The next day, a warrior named Loch went to meet Cuchulainn. At first he refused to fight one who was beardless; so Cuchulainn smeared his chin with blackberry juice, until it looked as though he had a beard. While Cuchulainn was fighting Loch, the Morrígú came against him three times—first as a heifer which tried to overthrow him, and next as an eel which got beneath his feet as he stood in running water, and then as a wolf which seized hold of his right arm. But Cuchulainn broke the heifer’s leg, and trampled upon the eel, and put out one of the wolf’s eyes, though, every one of these three times, Loch wounded him. In the end, Cuchulainn slew Loch with his invincible spear, the _gae bolg_[208], made of a sea-monster’s bones. The Morrígú came back to Cuchulainn, disguised as an old woman, to have her wounds healed by him, for no one could cure them but he who had made them. She became his friend after this, and helped him. But the fighting was so continuous that Cuchulainn got no sleep, except just for a while, from time to time, when he might rest a little, with his head on his hand and his hand on his spear and his spear on his knee. So that his father, Lugh the Long-handed, took pity on him and came to him in the semblance of a tall, handsome man in a green cloak and a gold-embroidered silk shirt, and carrying a black shield and a five-pronged spear. He put him into a sleep of three days and three nights, and, while he rested, he laid druidical herbs on to all his wounds, so that, in the end, he rose up again completely healed and as strong as at the very beginning of the war. While he was asleep, the boy-troop of Emain Macha, Cuchulainn’s old companions, came and fought instead of him, and slew three times their own number, but were all killed. It was at this time that Medb asked Fergus to go and fight with Cuchulainn. Fergus answered that he would never fight against his own foster-son. Medb asked him again and again, and at last he went, but without his famous sword. “Fergus, my guardian,” said Cuchulainn, “it is not safe for you to come out against me without your sword.” “If I had the sword,” replied Fergus, “I would not use it on you.” Then Fergus asked Cuchulainn, for the sake of all he had done for him in his boy-hood, to pretend to fight with him, and then give way before him and run away. Cuchulainn answered that he was very loth to be seen running from any man. But Fergus promised Cuchulainn that, if Cuchulainn would run away from Fergus then, Fergus would run away from Cuchulainn at some future time, whenever Cuchulainn wished. Cuchulainn agreed to this, for he knew that it would be for the profit of Ulster. So they fought a little, and then Cuchulainn turned and fled in the sight of all Medb’s army. Fergus went back; and Medb could not reproach him any more.