"'Children of Calatin,' said Erc, 'what exploit shall this spear perform?'
"'It shall overthrow a king,' said they.
"'You said this spear would overthrow a king when Lewy hurled it some time ago,' said Erc.
"'Nor were we deceived,' said they, 'that spear has brought down the king of the charioteers of Ireland, Laeg, the son of Riangabhra, Cuchulain's charioteer.'"
Erc hurls the spear and it passes through the side of Cuchulain's noble steed, the Liath Macha. Cuchulain took a fond farewell of the animal who galloped with half the yoke around its neck to the lake from whence he had first taken it, on the mountain of Fuad in far-off Armagh.
The third time a druid demands his spear, and is killed by Cuchulain, who throws it to him handle foremost. The spear is picked up this time by Lewy son of Curigh.
"'What feat shall this spear perform, ye children of Calatin?' said Lewy.
"It shall overthrow a king,' said they.
"'Ye said as much when Erc hurled it this morning,' answered Lewy.
"'Yes,' answered the children of Calatin, 'and our word was true. The spear which Erc hurled has wounded mortally the king of the steeds of Ireland, the Liath Macha.'
"'I swear then,' said Lewy, 'by the oath which my nation swears, that Erc's blow smote not the king which this spear is to slay.'"
Then Lewy hurls the spear, and this time pierces Cuchulain through the body, and Cuchulain's other steed burst the yoke and rushed off and never ceased till he, too, had plunged into the lake from which Cuchulain had taken him in far-off Munster.[12] Cuchulain remained behind, dying in his chariot. With difficulty and holding in his entrails with one hand, he advanced to a little lake hard by, and drank from it, and washed off his blood. Then he propped himself against a high stone a few yards from the lake, and tied himself to it with his girdle. "He did not wish to die either sitting or lying, it was standing," says the saga, "that he wished to meet death."
But his grey steed, the Liath Macha,[13] returned once more to defend his lord, and made three terrible charges, scattering with tooth and hoof all who would approach the stone where Cuchulain was dying. At last a bird was seen to alight upon his shoulder. "Yon pillar used not to be a settling place for birds," said Erc. They knew then that he was dead. Lewy, the son of Curigh, seized him by the back hair and severed his head from his body.
But Cuchulain was too important an epic hero to thus finish with him. Another very celebrated, but probably later épopée tells of how his friend Conall Cearnach pursued the retreating army and exacted vengeance for his death. A brief digest of Conall's revenge is contained in the Book of Leinster, but modern copies of much longer and more literary versions exist, and there was no more celebrated poem amongst the later Gael than that called the Lay of the Heads in which Conall Cearnach returns to Emer, Cuchulain's wife, to Emania, with a large bundle of heads strung upon a gad, or withy-wand, thrust through their mouths from cheek to cheek, and there explains in a lay to Emer who they were.
In the ancient version in the Book of Leinster it is only Lewy who is slain by Conall. In my more modern recension he slays Erc and the children of Calatin as well, and recovers the head of Cuchulain, which he found being used as a football by two men near Tara. "If this city," said he of Tara, "were Erc's own lordship and patrimony I would burn it down, but since it is the very navel and meeting-point of the men of Ireland, I shall affront it no more."
Emer's joy and her grief on recovering her husband's head are touchingly described.