Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Táin Bó Cúalnge from the Book of Leinster (Author: [unknown])

section 19

Then Medb sent forth six together to attack Cú Chulainn, to wit, Traig and Dorn and Dernu, Col and Accuis and Eraíse, three druids and three druidesses. Cú Chulainn attacked them and they fell by him. Since the terms of fair play and single combat had been broken against Cú Chulainn, he took his sling and began to shoot at the host that day northwards from Delga. Though the men of Ireland were numerous that day, not one of them could turn southwards, neither hound nor horse nor man.

Then came the Morrígu, daughter of Ernmas, from the elf-mounds in the guise of an old woman and in Cú Chulainn's presence she

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{line 2104-2133} milked a cow with three teats. The reason she came thus was to be succoured by Cú Chulainn, for no one whom Cú Chulainn had wounded ever recovered until he himself had aided in his cure. Maddened by thirst, Cú Chulainn asked her for milk. She gave him the milk of one teat. ‘May this be swiftly wholeness for me’. The one eye of the queen which had been wounded was cured. Cú Chulainn asked her for the milk of another teat. She gave it to him. ‘Swiftly may she be cured who gave it’. He asked for the third drink and she gave him the milk of the third teat. ‘The blessing of gods and non-gods be on you, woman’.—The magicians were their gods and the husbandmen were their non-gods.—And the queen was made whole.

Then Medb sent a hundred men together to assail Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn attacked them all and they fell by his hand. ‘It is a hateful thing for us that our people should be slaughtered thus’ said Medb. ‘That was not the first hateful thing that came to us from that man’ said Ailill. Hence Cuillend Cind Dúne is still the name of the place where they were then and Áth Cró is the name of the ford by which they were, and rightly so because of the great amount of their blood and gore which flowed with the current of the river.