It was that harp Cuchulain heard the time his enemies were gathering against him at Muirthemne, and he knew by it that his life was near its end.

CHAPTER VII.  MIDHIR AND ETAIN

And Midhir took a hill for himself, and his wife Fuamach was with him there, and his daughter, Bri.  And Leith, son of Celtchar of Cualu, was the most beautiful among the young men of the Sidhe of Ireland at that time, and he loved Bri, Midhir’s daughter.  And Bri went out with her young girls to meet him one time at the Grave of the Daughters beside Teamhair.  And Leith came and his young men along with him till he was on the Hill of the After Repentance.  And they could not come nearer to one another because of the slingers on Midhir’s hill that were answering one another till their spears were as many as a swarm of bees on a day of beauty.  And Cochlan, Leith’s servant, got a sharp wound from them and he died.

Then the girl turned back to Midhir’s hill, and her heart broke in her and she died.  And Leith said:  “Although I am not let come to this girl, I will leave my name with her.”  And the hill was called Bri Leith from that time.

After a while Midhir took Etain Echraide to be his wife.  And there was great jealousy on Fuamach, the wife he had before, when she saw the love that Midhir gave to Etain, and she called to the Druid, Bresal Etarlaim to help her, and he put spells on Etain the way Fuamach was able to drive her away.

And when she was driven out of Bri Leith, Angus Og, son of the Dagda, took her into his keeping; and when Midhir asked her back, he would not give her up, but he brought her about with him to every place he went.  And wherever they rested, he made a sunny house for her, and put sweet-smelling flowers in it, and he made invisible walls about it, that no one could see through and that could not be seen.

But when news came to Fuamach that Etain was so well cared by Angus, anger and jealousy came on her again, and she searched her mind for a way to destroy Etain altogether.

And it is what she did, she persuaded Midhir and Angus to go out and meet one another and to make peace, for there had been a quarrel between them ever since the time Etain was sent away.  And when Angus was away from Brugh na Boinn, Fuamach went and found Etain there, in her sunny house.  And she turned her with Druid spells into a fly, and then she sent a blast of wind into the house, that swept her away through the window.

But as to Midhir and Angus, they waited a while for Fuamach to come and join them.  And when she did not come they were uneasy in their minds, and Angus hurried back to Brugh na Boinn.  And when he found the sunny house empty, he went in search of Fuamach, and it was along with Etarlaim, the Druid, he found her, and he struck her head off there and then.

And for seven years Etain was blown to and fro through Ireland in great misery.  And at last she came to the house of Etar, of Inver Cechmaine, where there was a feast going on, and she fell from a beam of the roof into the golden cup that was beside Etar’s wife.  And Etar’s wife drank her down with the wine, and at the end of nine months she was born again as Etar’s daughter.