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VI. GODS, DEMONS AND HEROES.

pressed too hard; for Irish literature never consciously identifies these Titans and Giants; so their names never

    or Gailiúin into Ireland in the train of Labraid Longsech, and these strangers, in Irish gaill, are sometimes made into Galli or Gauls (O'Curry, ij. 256-7), while the Bk. of Leinster, 159a, speaks of them as Dub-gaill, or Black Strangers, following Labraid from Denmark under one Ernoll. The fact, however, is that Labraid's coming with Fir Domnann and Gailióin is merely another version of Morc's arrival with a fleet from Africa to aid the Fomori in Tory Island: in short, one would probably not be far wrong in taking Labraid to have been one of the names of Morc, otherwise called Margg, steward of the king of Fomori (Bk. of Leinster, 160a), in Welsh, March (ab Meirchion), who had a horse's ears (Cymmrodor, vi. 181-3): compare the Breton story of the king of Portzmarch (Rev. Celt. ij. 507). In Irish, the owner of the equine ears usually bears the name of Labraid (ib. ij. 197-8). (5) Four of the Fomori are said to have escaped from the battle of the northern Moytura and to have employed themselves in ruining the corn and milk, the fruit-crops and sea-produce of the Tuatha Dé Danann: one of these was called Redg (ib. i. 41). As the Fomori were the enemies of Lug, so the Fir Bolg, under Ailill of Cruachan, who was one of them, were arrayed against Cúchulainn, and finally under Erc they triumphed over him. It is to be noticed that on the Táin one of the foes killed by Cúchulainn was called Marc (Bk. of the Dun, 70b); also that the person bearing the very uncommon name of Redg was likewise in Ailill's retinue, and on one occasion engaged by him to compass the great Ultonian's death, when he fell at the latter's hand, the victim of his own stratagem. He is described in the Bk. of the Dun, 70b, as Ailill's satirist, that is to say, one whose business was the formidable one of pronouncing baleful incantations: it was planned by Ailill that he should introduce himself to Cúchulainn and ask him for a gift, with the customary choice of naming it: this turned out to be Cúchulainn's spear or javelin, and that in the hour of his greatest straits. Cúchulainn said he had more need of it than Redg, and that he would give him treasure instead. No, he would accept nothing but the javelin: so Cúchulainn threw the weapon at him with the but end foremost, and with such force that the recipient declared that it was more than enough of a gift, as it went through his body. The same tactics were employed by Erc and his Gailióin on Cúchulainn's fatal day (Bk. of Leinster, 119a, Rev. Celt. iij. 178-80), and though he killed the boon-