Early on the morning of the fight, others say the evening before, Hugh was out walking, and at the boundary stream (_allt crìche_) saw an Elfin woman rinsing clothes, and singing the “Song of the M’Leans.”[28] Her long breasts, after the manner of her kind (according to the Mull belief regarding these weird women), hung down and interfered with her washing, and she now and then flung them over her shoulders to keep them out of the way. Hugh crept up silently behind her, and catching one of the breasts, as is recommended in such cases, put the nipple in his mouth, saying, “Yourself and I be witness you are my first nursing mother.” She answered, “The hand of your father and grandfather be upon you! You had need that it is so.” He then asked her what she was doing. She said, “Washing the shirts of your mortally-wounded men” (_Nigheadh leintean nam fir ghointe agad-sa_), or (as others say) “the clothes of those who will mount the horses to-morrow and will not return” (_aodach nam fear theid air na h-eich a màireach ’s nach till_). He asked her, “Will I win the fight?” She answered that if he and his men got “butter without asking” (_Im gun iarraidh_) to their breakfast, he would win; if not, he would lose. He asked if he himself would return alive from the battle (_an d’thig mise as beò?_), and she either answered ambiguously or not at all; and when going away left him as her parting gift (_fāgail_) that he should go about to give warning of approaching death to all his race. The same morning he put on a new suit, and a servant woman coming in just as he had donned it, praised it, and said, “May you enjoy and wear it” (_Meal is caith e_). It was deemed unlucky that a woman should be the first to say this, and Hugh replied to the evil omen by saying, “May you not enjoy your health” (_Na na meal thusa do shlàinte_).