Three hearts
he had, and it is the way they were, they had the shapes of three
serpents through them. And if Mechi had not met with his death, those
serpents in him would have grown, and what they left alive in Ireland
would have wasted away. And Mac Cecht burned the three hearts on Magh
Luathad, the Plain of Ashes, and he threw the ashes into the stream; and
the rushing water of the stream stopped and boiled up, and every
creature in it died.
And the Morrigu used often to be meddling in Ireland in Cuchulain's
time, stirring up wars and quarrels. It was she came and roused up
Cuchulain one time when he was but a lad, and was near giving in to some
enchantment that was used against him. "There is not the making of a
hero in you," she said to him, "and you lying there under the feet of
shadows." And with that Cuchulain rose up and struck off the head of a
shadow that was standing over him, with his hurling stick. And the time
Conchubar was sending out Finched to rouse up the men of Ulster at the
time of the war for the Bull of Cuailgne, he bade him to go to that
terrible fury, the Morrigu, to get help for Cuchulain. And she had a
dispute with Cuchulain one time he met her, and she bringing away a cow
from the Hill of Cruachan; and another time she helped Talchinem, a
Druid of the household of Conaire Mor, to bring away a bull his wife had
set her mind on. And indeed she was much given to meddling with cattle,
and one time she brought away a cow from Odras, that was of the
household of the cow-chief of Cormac Hua Cuined, and that was going
after her husband with cattle.
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