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“Do you not know,” said Conail sternly, “that one lies ill here who must not be disturbed?”

The stranger arose.

“I will tell you a tale,” he said. “As I was strolling through the trees I saw a radiance shining around the dun, and I saw one floating in that light like a mighty pillar of fire, or bronze ruddy and golden: a child of the Sun he seemed; the living fires curled about him and rayed from his head. He looked to the north and to the west, to the south and to the east, and over all Eri he shot his fiery breaths rainbow-colored, and the dark grew light before him where he gazed. Indeed if he who lies here were well he would be mightiest among your warriors. But I think that now he clasps hands with the heroes of the Sidhe as well, and with Druid power protects the Ultonians. I feel happy to be beside him.”

“It is Lu Lamfada guarding the hero. Now his destiny will draw nigh to him again,” thought Cu’s companions, and they welcomed the stranger.

“I see why he lies here so still,” he continued, his voice strange like one who is inspired while he speaks. “The Sidhe looked out from their mountains. They saw a hero asleep. They saw a God forgetful. They stirred him to shame by the hands of women. They showed him the past. They said to Fand and Libau, ‘Awake him. Bring him to us. Let him come on the night of Samhain.’ They showed the chosen one from afar, in a vision while hid in their mountains. The Tuatha de Danaans, the immortals, wish for Cuchullain to aid them. The daughters of Aed Abrait are their messengers. If Fand and Liban were here they would restore the hero.”

“Who are you?” asked Laeg, who had joined them.

“I am Angus, son of Aed Abrait.” While he spoke his form quivered like a smoke, twinkling in misty indistinctness in the blue twilight, and then vanished before their eyes.

“I wonder now,” muttered Laeg to himself, “if he was sent by the Sidhe, or by Liban and Fand only. When one has to deal with women everything is uncertain. Fand trusts more in her beauty to arouse him than in her message. I have seen her shadow twenty times cooing about him. It is all an excuse for love-making with her. It is just like a woman. Anything, however, would be better for him than to lie in bed.” He went off to join the others. Cuchullain was sitting up and was telling the story of what happened last Samhain.

“What should I do?” he asked.

“Go to the wise King,” said Laeg, and so they all advised, for ever since the day when he was crowned, and the Druids had touched him with fire, a light of wisdom shone about Concobar the King.

“I think you should go to the rock where the women of the Sidhe appeared to you,” said Concobar when appealed to.

So Laeg made ready the chariot and drove to the tarn. Night came ere they reached it, but the moon showed full and brilliant. Laeg waited a little way apart, while Cuchullain sat himself in the black shadow of the rock. As the warrior gazed into the dark, star-speckled surface of the waters, a brightness and a mist gathered over them, and there, standing with her robe of green down–dropping to her feet and trailing on the wave, her pale flaxen hair blown around her head, was Liban. She smiled strangely as before, looking through him with her subtle eyes.

“I am one of the Sidhe,” she said, and her voice sounded like a murmur of the water. “You also, O warrior, though forgetful, are one of us. We did not indeed come to injure you, but to awaken remembrance. For now the wild clouds of demons gathered from the neighboring isles and we wish your aid. Your strength will come back to you exultant as of old. Come with me, warrior. You will have great companions. Labraid, who wields the rapid fires as you the sword, and Fand, who has laid aside her Druid wisdom longing for you.”