Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race

by M. I. Ebbutt

Cuchulain Re-enters the Dun

Now Cuchulain would gladly have returned to the fort to rest, but there seemed no way of entrance, and the hero was vexed at his own helplessness, for he thought his comrades had jumped over the magic walls. Twice he boldly essayed to leap the lofty wall, and twice he failed; then in his wrath his great strength came upon him, the hero-light shone round him, and he took a little run and, leaning on his spear, leaped so high and so far that he alighted in the middle of the court, just before the door of the hall.

As he sighed heavily and wearily, Curoi’s wife said: “That is the sigh of a weary conqueror, not of a beaten man”; and Cuchulain went in and sat down to rest.