am a good carpenter.”  There was an excellent carpenter in Tara already, and none other needed.-"It is a smith I am,” said Lugh.  But they had a smith there who was professor of the three new designs in smithcraft, and none else would be desired.  Then he was a champion; but they had Ogma son of Ethlenn for champion, and would not ask a better.  Then he was a harper; and a poet; and an antiquary; and a necromancer; and an artificer; and a cup-bearer.  But they were well supplied with men of all those crafts, and there was no place for him.—­ “Then go and ask the king,” said Lugh, “if he will not be needing a man who is excellent in all those crafts at once”; and that way he got admission.

After that he was drawing up the smiths and carpenters, and inquiring into their abilities, and giving them their tasks in preparation for the battle.  There was Goibniu, the smith of the Danaans.—­“Though the men of Ireland should be fighting for seven years,” said Goibniu, “for every spear that falls off its handle, and for every sword that breaks, I will put a new weapon in its place; and no erring or missing cast shall be thrown with a spear of my making; and no flesh it may enter shall ever taste the sweets of life after;—­and this is more than Dub the smith of the Fomorians can do.”  And there was Creidne the Brazier:  he would not do less well than Goibniu the Smith would; and there was Luchtine the Carpenter:  evil on his beard if he did less than Creidne;—­and so with the long list of them.

It was on the first day of November the battle began; and when the sun went to his setting, the weapons of the Fomorians were all bent and notched, but those of the Gods were like new.  And new they were:  new and new after every blow struck or cast thrown.  For with three strokes of his hammer Goibniu would be fashioning a spear-head, and after the third stroke there could be no bettering it.  With three chippings of his knife, Luchtine had cut a handle for it; and at the third chipping there would be no fault to find with the handle either by Gods or men.  And as quickly as they made the spear-heads and the shafts, Creidne the Brazier had the rivets made to rivet them; and if there were bettering those rivets, it would not be by any known workmanship.  When Goibniu had made a spear-head, he took it in his tongs, and hurled it at the lintel of the door so that it stuck fast there, the socket outward.  When Luchtine had made a spear-haft, he hurled it out at the spear-head in the lintel; and it was good hurling, not to be complained of:  the end of the haft stuck in the socket, and stuck firm.  And as fast as those two men did those two things, Creidne had his rivets ready, and threw them at the spear-head; and so excellent his throwing, and the nicety of his aim, no rivet would do less than enter the holes in the socket, and drive on into the wood of the shaft;—­and that way there was no cast of a spear by the Gods at the hellions, but there was a new spear in the smithy ready to replace it.  Then the Fomoroh sent a spy into the camp of the Gods, who achieved killing Goibniu with one of the latter’s own spears; and by reason of that it was going ill with the Gods the next day in the battle.  And it was going worse with them because of Balor of the Mighty Blows, and he taking the field at last for the Fomorians,—­