e it was put underground the earth
kept it. And then they went on to join Lugh of the Long Hand for the
battle.

Now as to Lugh; upon parting with his father he went forward from
Teamhair westward, to the hills that were called afterwards Gairech and
Ilgairech, and to the ford of the Shannon that is now called Athluain,
and to Bearna nah-Eadargana, the Gap of Separation, and over Magh Luirg,
the Plain of Following, and to Corr Slieve na Seaghsa, the Round
Mountain of the Poet's Spring, and to the head of Sean-Slieve, and
through the place of the bright-faced Corann, and from that to Magh Mor
an Aonaigh, the Great Plain of the Fair, where the Fomor were, and the
spoils of Connacht with them.

It is then Bres, son of Elathan, rose up and said: "It is a wonder to me
the sun to be rising in the west to-day, and it rising in the east every
other day." "It would be better for us it to be the sun," said the
Druids. "What else is it?" said he. "It is the shining of the face of
Lugh, son of Ethlinn," said they.

Lugh came up to them then and saluted them. "Why do you come like a
friend to us?" said they. "There is good cause for that," he said, "for
there is but one half of me of the Tuatha de Danaan, and the other half
of yourselves. And give me back now the milch cows of the men of
Ireland," he said. "May early good luck not come to you till you get
either a dry or a milch cow here," said a man of them, and anger on him.

But Lugh stopped near them for three days and three nights, and at the
end of that time the Riders of the Sidhe came to him. And Bodb Dearg,
son of the Dagda, came with twenty-nine hundred men, and he said:

"What is the cause of your delay in giving battle?"

"Waiting for you I was," said Lugh.

Then the kings and chief men of the men of Ireland took their armour on
them, and they raised the points of their spears over their heads, and
they made close fences of their shields. And they attacked their enemies
on Magh Mor an Aonaigh, and their enemies answered them, and they threw
their whining spears at one another, and when their spears were broken
they drew their swords from their blue-bordered sheaths and began to
strike at one another, and thickets of brown flames rose above them from
the bitterness of their many-edged weapons.

And Lugh saw the battle pen where Bres, son of Elathan, was, and he made
a fierce attack on him and on the men that were guarding him, till he
had made an end of two hundr