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- For other characters with the same name, see Sláine.
Sláine (pronounced 'slahn-yeh') is a comic book hero from the pages of 2000 AD - one of Britain's most popular comic books.
Sláine is a barbarian fantasy adventure series based on Celtic myths and stories which first appeared in 1983, written by Pat Mills and initially drawn by his then wife, Angela Kincaid. Most of the early stories were drawn by Mike McMahon and Massimo Belardinelli. Other notable artists to have worked on the character include Glenn Fabry and Simon Bisley. The current artist is Clint Langley, whose striking work combines painting, photography and digital art.
Sláine's favourite weapon is an axe called "Brainbiter". He has the power of the warp spasm, based on the body-distorting battle frenzy of the Irish hero Cú Chulainn and similar to the rage of the Viking berserker (who have appeared as adversaries), in which earth power "warps" through his body, turning him into a terrifying, monstrous figure who knows neither friend nor foe. He is a devotee of the earth goddess Danu.
There is also a role playing game setting based on the comic book series.
Plot
At the start of the series Sláine was a wanderer, banished from his tribe. He explored the Land of the Young (Irish Tír na nÓg) in the company of an unscruplous dwarf called Ukko, fighting monsters and mercenaries in the fantasy tradition. In one early adventure he rescued a maiden, Medb (named after the Irish mythological queen Medb) from being sacrificed in a Wicker Man, only to earn her enmity - she was a devotee of Crom Cruach, the god to whom she was to be sacrificed, and was looking forward to the experience. Her master and mentor, the ancient, rotting and insane Lord Weird Slough Feg, became the series's main villain.
Following stories featured sky chariots (flying longships), dragons and prehistoric alien gods.
As the series progressed, Sláine returned to his tribe and became king (as had been foretold in the narrative of his first appearance), leading them against the Fomorians, a race of sea demons who were oppressing them. Then, in the landmark storyline The Horned God, Sláine united the tribes of the earth goddess against Slough Feg and his allies, while his personal devotion to the goddess led to him becoming a new incarnation of the Horned God Carnun (based on the Gaulish deity Cernunnos). By the end of the story the Land of the Young is no more, and Sláine is the first High King of Ireland.
Subsequent stories saw Sláine sent through time by the earth goddess to fight alongside Celtic heroes and heroines such as Boudicca and William Wallace, and more recently return to Ireland to defend his people against new enemies.
Sources and influences
Sláine's most obvious source is Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, but Mills derived much of the background to the series from Celtic mythology and European prehistory. Sláine himself is named after Sláine mac Dela, the legendary first High King of Ireland, and his "warp-spasm" or body-distorting battle frenzy is derived from the riastrad of Cúchulainn, the hero of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. "Warp-spasm" is the term Thomas Kinsella used for riastrad in his translation of The Táin. His barbed spear, the gae bolga, is also borrowed from Cúchulainn, although his favourite weapon, the axe, is more usually associated with the Vikings or Anglo-Saxons than the Celts.
His patronymic, Mac Roth, is the name of the steward of Ailill and Medb, king and queen of Connacht, in the same cycle. The death of Sláine's mother, Macha, while forced to run on foot in a chariot race because of her husband's boasting, is taken from the story of an Irish goddess called Macha, who was forced to run against the king's chariot while heavily pregnant for the same reason.
Sláine's seduction of Niamh, the king's chosen bride who was brought up in seclusion until she was of age, is reminiscent of the Irish story of Deirdre. Sláine's feat of crossing a raging river to visit her, weighed down by a heavy stone to prevent him from being swept away, is taken from an episode of the Táin. Niamh is a popular Irish girl's name, and is also the name of a fairy queen from the Fenian Cycle. Her otherworld homeland, Tir na nÓg (the Land of the Young), provides the name of the series' setting.
Sláine's goddess, Danu, and her tribes, the Tuatha Dé Danann, come from the Irish Mythological Cycle, although the worship of a universal mother goddess of the earth is not Celtic and comes from speculations about prehistoric European culture and religion by the likes of Marija Gimbutas and Robert Graves. The Horned God, Carnun, is adapted from the Gaulish antlered deity Cernunnos. Some of the religious ideas in the series are taken from Barddas, a possibly fraudulent compilation of "bardo-druidic" beliefs by the 19th century Welsh antiquarian Iolo Morgannwg.
Mills divides the priests of Tir na nÓg into two factions: the good Druids, the well known priestly class of Celtic Europe, and the evil Drunes, which name derives from the Galatian place-name Drunemeton ("oak-sanctuary"), used in the series as the name of the Drunes' capital. Their leader, the Lord Weird Slough Feg, is partly based on Cernunnos and partly on paleolithic cave paintings in Lascaux, France. His acolyte, Medb, is named after the legendary queen of Connacht from the Ulster Cycle. The Drunes' god, Crom Cruach, is an Irish deity who was reputedly propitiated with human sacrifices. The practice of mass human sacrifice by burning in a Wicker Man is mentioned as a practice of the Celts of Gaul by Strabo and Julius Caesar.
The enemies of the Tribes of the Earth Goddess, the Fomorians, and their leader Balor, are taken from the Irish mythological cycle.
Other elements of the series are derived from non-Celtic mythological sources. Sláine's dwarf companion is named Ukko, after the Finnish storm god, and Grimnismal, the name of the dark god Sláine and his companions defeat in "Tomb of Terror", is the title of a a poem about Odin from the Norse Elder Edda.
External links
- 2000 AD Profile (http://www.2000adonline.com/?zone=thrill&page=profiles&choice=SLAINE)
- Sláine - "The Time Monster" (http://www.2000adonline.com/?zone=thrill&page=thrillviewer&choice=time)
- Sláine gallery (http://www.simonbisleyonline.com/galleryslaine.htm) from Simon Bisley Online (http://www.simonbisleyonline.com/)