Claíomh Solais

Common card · No. 289205

The Sword of Light or Claidheamh Soluis (Old Irish; modern Irish: Claíomh Solais [ˌklˠiːw ˈsˠɔlˠəʃ]) is a trope object that appears in a number of Irish and Scottish Gaelic folktales. The "Quest for sword of light" formula is catalogued as motif H1337. The sword appears commonly as a quest object in the Irish folktale of a hero seeking "The One Story" (or the "Cause of the one story about women"), which culminates in the discovery of a "Tale of the Werewolf" (a man magically turned wolf by an unfaithful wife). However, the sword is uninvolved in the man-wolf portion, and only figures in the hero-adventure frame story. The sword of light, according to a different commentator, is a fixture of an Irish tale group describable as a quasi-bridal-quest. This characterization is inspired by the formula where the hero gains a beautiful wife (and riches) by gambling against a gruagach a.k.a. wizard-champion, but suffers losses which makes him beholden to mount on a hopeless-seeming quest. Like...

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