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"Because," answered Laeg, "there is always one of the King's knights there, keeping watch and ward over the gate of the province." "Guide thither the horses," said Cuculain, "for I will not lay aside my arms till I have first reddened them in the blood of the enemies of my nation. Who is it that is over the ward there this day?" "It is Conall Carnach," said Laeg.
Amongst them was Laeg, with a pale face and dejected, his eyes red and his cheeks stained from much weeping. Cuculain laughed when he saw him, and called him forth from the rest, naming him by his name with a loud, clear voice, heard to the utmost limit of the great host. "There was fear upon thee," said Cuculain. "There is fear upon thyself," answered Laeg.
"They are the enchanted herd of Slieve Fuad, and from their abode subterrene they have come up late into the world surrounded by night that they may graze upon Eiriu's plains, and it is not lawful even to look upon them." "Pursue and run down those deer," said Cuculain. "There is fear upon me," said Laeg.
When this was done, and when he had secured his master's weapons and warlike equipments in their respective places, the youths ascended the chariot, and Laeg shook the ringing reins and called to the steeds to go, and they went, and soon they were on the hard highway straining forward to the north. The sound of the war-car behind them outroared the roaring of the flames.
The people of the dun were now awake, and they clustered like bees on the slope of the mound, and in the covered ways beneath the eaves and along the rampart, and they hissed and roared and shouted words of insult and contumely, lewd and gross, concerning Laeg and concerning that other youth who slept in such a place and at such a time.
For it is, I repeat, the heroic Gaelic world that MacDowell has made to live again in his music: that miraculous world of stupendous passions and aspirations, of bards and heroes and great adventure the world of Cuchullin the Unconquerable, and Laeg, and Queen Meave; of Naesi, and Deirdré the Beautiful, and Fergus, and Connla the Harper, and those kindred figures, lovely or greatly tragical, that are like no other figures in the world's mythologies.
Laeg saw the tokens of it, and feared and obeyed. Unwillingly he came down the slopes of Slieve Modurn, and unwillingly harnessed the horses and yoked the chariot, and yoked the horses. Southwards, then, they fared swiftly through the night, and the intervening nations heard them as they went. When they arrived at the dun of the sons of Nectan it was twilight and the dawning of the day.
"Master, I see two people but dimly. One is a man, huge of stature and standing like Laeg the hero, the friend of the hero Cuculain, leaning upon an ax " "That is Cathbarr of the Ax," broke in the Dark Master. "His bane comes not at my hands. Who is the other?" Again the old harper seemed to struggle, and his voice came more faintly: "I cannot see, master. I think it is a woman "
"What are those birds whiter than snow and more brilliant than stars," said then Cuculain, "which are before us upon the plain, as if Heaven with its astral lights and splendour were outspread before us there?" "They are the wild geese of the enchanted flocks of Lir," answered Laeg.
When Cuculain saw them advancing towards him in lowly wise, with exposed bosom and hands crossed on their breasts, his weapons fell from his hands and the war-demons fled out of him, and low in the chariot he bent down his noble head. By them he was conducted into the dun, into a chamber which they had prepared for him, and they drew water and filled his kieve, and there Laeg ministered to him.
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