The Hero with a Thousand Faces

by Joseph Campbell

  The feats of the beloved Hindu savior, Kṛṣṇa, during his infant exile among the cowherds of Gokula and Brindaban, constitute a lively cycle. A certain goblin named Pūtanā came in the shape of a beautiful woman, but with poison in her breasts. She entered the house of Yasoda, the foster mother of the child, and made herself very friendly, presently taking the baby in her lap to give it suck. But Kṛṣṇa drew so hard that he sucked away her life, and she fell dead, reassuming her huge and hideous form. When the foul corpse was cremated, however, it emitted a sweet fragrance; for the divine infant had given the demoness salvation when he had drunk her milk.

  Kṛṣṇa was a mischievous little boy. He liked to spirit away the pots of curds when the milkmaids were asleep. He was forever climbing to eat and spill things placed out of his reach on the high shelves. The girls would call him Butter-thief and complain to Yasoda; but he could always invent a story. One afternoon when he was playing in the yard, his foster parent was warned that he was eating clay. She arrived with a switch, but he had wiped his lips, and denied all knowledge of the matter. She opened the dirty mouth to see, but when she peered inside beheld the whole universe, the “Three Worlds.” She thought: “How silly I am to imagine that my son could be the Lord of the Three Worlds.” Then all was veiled from her again, and the moment passed immediately from her mind. She fondled the little boy and took him home.

  The herding folk were accustomed to pay worship to the god Indra, the Hindu counterpart of Zeus, king of heaven and lord of rain. One day when they had made their offering, the lad Kṛṣṇa said to them: “Indra is no supreme deity, though he be king in heaven; he is afraid of the titans. Furthermore, the rain and prosperity for which you are praying depend on the sun, which draws up the waters and makes them fall again. What can Indra do? Whatever comes to pass is determined by the laws of nature and the spirit.” Then he turned their attention to the nearby woods, streams, and hills, and especially to Mount Govardhan, as more worthy of their honor than the remote master of the air. And so they offered flowers and fruits and sweetmeats to the mountain.

  Kṛṣṇa himself assumed a second form: he took the form of a mountain god and received the offerings of the people, meanwhile remaining in his earlier shape among them, paying worship to the mountain king. The god received the offerings and ate them up.

  Figure 71. Kṛṣṇa Holding Mount Govardhan (color on paper, India, c. a.d. 1790)

  The sense of Kṛṣṇa’s advice to do worship to the mountain rather than the king of the gods, which to the Western reader may seem strange, is that the Way of Devotion (bhakti mārga) must begin with things known and loved by the devotee, not remote, unimaginable conceptions. Since the Godhead is immanent in all, He will make Himself known through any object profoundly regarded. Furthermore, it is the Godhead within the devotee that makes it possible for him to discover Godhead in the world without. This mystery is illustrated in Kṛṣṇa’s double presence during the act of worship.

  Indra was enraged, and sent for the king of the clouds, whom he commanded to pour rain over the people until all should be swept away. A flight of storm clouds drew over the district and began to discharge a deluge; it seemed the end of the world was at hand. But the lad Kṛṣṇa filled Mount Govardhan with the heat of his inexhaustible energy, lifted it with his little finger, and bid the people take shelter beneath. The rain struck the mountain, hissed, and evaporated. The torrent fell seven days, but not a drop touched the community of herdsmen.

  Then the god realized that the opponent must be an incarnation of the Primal Being. When Kṛṣṇa went out next day to graze the cows, playing music on his flute, the King of Heaven came down on his great white elephant, Airāvata, fell on his face at the feet of the smiling lad, and made submission.[9]

  The conclusion of the childhood cycle is the return or recognition of the hero, when, after the long period of obscurity, his true character is revealed. This event may precipitate a considerable crisis; for it amounts to an emergence of powers hitherto excluded from human life. Earlier patterns break to fragments or dissolve; disaster greets the eye. Yet after a moment of apparent havoc, the creative value of the new factor comes to view, and the world takes shape again in unsuspected glory. This theme of crucifixion-resurrection can be illustrated either on the body of the hero himself, or in his effects upon his world. The first alternative we find in the Pueblo story of the water jar.

  The men were going out to hunt rabbits, and Water Jar Boy wanted to go. “Grandfather, could you take me down to the foot of the mesa, I want to hunt rabbits.” “Poor grandson, you can’t hunt rabbits, you have no legs or arms,” said the grandfather. But Water Jar Boy was very anxious to go. “Take me anyway. You are too old and you can’t do anything.” His mother was crying because her boy had no legs or arms or eyes. But they used to feed him, in his mouth, in the mouth of the jar. So next morning his grandfather took him down to the south on the flat. Then he rolled along, and pretty soon he saw a rabbit track and he followed the track. Pretty soon the rabbit ran out, and he began to chase it. Just before he got to the marsh there was a rock, and he hit himself against it and broke, and a boy jumped up. He was very glad his skin had been broken and that he was a boy, a big boy. He was wearing lots of beads around his neck and turquoise earrings, and a dance kilt and moccasins, and a buckskin shirt.

  Catching a number of rabbits, he returned and presented them to his grandfather, who brought him triumphantly home.[10]

  The legendary cycles of medieval Ireland include: (1) The Mythological Cycle, which describes the migrations to the island of prehistoric peoples, their battles, and in particular the deeds of the race of gods known as the Tuatha De Danaan, “Children of the Great Mother, Dana”; (2) The Annals of the Milesians, or semi-historical chronicles of the last arriving race, the sons of Milesius, founders of the Celtic dynasties that survived until the arrival of the Anglo-Normans under Henry II in the twelfth century; (3) The Ulster Cycle of the Knights of the Red Branch, which treats primarily of the deeds of Cuchulainn (pronounced coohoolinn) at the court of his uncle Conchobar (pronounced conohoor): this cycle greatly influenced the development of the Arthurian tradition, in Wales, Brittany, and England — the court of Conchobar serving as model for that of King Arthur and the deeds of Cuchulainn for those of Arthur’s nephew, Sir Gawain (Gawain was the original hero of many of the adventures later assigned to Lancelot, Perceval, and Galahad); (4) The Cycle of the Fianna: the Fianna were a company of heroic fighters under the captaincy of Finn MacCool; the greatest tale of this cycle being that of the love triangle of Finn, Grianni his bride, and Diarmaid his nephew, many episodes of which come down to us in the celebrated tale of Tristan and Iseult; (5) Legends of the Irish Saints.

  The “little people” of the popular fairy lore of Christian Ireland are reductions of the earlier pagan divinities, the Tuatha De Danaan.

  The cosmic energies burning within the vivid Irish warrior Cuchulainn — chief hero of the medieval Ulster Cycle, the so-called Cycle of the Knights of the Red Branch — would suddenly burst like an eruption, both overwhelming himself and smashing everything around.

  When he was four years old — so the story goes — he set out to test the “boy corps” of his uncle, King Conchobar, at their own sports. Carrying his hurly of brass, ball of silver, throwing javelin, and toy spear, he proceeded to the court city of Emania, where, without so much as a word of permission, he dived right in among the boys — “thrice fifty in number, who were hurling on the green and practicing martial exercises with Conchobar’s son, Follamain, at their head.” The whole field let fly at him. With his fists, forearms, palms, and little shield, he parried the hurlies, balls, and spears that came simultaneously from all directions. Then for the first time in his life he was seized with his battle-frenzy (a bizarre, characteristic transformation later to be known as his “paroxysm” or “distortion”) and before anyone could grasp what was coming to pass, he had laid low fifty of the best. Five more of the boy corps
went scuttling past the king, where he sat playing chess with Fergus the Eloquent. Conchobar arose and took a hand in the confusion. But Cuchulainn would not lighten his hand until all the youngsters had been placed under his protection and guarantee.[11]

  Cuchulainn’s first day under arms was the occasion of his full self-manifestation. There was nothing serenely controlled about this performance, nothing of the playful irony that we feel in the deeds of the Hindu Kṛṣṇa. Rather, the abundance of Cuchulainn’s power was becoming known for the first time to himself, as well as to everybody else. It broke out of the depths of his being, and then had to be dealt with, impromptu and fast.

  The happening was again at the court of King Conchobar, the day Cathbad the Druid declared in prophecy of any stripling who that day should assume arms and armature that “the name of such an one would transcend those of all Ireland’s youths besides: his life however would be fleeting short.” Cuchulainn forthwith demanded fighting equipment. Seventeen sets of weapons given him he shattered with his strength, until Conchobar invested him with his own outfit. Then he reduced the chariots to fragments. Only that of the king was strong enough to support his trial.

  Cuchulainn commanded Conchobar’s charioteer to drive him past the distant “Look-out Ford,” and they came presently to a remote fortress, the Dun of the Sons of Nechtan, where he cut off the heads of the defenders. He fastened the heads to the sides of the car. On the road back he jumped to the ground and “by sheer running and mere speed” captured two stags of the grandest bulk. With two stones he knocked out of the air two dozen flying swans. And with thongs and other gear he tethered all, both the beasts and the birds, to the chariot.

  Levarchan the Prophetess beheld the pageant with alarm as it approached the city and castle of Emania. “The chariot is graced with bleeding heads of his enemies,” she declared, “beautiful white birds he has which in the chariot bear him company, and wild unbroken stags bound and tethered to the same.” “I know that chariot-fighter,” the king said: “even the little boy, my sister’s son, who this very day went to the marches. Surely he will have reddened his hand; and should his fury not be timely met, all Emania’s young men will perish by him.” Very quickly, a method had to be contrived to abate his heat; and one was found. One hundred and fifty women of the castle, and Scandlach their leader at the head of them, “reduced themselves critically to nature’s garb, and without subterfuge of any kind trooped out to meet him.” The little warrior, embarrassed or perhaps overwhelmed by such a display of womanhood, averted his eyes, at which moment he was seized by the men and soused into a vat of cold water. The staves and hoops of the vessel flew asunder. A second vat boiled. The third became only very hot. Thus Cuchulainn was subdued, and the city saved.[12]

  A beautiful boy indeed was that: seven toes to each foot Cuchulainn had, and to either hand as many fingers; his eyes were bright with seven pupils apiece, each one of which glittered with seven gemlike sparkles. On either cheek he had four moles: a blue, a crimson, a green, and a yellow. Between one ear and the other he had fifty clear-yellow long tresses that were as the yellow wax of bees, or like unto a brooch of the white gold as it glints to the sun unobscured. He wore a green mantle silver-clasped upon his breast and a gold-thread shirt.[13]

  But when he was taken by his paroxysm or distortion “he became a fearsome and multiform and wondrous and hitherto unknown being.” All over him, from his crown to the ground, his flesh and every limb and joint and point and articulation of him quivered. His feet, shins, and knees shifted themselves and were behind him. The frontal sinews of his head were dragged to the back of his neck, where they showed in lumps bigger than the head of a man-child aged one month.

  One eye became engulfed in his head so far that ’tis a question whether a wild heron could have got at it where it lay against his occiput, to drag it out upon the surface of his cheek; the other eye on the contrary protruded suddenly, and of itself so rested upon the cheek. His mouth was twisted awry till it met his ears...flakes of fire streamed from it. The sounding blows of the heart that pounded within him were as the howl of a ban-dog doing his office, or of a lion in the act of charging bears. Among the aërial clouds over his head were visable the virulent pouring showers and sparks of ruddy fire which the seething of his savage wrath caused to mount up above him. His hair became tangled about his head...over the which though a prime apple-tree had been shaken, yet may we surmise that never an apple of them would have reached the ground, but rather that all would have been held impaled each on an individual hair as it bristled on him for fury. His “hero’s paroxysm” projected itself out of his forehead, and showed longer as well as thicker than the whetstone of a first-rate man-at-arms. [And finally:] taller, thicker, more rigid, longer than the mast of a great ship was the perpendicular jet of dusky blood which out of his scalp’s very central point shot upwards and then was scattered to the four cardinal points; whereby was formed a magic mist of gloom resembling the smoky pall that drapes a regal dwelling, what time a king at night fall of a winter’s day draws near to it.[14]

  3. The Hero as Warrior

  The place of the hero’s birth, or the remote land of exile from which he returns to perform his adult deeds among men, is the mid-point or navel of the world. Just as ripples go out from an underwater spring, so the forms of the universe expand in circles from the source.

  “Above the broad, unmoving depths, beneath the nine spheres and the seven floors of heaven, at the central point, the World Navel, the quietest place on earth, where eternal summer rules and the cuckoo everlasting calls, there the White Youth came to consciousness.” So begins a hero myth of the Yakuts of Siberia. The White Youth went forth to learn where he was and what his dwelling place was like. Eastward of him lay stretching a broad, fallow field, in the middle of which arose a mighty hill, and on the summit of the hill a gigantic tree. The resin of that tree was transparent and sweet scented, the bark never dried or cracked, the sap shone silver, the luxuriant leaves never wilted, and the catkins resembled a cluster of reversed cups. The summit of the tree rose over the seven heaven-floors and served as a tethering post for the High God, Yryn-ai-tojon; while the roots penetrated into the subterranean abysses, where they formed the pillars of the dwellings of the mythical creatures proper to that zone. The tree held conversation, through its foliage, with the beings of the sky.

  When the White Youth turned to face south, he perceived in the midst of a green grassy plain the quiet Lake of Milk that no breath of wind ever stirs; and around the shores of the lake were swamps of curdle. To the north of him a somber forest stood with trees that rustled day and night; and therein was moving every kind of beast. Tall mountains were lifting beyond it, and appeared to be wearing caps of white rabbit fur; they leaned against the sky and protected this middle place from the northern wind. A thicket of scrub stretched out to the west, and beyond it stood a forest of tall firs; behind the forest gleamed a number of blunt-headed solitary peaks.

  This was the manner, then, of the world in which the White Youth beheld the light of day. Presently tired, however, of being alone, he went over to the gigantic tree of life. “Honored High Mistress, Mother of my Tree and my Dwelling Place,” he prayed; “everything that lives exists in pairs and propagates descendants, but I am alone. I want now to travel and to seek a wife of my own kind; I wish to measure my strength against my kind; I want to become acquainted with men — to live according to the manner of men. Do not deny me thy blessing; I do humbly pray. I bow my head and bend my knee.”

  Figure 72. Paleolithic Petroglyph (carved rock, Paleolithic, Algiers, date uncertain)

  Then the leaves of the tree began murmuring, and a fine, milk-white rain descended from them upon the White Youth. A warm breath of wind could be felt. The tree began to groan, and out of its roots a female figure emerged to the waist: a woman of middle age, with earnest regard, hair flowing free, and bosom bare. The goddess offered her milk to the youth from a sumptuous breast, and after partaking of
it he felt his strength increase a hundredfold. At the same time the goddess promised the youth every happiness and blessed him in such a way that neither water, nor fire, iron, nor anything else should ever do him harm.[15]

  From the umbilical spot the hero departs to realize his destiny. His adult deeds pour creative power into the world.

  Sang the aged Väinämöinen;

  Lakes swelled up, and earth was shaken,

  And the coppery mountains trembled,

  And the mighty rocks resounded.

  And the mountains clove asunder;

  On the shore the stones were shattered.[16]

  The stanza of the hero-bard resounds with the magic of the word of power; similarly, the sword edge of the hero-warrior flashes with the energy of the creative Source: before it fall the shells of the Outworn.

  I am here keeping the distinction between the earlier semi-animal titan-hero (city founder, culture giver) and the later, fully human type. The deeds of the latter frequently include the slaying of the former, the Pythons and Minotaurs who were the boon-givers of the past. (A god outgrown becomes immediately a life-destroying demon. The form has to be broken and the energies released.) Not infrequently deeds that belong to the earlier stages of the cycle are assigned to the human hero, or one of the earlier heroes may be humanized and carried on into a later day; but such contaminations and variations do not alter the general formula.

  For the mythological hero is the champion not of things become but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo: Holdfast, the keeper of the past. From obscurity the hero emerges, but the enemy is great and conspicuous in the seat of power; he is enemy, dragon, tyrant, because he turns to his own advantage the authority of his position. He is Holdfast not because he keeps the past but because he keeps.