/" target="blank">Cuchulain of Muirthemne Full Text</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.timelessmyths.com/celtic/ulster.html#Cuchulainn" target="blank">Timeless Myths: Cu Chulainn</a></p>