’They throw their three fifties of toy-spears at him, and they all remained standing in his shield of lath.  Then they throw all the balls at him; and he takes them, each single ball, in his bosom.  Then they throw their three fifties of hurling-clubs at him; he warded them off so that they did not touch him, and he took a bundle of them on his back.  Then contortion seized him.  You would have thought that it was a hammering wherewith each little hair had been driven into his head, with the arising with which he arose.  You would have thought there was a spark of fire on every single hair.  He shut one of his eyes so that it was not wider than the eye of a needle.  He opened the other so that it was as large as the mouth of a meadcup.  He laid bare from his jawbone to his ear; he opened his mouth to his jaw [Note:  Conjectured from the later description of Cuchulainn’s distortion.] so that his gullet was visible.  The hero’s light rose from his head.  Then he strikes at the boys.  He overthrows fifty of them before they reached the door of Emain.  Nine of them came over me and Conchobar as we were playing chess.  Then he springs over the chessboard after the nine.  Conchobar caught his elbow.

’"The boys are not well treated,” said Conchobar.

’"Lawful for me, O friend Conchobar,” said he.  “I came to them from my home to play, from my mother and father; and they have not been good to me.”

’"What is your name?” said Conchobar.

’"Setanta Mac Sualtaim am I,” said he, “and the son of Dechtere, your sister.  It was not fitting to hurt me here.”

’"Why were the boys not bound to protect you?” said Conchobar.

’"I did not know this,” said Cuchulainn.  “Undertake my protection against them then.”

’"I recognise it,” said Conchobar.

’Then he turned aside on [Note:  i.e. to attack them.] the boys throughout the house.

’"What ails you at them now?” said Conchobar.

’"That I may be bound to protect them,” said Cuchulainn.

’"Undertake it,” said Conchobar.

’"I recognise it,” said Cuchulainn.

’Then they all went into the play-field, and those boys who had been struck down there arose.  Their foster-mothers and foster-fathers helped them.

‘Once,’ said Fergus, ’when he was a youth, he used not to sleep in Emain Macha till morning.

’"Tell me,” said Conchobar to him, “why you do not sleep?”

’"I do not do it,” said Cuchulainn, “unless it is equally high at my head and my feet.”

’Then a stone pillar was put by Conchobar at his head, and another at his feet, and a bed was made for him separately between them.

’Another time a certain man went to awaken him, and he struck him with his fist in his forehead, so that it took the front of his forehead on to the brain, and so that he overthrew the pillar with his arm.’

‘It is known,’ said Ailill, ’that it was the fist of a warrior and that it was the arm of a hero.’