Conall. [I] Of the several Conalls in Irish myth, the best known is Conall Cearnach, "Of the Victories." It is he who avenges the death of Cuchulainn and is also instrumental in bringing about the death of Conchobhar Mac Nessa by a weapon he has devised by crushing the brain ofMac Da Th6, who he slays, and mixing it with lime to make a magical slingshot. This lodges into Conchobhar's head and causes his death seven years afterwards. Conall Cearnach is one of the great Ulster champions and many adventures are attributed to him.

Conan. [I] Of the warriors called Conan who appear in Irish myth, Conan Mac Morna or Conan Maol (bald), the brother of Goll, is well known. He appears as a buffoon, a glutton, and a coward, as well as foul-mouthed and a braggart.

Conchobhar Mac Nessa. [I] King of Ulster throughout the Red Branch Cycle. His mother, Nessa, promised to marry Fergus Mac Roth on condition that he give up the throne of Ulster for one year to her son, Conchobhar. At the end of the year, Conchobhar refused to return it and Fergus is driven into exile. Conchobhar appears in the sagas as something of a despot. He lusts after Deirdre and kills her lover Naoise. He is victorious in the war of the Tain. Eventually Conall of the Victories strikes him with a magical slingshot, which lodges in his brain. He is not killed but neither can the "brain ball" be extracted. After seven years Conchobhar loses his temper and the "brain ball" splits and kills him.

Condatis.Gaulish god of confluence.

Condwiramur. [W] A maiden who in some versions of Peredur, Perceval, or Parzival and the Grail marries him and bears his son Lohenergrain.

Conlai. [I] A son of Cuchulainn by Aoife of the Land of Shadows. Cuchulainn, not recognising him, slays him.

Conn. [I] While there are several characters of this name, including a son of Lir, it is Conn of the Hundred Battles, the High King, who usually comes to mind. Associated with him are tales concerning the appearance of Lugh, who foretells his destiny, and of a beautiful goddess who represents sovranty .

Connachta. [I] The province of Connacht, an ancient kingdom, also known as the kingdom of Cruchain. It is often in rivalry with Ulster, especially during the Tain War. Medb is said to have ruled there for eighty-eight years.

Coraniaid. [W] From corr, "dwarf." A group of small beings who wrought a plague in Britain in the tale "Lludd and Llefelys." According to the tale "so great was their knowledge that there was no discourse over the face of the island, however low it might be spoken, that they qid not know about if the wind met it." Their plague was but one of three that befell Britain. The second was a terrible scream raised by a dragon in contest with a foreign dragon on Beltaine that left all animals, trees, and waters barren. The place of their contest was under the midpoint of Britain, according to Lludd (in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia), at the site of Oxford. The third plague was that of a giant who stole all the food prepared for the king's court, except that consumed on the first night. The Coraniaid tale bears a similarity to the despoiling of the Irish Tuatha De Danaan by the Fomorii. The Coraniaid seem to be connected with the Corriganed, which have passed into Breton folklore as a group of invisible fairies who inhabit Brittany and are more generally known as the corrigan or korrigan. Professor J. Loth equated the corrigan with the Welsh Tylwyth reg.

Cormac.[I] The most famous of the three warriors named Cormac in Irish myth is Cormac Mac Art, the High King, said to have ruled in the historical period A.D. 254-277. He was the patron of the Fianna, the royal bodyguard, during their adventures under Fionn Mac Cumhail. Several tales are associated with him, including a trip to the Otherworld. His son Cairbre succeeded him and destroyed the Fianna.

Cornish. (Kernewek) The language of Cornwall, deriving from British Celtic (Brythonic), was the ancestor tongue also of Welsh and Breton. Cornish died as a generally spoken community language in Cornwall in the late eighteenth century, although a native knowledge of it was retained by some individuals until the start of the twentieth century, when a language revival was started by enthusiasts. Earliest forms of it as a distinct language occur from ninth century texts. The Vocabularium Cornicum is a twelfth century Latin/Cornish lexicon, also known as the "Cottonian Vocabulary." The main corpus of early Cornish literature is contained in a number of medieval religious plays, such as Buenans Meriasek, the life of St. Meriasek, the Ordinalia cycle of three dramas, plus the Pascon agan Arluth (Passion Poem).  While tradition has placed the provenance of the Arthurian legends and the romance of Tristan and Iseult to a Cornish setting, there are no surviving Cornish manuscripts that record any of the stories. Yet there. is an intriguing indication that such sources might have existed. [Some works on the Cornish provenance of the Arthur saga are contained in Henry Jenner's "The Arthurian Legend," Journal of the Royal Institute of Cornwall, vol. LVII, and P. A. Lanyon Orgill's "Cornwall and the Arthurian Legends," Cornish Review, No.6, Winter, 1950.]

The second great romantic saga connected specifically with Cornwall is Tristan and Iseult. Again, no early Cornish manuscripts survive with the tale. Indeed, the earliest full-length version in a Celtic language is the sixteenth century Welsh Ystoria Trystan, now in Cardiff Library. However, Joseph Bedlier [Le Roman de Tristan par Thomas,Paris 1902-1905] was the first scholar to demonstrate that all the stories of Tristan and Iseult could be traced back to a single poem-one written by Thomas, a French poet of the twelfth century. Professor Joseph Loth believed that Thomas had acquired the poem from a Cornish source. [Joseph Loth, Revue Celtique, vol. XXXIII, 1912, and also Des Nouvelles Theories sur l'origine des Roman Arthurian, Paris, 1892. For a further exposition, see also Henry Jenner, "The Tristan romance and its Cornish provenance," Journal of the Royal Institute of Cornwall, vol. XVIII.] Cornwall abounds with folktales, many of which are comparative with other Celtic cultural traditions.
[See Robert Morton Nance, Folk Lore recorded in the Cornish language, Camborne, n.d. Nicholas Boson's "The Dutchess of Cornwall's Progresse" is basically a survey of West Penwith folklore (Bodleian Library ms.10714). An excellent study of this is A. K. Hamilton Jenkin's "The Dutchess of Cornwall's Progress," Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1924. A survey of Cornish folktales was made in Robert Hunt's Popular Romances of the West of England, 1865, and in William Bottrell's three volumes, Traditions and Hearthside Stories, 1880.]