ose parts of Ireland where its hero's name is a
proverb (_Comh laidir le Cuchulain_, Strong as Cuchulain), it may be
well to set out the legend here.

Cuchulain, the Achilles of Irish epic, was famous from the day in
boyhood when he got his name by killing, bare-handed, the smith's fierce
watchdog that would have torn him. The ransom for the killing was laid
on by the boy himself, and it was that he should watch Culann's house
for a year and a day till a pup should be grown to take the place of the
slain dog. So he came to be called Cu Chulain, Culann's Hound, and by
that name he was known when, as a young champion, he set out for the
Isle of Skye, where the warrior-witch Sgathach (from whom the island is
called) taught the crowning feats of arms to all young heroes who could
pass through the ordeals she laid upon them.

There was no trial that Cuchulain could not support, and the fame of him
drew on a combat with another Amazonian warrior, Aoife, who, in the
story that I heard, was Sgathach's daughter, though Lady Gregory in her
fine book _Cuchulain of Muirthemne_ gives another version. But, at any
rate, Cuchulain defeated Aoife, and she gave love to her
conqueror--whose passion for the fierce queen was not strong enough to
keep him from Ireland. When he made ready to go, the woman warrior told
him that a child was to be born of their embraces, and she asked what
should be done with it. "If it be a girl, keep it," said Cuchulain,
"but if a boy, wait till his thumb can fill this ring"--and he gave her
the circlet--"then send him to me." So he departed, leaving wrath behind
him.

The child born was a son, and Aoife reared him and taught him all feats
of arms that could be taught to a mortal, except one only, and of that
feat only Cuchulain was master: "the way," said James Kelly, prefacing
his ballad with such an explanation as I am now giving, "there would be
none could kill him but his own father." And when the boy had learnt all
and was the perfect warrior, Aoife sent him out to Ireland under a
pledge to refuse his name to any that should ask it, well knowing how
the wardens of the coast would stop him on the shore. It fell out as she
purposed. The young Connlaoch defeated champion after champion till
Cuchulain himself went down, and was recognised by his son. But the
pledge tied Connlaoch's tongue, and only when he lay dying, slain by the
magic throw which Aoife had withheld from his knowledge, could he reveal
him