Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/492

was to have of the plunder the jewel that pleased him best. They brought away from Mider's castle Mider's daughter Bláthnat, as she was a damsel of exceeding beauty; also Mider's Three Cows and his Cauldron, which were objects of special value and virtues. When they came to the division of the spoils, the mean-looking man in grey, who had led the victorious assault, said that the jewel he chose was Bláthnat, whom he took to himself. Cúchulainn complained that he had deceived them, as he had only specified a jewel, which he insisted on interpreting in no metaphorical sense; but by means of his magic, the man in grey managed to carry the girl away unobserved. Cúchulainn pursued, and the dispute came to be settled by a duel on the spot, in which Cúchulainn was so thoroughly vanquished that Cúroi left him on the field bound hand and foot, after having cut off his long hair,^[1] which forced Cúchulainn to hide himself for a whole year in the wilds of Ulster, while Cúroi carried away to his stronghold of Caher Conree both Bláthnat and her father's cows and cauldron.^[2] This story seems to mix up two things, the first of which was the carrying away of the Three Cows and the Cauldron of the king of the fairy island, of which a very different version represents it as Cúchulainn's own doing (p. 261). Now Falga is variously^[3] supposed to have been the Isle of Man or Insi Gall, that is to say, the Western Isles; but, according to Cormac's Glossary, the cows, which

1. That was not all, for the Bk. of Leinster, 169b, adds the words: diarfumalt (.i. diarchommil) cacc nambó moachend.
2. O'Curry, iij. 81; O'Connor's Keating, loc. cit.
3. See O'Curry, iij. 80, and a gloss on Falga in the Bk. of Leinster, 169b.