Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER V: TALES OF THE ULTONIAN CYCLE 179The next champion sent against him by Maev was Loch sonof Mofebis. To meet this hero it is said that Cuchulain had tostain his chin with blackberry juice so as to simulate a beard, lestLoch should disdain to do combat with a boy. So they fought inthe Ford, and the Morrigan came against him in the guise of a [213]white heifer with red ears, but Cuchulain fractured her eye witha cast of his spear. Then she came swimming up the river likea black eel and twisted herself about his legs, and ere he couldrid himself of her Loch wounded him. Then she attacked himas a grey wolf, and again, before he could subdue her, he waswounded by Loch. At this his battle-fury took hold of him andhe drove the Gae Bolg against Loch, splitting his heart in two.“Suffer me to rise,” said Loch, “that I may fall on my face on thyside of the ford, and not backward toward the men of Erin.” “It isa warrior's boon thou askest,” said Cuchulain, “and it is granted.”So Loch died; and a great despondency, it is said, now fell uponCuchulain, for he was outwearied with continued fighting, andsorely wounded, and he had never slept since the beginning ofthe raid, save leaning upon his spear; and he sent his charioteer,Laeg, to see if he could rouse the men of Ulster to come to hisaid at last.Lugh the ProtectorBut as he lay at evening by the grave mound of Lerga ingloom and dejection, watching the camp-fires of the vast armyencamped over against him and the glitter of their innumerablespears, he saw coming through the host a tall and comely warriorwho strode impetuously forward, and none of the companiesthrough which he passed turned his head to look at him orseemed to see him. He wore a tunic of silk embroidered withgold, and a green mantle fastened with a silver brooch; in onehand was a black shield bordered with silver and two spears inthe other. The stranger came to Cuchulain and spoke gently andsweetly to him of his long toil and waking, and his sore wounds,and said in the end: “Sleep now, Cuchulain, by the grave in