and one of the results is, that we cannot, with our imperfect knowledge of Irish literature, trace how the story originally described Lugaid becoming hostile to Cúchulainn. It is otherwise with the corresponding Teutonic story of Brynhild wooed to be Gunther's wife by Siegfried, who some time afterwards falls the victim of a foul murder perpetrated with Gunther's aid; for the narrative tries to account for the change in Gunther's feelings towards his friend and benefactor.[1] But in the case of Cúchulainn and Lugaid we have to make a spring, so to say, from the tenderness of their friendship into the thick of their deadly feud, when the braves of Ulster were again in their couvade, and their land was devastated by their enemies from the other provinces of Erinn. For they were this time under the leadership, not of Ailill and Medb, but of Lugaid and his friend Erc king of Leinster, aided by cunning magicians called Calatín and his Sons, who had also assisted Cúchulainn's foes on the Táin.[2] The sequel has already been briefly related, how Cúchulainn, trying to make head against them, fell by the hand of Lugaid. Now the stories which treat Lugaid as Cúchulainn's friend do not permit the former to be seen in his character of a personification of darkness and death, of evil both physical and moral. This has to be gathered indirectly from such facts as the following. The flagstones of Lugaid's court, under which his body was said to be buried, appear to have been so well known to Irish folk-lore as to have elicited an explanation which interpreted them to mean blushes and disgrace, or else
- ↑ Cox's Tales of the Teutonic Lands, pp. 96—106.
- ↑ Bk of Leinster, 119a—120b; also 93a.
