[3] This is the periodic curse which overtook the Ulstermen at certain periods, rendering them feeble as a woman in child-bed, in consequence of the malediction of the goddess Macha, who was, just before the birth of her children, inhumanly obliged by the Ultonians to run against the king's horses. The only people of the northern province free from this curse were the children born before the curse was uttered, the women, and the hero Cuchulain. It transmitted itself from father to son for nine generations, and is said to have lasted five nights and four days, or four nights and five days. But one would think from the Táin Bo Chuailgne that it must have lasted much longer. For this curse _see_ Jubainville's "Epopée Celtique," p. 320. I was, not long ago, told a story by a peasant in the county Galway not unlike it, only it was related of the mother of the celebrated boxer Donnelly. [4] Except in one place in the Táin Bo Chuailgne, where his sword is spoken of, which was like a thread in his hand, but which when he smote with it extended itself to the size of a rainbow, with three blows of which upon the ground he raised three hills. The description of Fergus in the Conor story preserved in the Book of Leinster, is simply and frankly that of a giant many times the size of an ordinary man. [5] The female warrior and war-teacher was not uncommon among the Celts, as the examples of Boadicea and of Mève of Connacht show. [6] "Cnámha an tseanchusa." [7] Rawlinson, B. 512. [8] For Déirdre in her lament over the three does call them "three pupils of Scathach." [9] Pronounced "Eefă." The triphthong _aoi_ has always the sound of _ee_ in English. The stepmother of the Children of Lir was also called Aoife. [10] I quote this from my paper version. The oldest text only says that "Cuchulain told her that she should bear him a son, and that upon a certain day in seven years' time that son should go to him; he told her what name she should give him, and then he went away." [11] P. 279 of John O'Mahony's edition, translated also by M. de Jubainville in his "Epopée Celtique," who comparing the Irish story with its Germanic counterpart expresses himself strongly on their relative merits: "Tout est puissant, logique, primitif, dans la pièce irlandaise; sa concordance avec la piece persanne atteste une haute antiquité. Elle peut remonter aux époques celtiques les plus anciennes, et avoir été du nombre des _carmina_ chantés par les Gaulois à la bataille de Clusium en 295 av. J.-C. Le poème allemand dont on a une copie du huitième siècle est une imitation inintelligente et affaiblie du chant celtique qui a dû retentir sur les rives du Danube et du Mein mille ans plus tôt, et dont la rédaction germanique est l'œuvre de quelque naïf Macpherson, prédécesseur honnêtement inhabile de celui du dix-huitième siècle." [12] "Is mé an barc o thuinn go tuinn, Is mé an long iar ndul d'á stiúr. Is mé an t-ubhall i mbárr an chroinn Is beag do shaoil a thuitim."