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The Ultonians slept that night in the smiths' hall upon resplendent couches which had been prepared for them, and early in the morning, having taken a friendly leave of the artificers, they departed, leaving the lad behind them asleep. Setanta remained with the smiths a long time after that, and Culain and his people loved him greatly and taught him many things.
The smiths thereupon armed themselves with their hammers, and tongs, and fire-poles, and great bars of unwrought brass, and Culain himself seized an anvil withal to lay waste the ranks of the Red Branch.
When he saw the company looking at him, he blushed, and his blushing became him well. "Culain the smith," said Concobar, "hath invited us to a feast. If it is pleasing to thee, come too." "It is pleasing indeed," replied the boy, for he ardently desired to see the famous artificer, his people, his furnaces, and his engines.
When the man departed the Red Branch gave a loose rein to their mirth, each man charging the other with being in especial the person whose presence would be a cause of sorrow to the smith. Culain was a mighty craftsman in those days. It was he who used to make weapons, armour, and chariots for the Ultonians, and there was never in Ireland a better smith than he.
But at this moment, ere the first missile was hurled on either side, the boy Setanta sprang into the midst, into the middle space which separated the enraged men, and cried aloud, with a clear high voice that rang distinct above the tumult "O Culain, forbear to hurl, and restrain thy people, and you the Ultonians, my kinsmen, delay to shoot.
Then the smiths sang one of their songs of labour, though it needed the accompaniment of ringing mettle, a song wild and strange, and the Ultonians clear and high sang all together with open mouths a song of battle and triumph and of the marching home to Emain Macha with victory; and so they spent the night, till Concobar said "O Culain, feasting and singing are good, but slumber is good also.
It was owing to this adventure and what came of it that Setanta got his second name, viz., the Hound of Culain or Cu-Culain. Under that name he wrought all his marvellous deeds. "Sing, O Muse, the destructive wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans." Homer. Concobar Mac Nessa sat one day in his high chair, judging the Ultonians.
The Ultonians ran to meet him, but Fergus Mac Roy was the first, and he took Setanta upon his mighty shoulder and bore him along and set him down at the table between himself and the King. "Did the dog come against thee?" said Culain. "Truly he came against me," answered the boy. "And art thou hurt?" cried the smith. "No, indeed," answered Setanta, "but I think he is."
With difficulty were the smiths persuaded to yield to that request, for right seldom was there a feast in Dun Culain, and the unusual pleasure and joyful sense of comradeship and social exaltation were very pleasing to their hearts.
He made no reverence to Concobar or to any of the Ultonians, but standing stark before them, spake thus, not fluently: "My master, Culain, high smith of all Ulster, bids thee to supper this night, O Concobar; and he wills thee to know that because he has not wide territories, and flocks, and herds, and tribute-paying peoples, only the implements of his industry, his anvils and hammers and tongs, and the slender profits of his labour, he feareth to feast all the Red Branch, who are by report mighty to eat and to drink; he would not for all Ireland bring famine upon his own industrious youths, his journeymen and his apprentices.
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