So the Dagda took the ladle, and it big enough for a man and a woman to
lie in the bowl of it, and he took out bits with it, the half of a
salted pig, and a quarter of lard a bit would be. "If the broth tastes
as well as the bits taste, this is good food," he said. And he went on
putting the full of the ladle into his mouth till the hole was empty;
and when all was gone he put down his hand and scraped up all that was
left among the earth and the gravel.
Sleep came on him then after eating the broth, and the Fomor were
laughing at him, for his belly was the size of the cauldron of a great
house. But he rose up after a while, and, heavy as he was, he made his
way home; and indeed his dress was no way sightly, a cape to the hollow
of the elbows, and a brown coat, long in the breast and short behind,
and on his feet brogues of horse hide, with the hair outside, and in his
hand a wheeled fork it would take eight men to carry, so that the track
he left after him was deep enough for the boundary ditch of a province.
And on his way he saw the Battle-Crow, the Morrigu, washing herself in
the river Unius of Connacht, and one of her two feet at Ullad Echne, to
the south of the water, and the other at Loscuinn, to the north of the
water, and her hair hanging in nine loosened locks. And she said to the
Dagda, that she would bring the heart's blood of Indech, son of De
Domnann, that had threatened him, to the men of Ireland.
And while he was away Lugh had called together the Druids, and smiths,
and physicians, and law-makers, and chariot-drivers of Ireland, to make
plans for the battle.
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