Death of a son
The motif of the "death of a son", killed by his father who is unaware of the relationship, is so common among the attested traditions that some scholars have ascribed it to Proto-Indo-European times.[1] In the Ulster Cycle, Connla, son of the Irish hero Cú Chulainn, who was raised abroad in Scotland, unknowingly confronts his father and is killed in the combat; Ilya Muromets must kill his own son, who was also raised apart, in Russian epic poems; the Germanic hero Hildebrant inadvertently kills his son Hadubrant in the Hildebrandslied; and the Iranian Rostam unknowingly confronts his son Sohrab in the eponymous epic of the Shāhnāmeh. King Arthur is forced to kill his son Mordred in battle who was raised far away on the Orkney Islands; and in Greek mythology, an intrigue leads the hero Theseus to kill his son Hippolytus; when the lie is finally exposed, Hippolytus is already dead. According to Mallory and Adams, the legend "places limitations on the achievement of warrior prowess, isolates the hero from time by cutting off his generational extension, and also re-establishes the hero's typical adolescence by depriving him of a role (as father) in an adult world".[1]
Bibliography[edit]
Mallory, James P.; Adams, Douglas Q. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5. Search this book on 
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Mallory & Adams 1997, p. 533.
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