[6] Some say six children—three daughters and three sons. The MS. H. i. 8, in Trinity College, which dates from about 1460, according to O'Curry, relates thus: "And the sons of Cailitin were eight years after the Táin before they went to pursue their learning, for they were but infants in cradles at the time their father was killed. Nine years for them after that pursuing their learning. Seven years after finishing their learning was spent in making their weapons, because there could be found but one day in the year to make their spears. And three years after that did the sons of Cailitin spend in assembling and marching the men of Erin to Belach Mic Uilc in Magh Muirtheimhne (Cuchulain's patrimony)."
[7] Now Dundalk in the County Louth.
[8] "Ni bhfuil acht saobh-lucht siabhartha ann súd, sian-sgarrtha duaibh-siocha draoidheachta do dhealbhadar clann cuirpthe Chailitin go claon-mhillteach fad' chómhair-se, dod' chealgadh, agus dod' chomh-bhuaidh-readh, a churaidh chalma chath-bhuadhaigh."
[9] Up to this I have followed the version of my own modern manuscript. From this out, however, the version in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster is used. Monsieur d'Arbois de Jubainville, in his introduction to the fragment of the saga in the Book of Leinster, seems to think that Emania was really besieged, and women and children slaughtered round its walls by the men of Erin, whereas it would appear that the lost part of the saga refers to some such version as I have given from my manuscript, and that it was only the wizardry and sorcery of the children of Calatin, who raised these phantasms. This is the more evident because Cuchulain, when he issues forth, meets no enemy until he has arrived at the plain of Muirtheimhne. Jubainville's words are, "Cependant les cris de douleur des femmes et des enfants qu'on massacrait jusqu'au pied des remparts d'Emain macha [Emania] parvinrent à son oreille: on en verra un peu plus bas les conséquences, dont la dernière fut la mort du heros."
[10] It was geis, or tabu, to him to behold the exposed breast of a woman. See above, p. [301].
[11] These are in my version the three daughters of Calatin.
[12] The belief in water-horses is quite common even still amongst the old people in all parts of Connacht, and, I think, over the most of Ireland.
[13] With the Liath Macha so renowned throughout the whole Cuchulain saga compare Areiōn, the celebrated steed of Adrastus, who saved his master at the rout of the Argeian chiefs round Thebes. The Liath Macha returns to the water from whence it came, and Areiōn, too, was believed to have been the offspring of Poseidōn. He is alluded to by Nestor in the Iliad xxiii. 346:
κ ἔσθ᾿ ὅς κέ σ᾿ἕλῃσι μετάλμενος ὀυδὲ παρέλθῃ,
οὐδ᾿ εἴ κεν μετόπιφσθεν Ἀρείονα δῖον ἔλαυνοι,
Ἀδρήστου ταχύν ἵππον ὃς ἐκ θεόφιν γένος ἦεν.
He appears, however, to have been black not grey. Hesiod alludes to him as μέγαν ἵππον Ἀρείονα κυανοχαίτην.