Adventures of Gilla Na Chreck An Gour

Lore & Background

The tale begins in Enniscorthy, where a poor woman gives her son a goat-skin to wear. At nineteen years old and six feet tall, he is sent to fetch firewood and encounters three giants: a nine-foot giant who gives him a club, a two-headed giant who gives a magical fife, and a three-headed giant who gives a green ointment granting immunity to burns and wounds. He later travels to a city where the King of Dublin's daughter has not laughed in seven years. Using the fife, he makes a wolf dance, and later a rival named Redhead fails to wield a flail borrowed from the devils of hell, causing the princess to laugh. The Danes abandon their invasion plans out of fear of the flail.

Reader's Guide

This tale is significant as a representative of ATU 650A, a type featuring a hero with superhuman strength, and also incorporates elements of ATU 571, where the hero makes a princess laugh. Folklorists Johannes Bolte and Jiri Polivka connected it to the Grimm tale The Young Giant. The hero's name, Gilla na Grakin, means 'the fellow of the skins' and appears in many Irish names, sometimes as an identity assumed by the hero Ceudach. Variants exist across Europe and America, including a Gaelic story Scéal Ghiolla na gCochall Craicionn and an American variant Gilly and his Goatskin Clothes collected by Marie Campbell. The tale's motifs—the magical objects, the laughing princess, and the hero's humble origins—are common in international folklore.

Did You Know?

• The tale is classified as ATU 650A, 'Strong John', and also includes an episode of ATU 571, 'Making the Princess Laugh'.
• Folklorist Jeremiah Curtin noted the name appears as a component of many Irish names.
• An American variant titled Gilly and his Goatskin Clothes was collected by Professor Marie Campbell.

Publication History & Folkloric Lineage

The tale first entered the written record through the work of Irish folklorist Patrick Kennedy, who collected it and included it in his 1866 volume Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts. Nearly four decades later, Irish poet Alfred Perceval Graves gave the story a second life by publishing it in his 1909 Irish Fairy Book. A third English-language edition appeared when Joseph Jacobs adapted the narrative for his collection Celtic Fairy Tales, retitling it The Lad with the Goat-Skin. These multiple publications across different decades and editorial hands testify to the tale's enduring appeal within the broader Celtic storytelling tradition. The story's place in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as ATU 650A, "Strong John," further anchors it within a well-studied family of tales in which a hero of extraordinary physical power comes of age and proves himself through a series of escalating challenges.

Plot & Narrative Structure

Set in Enniscorthy, the narrative follows a young man known as Gilla, the son of a destitute mother who can only afford to wrap him in a goatskin. By the time he reaches nineteen and stands six feet tall, his mother dispatches him into the forest to gather bresna. There he encounters three successive giants: a nine-foot colossus whose life he spares and who rewards him with a club, a two-headed figure who bestows a fife capable of compelling anyone to dance, and a three-headed being who grants him a green ointment rendering him immune to burns, wounds, and scalding. Carrying these gifts, Gilla arrives in a city where the King of Dublin's daughter has not laughed in seven years. Using the fife to force a wolf into a comical dance, and later watching his rival Redhead fail spectacularly to lift a flail that Gilla borrowed from the devils at the walls of hell, he coaxes three laughs from the princess. The Danes, hearing rumors of the flail's power, abandon their invasion plans entirely.

Folkloric Classification & Motifs

Folklorists have situated this tale within several overlapping typological frameworks. Beyond its primary ATU 650A classification, the narrative incorporates an episode of ATU 571, "Making the Princess Laugh," a motif in which a suitor must provoke mirth in a joyless royal bride. Johannes Bolte and Jiri Polivka, in their commentaries accompanying the Grimm fairy tales, drew a direct line between this Irish story and The Young Giant, another ATU 650 variant. The hero's name itself has attracted considerable scholarly attention. Jeremiah Curtin interpreted Gilla na Grakin as referring to a servant boy associated with skins, while Joseph Jacobs observed that the "Gilla" figure was a recurring character type across Celtic narratives. James MacDougall expanded the etymology, suggesting Gaelic renderings like Gille nan Cochla-craicinn, where "skinny husks" might denote either a transformative animal pelt or simple leather garments. Celtic studies scholarship further notes that the name surfaces as an assumed identity of Ceudach, the protagonist of what is described as the most popular of all Fenian folk-tales.

European Variants & Cross-Cultural Resonance

The Gilla motif extends well beyond the Irish version. In a Gaelic narrative published by British linguist Edmund Crosby Quiggin in 1906, two blacksmith apprentices, Céadach and Lonndubh, compete for the hand of the maiden Scaith Shioda. Céadach, dressed only in animal skins, is discovered cooking game by the hunting party of Fionn mac Cumhaill and is subsequently named Ghiolla na gCochall Craicionn by the king. A Sutherlandshire tale collected by Charlotte Louisa Hawkins Dempster tells of a king abducted by a fairy woman, whose son Fach-Mòhr is found by the Pictish king Ossian and introduces himself as Gillie-na-Cochlan Crackenach. There he discovers a resurrection elixir called Flaggan Fiacallach and ultimately heals his ailing half-brother. John Gregorson Campbell's version features Ceudach alongside friends White Dew and White Hand, who incur a silversmith's curse after accidentally striking her workshop with a ball, and who must each vie for the daughter of the King of the Iron City through a test of devotion.