When Meave had thought awhile, she said, “Are there yet other stories of this wondrous boy?” “Indeed,” cried Fiacra, one of the companions of Cormac, who came with him when he went from Ulster into exile, “the story of his taking arms is not told yet, and I think it more than all the other stories you have heard.” “How so?” said Meave; “tell it to us now.”
Then Fiacra said, “The very year after Cuchulain got his name, he was playing outside the place where Caffa the magician sat with eight of his pupils teaching them his lore. It chanced that he was telling them, as the magicians and Druids are wont to believe, that certain days were lucky for special acts and other days unlucky. ‘And for what,’ asked one of the boys, ‘would this day at which we now are be counted lucky?’”
“This is the day,” said Caffa, “on which any youth who should assume arms, as became a champion of war, should attain eternal fame; beside him, no warrior’s name in Ireland should ever more be named, or spoken in the same breath with it, for his glory would transcend them all. For such a youth, however, no happy thing were this, for he should die at an early age, no long-lived warrior he; his life shall be but fleeting, quickly o’er.”
Outside the house Cuchulain overheard the conversation of the teacher with his boys. Instantly and without a moment’s pause he laid aside his hurley and his ball, and put off his playing-suit. Then, donning his ordinary apparel, he entered the sleeping-house of the King. “All good be thine, O King,” said he. “Boy, what hast thou now come to ask of me?” replied the King. “I desire,” said he, “to take arms as a warrior and champion to-day.” “Who told thee to ask for this?” said the King, surprised. “My master Caffa, the magician,” answered he. “If that is so, thou shalt not be denied,” replied the King, and he called on those who were about him to give the lad two spears and sword and shield: for in Emain the King had always ready seventeen complete equipments of weapons and armature; for he himself bestowed weapons on a youth of the boy-corps when he was ready to bear arms, to bring him luck in using them. Cuchulain began to try those weapons, brandishing and bending them to try their strength and fitness to his hand; but one after another they all gave way, and were broken into pieces and little fragments. “These weapons are not good,” said he; “they are but the equipment of a common warrior, they suffice me not.” Then when he had tried them all, and put them from him, the King said: “Here, my lad, are my own two spears, my own sword and shield.” Then Cuchulain took these weapons, and in every way, by bending them from point to hilt, by brandishing them, by thrusting with them, he proved their strength and mettle. “These arms are good,” said he, “they break not in my hand. Fair fall the land and country whose King can wield armour and weapons such as these!”
Just at the moment Caffa came into the tent. Wondering, he asked: “Is the little boy so soon assuming arms?” “Ay, so it is,” said the King. “Unhappy is the mother whose son assumes arms to-day,” said the magician. “How now?” cried the King; “was it not yourself who prompted him?” “Not so, indeed,” said Caffa. “Mad boy, what made you then deceive me, telling me that Caffa it was who prompted you to ask for arms?” “O King of Heroes, be not wrath,” replied the lad. “No thought, indeed, had I to deceive. When Caffa was instructing his pupils in the house to-day, I overheard, as I was playing with my ball outside, one of the lads asking him what special virtue lay in this day, and for what it was a lucky day. And he told them that for him who should assume arms this day, his luck should be so great that his fame would outstrip the fame of all Ireland’s heroes, and he would be the first of Ireland’s men. And for this great reward no compensating disadvantage would accrue to him, save that his life should be but fleeting.”
“True is that, indeed,” said Caffa, “noble and famous thou shalt be, but short and brief thy life.” “Little care I for that,” replied the lad, “nor though my life endured but for one day and night, so only that the story of myself and of my deeds shall last.”
“Then get thee into a chariot, as a warrior should, and let us test thy title to a future fame.”
