Cathbad

A Druid in Irish legend who foretells the destiny of several important characters.
Among Celtic peoples during the last centuries b.c., the Druids were the principal priests, magicians, scholars, and royal counselors. Their order was organized and powerful. It may have had a remote ancestry in shamanism; primitive elements are suggested by barbarities such as human sacrifice. The Druids opposed Rome, and in countries that Rome conquered, they were suppressed or nearly so. They survived in Ireland, chiefly as individual practitioners with less influence. Early Irish laws rank them below the nobility, among “men of art.”
However, a number of tales may preserve traditions of an age when they occupied a higher rank in society. The legendary Druid Cathbad (or Cathub), reputedly active in Ulster around the beginning of the Christian era, was the chief of a band of warriors and used his prophetic gifts at the topmost social levels. When the princess Nes was sitting outside the royal house with her maidens, Cathbad passed by. She asked him, “What is the present hour lucky for?” He replied, “For begetting a king upon a queen.” The child would grow up to be a very great man. No other male person was in sight, so Nes invited him in. Their son Conchobar became king of Ulster.
According to another version, Cathbad and his followers had slain some of Nes’s kinfolk.

She recruited a band of her own with a view to vengeance, but Cathbad trapped her, and she agreed to be his wife. When she was about to give birth, he told her that if it could be deferred until nightfall, the child would have an auspicious start by arriving at the same time as a supremely glorious being, Jesus Christ; and he would become a great ruler himself. She managed to hold back by sitting on a stone slab, and Conchobar was born at the right moment.
When he was king, Cathbad remained in his household as an adviser. Besides having eight personal disciples, he instructed large classes of royal and aristocratic pupils. He taught them druidic lore and assisted at the ceremonies when they attained warrior status and were equipped with weapons.
The most famous case was that of Cu Chulainn, Conchobar’s nephew, afterwards one of the principal Irish heroes. When still a child, he heard Cathbad prophesying to his class that the life of any youth armed on that day would be short but his renown would be eternal. Cu Chulainn went to Conchobar and demanded arms at once, pretending that the Druid had given him leave. The king indulged him, but he smashed every set offered to him, fifteen in all, and was satisfied only when given Conchobar’s own weapons. He rode out in the royal chariot, slew three enemies, and returned with their heads, also leading a tethered deer behind the chariot and some captive swans flying above. Seeing that he was heated with battle fury, the king’s men plunged him in a vat of cold water. It burst, and they put him in another, but the water boiled. Only a third water treatment finally cooled him. Cu Chulainn grew up to perform mighty exploits. Understandably, he was remembered; Cathbad’s foresight was correct.
On another occasion, Conchobar and the noblemen of Ulster were feasting at the home of Feidlimid, the king’s storyteller. Feidlimid’s wife waited on them, though she was advanced in pregnancy. Suddenly, the child in her womb gave a scream. Cathbad foretold the birth of Derdriu (better known to modern readers as Deirdre). She would be incredibly beautiful, and she would bring sorrow to Ulster. The way in which this tragedy happened is the theme of one of the best-known of all Irish legends.