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 hundred of them.
When Bres saw that, he gave himself up to Lugh's protection. "Give me my
life this time," he said, "and I will bring the whole race of the Fomor
to fight it out with you in a great battle; and I bind myself to that,
by the sun and the moon, the sea and the land," he said.
On that Lugh gave him his life, and then the Druids that were with him
asked his protection for themselves. "By my word," said Lugh, "if the
whole race of the Fomor went under my protection they would not be
destroyed by me." So then Bres and the Druids set out for their own
country.
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