Now while they were thus employed a flock of birds came down and hovered over the lake; never was seen in Ireland more beautiful birds than these.  And a longing that these birds should be given to them seized upon the women who were there; and each of them began to boast of the prowess of her husband at bird-catching.  “How I wish,” said Ethne Aitencaithrech, Conor’s wife, “that I could have two of those birds, one of them upon each of my two shoulders.”  “It is what we all long for,” said the women; and “If any should have this boon, I should be the first one to have it,” said Ethne Inguba, the wife of Cuchulain.

“What are we to do now?” said the women. “’Tis easy to answer you,” said Leborcham, the daughter of Oa and Adarc; “I will go now with a message from you, and will seek for Cuchulain.”  She then went to Cuchulain, and “The women of Ulster would be well pleased,” she said, “if yonder birds were given to them by thy hand.”  And Cuchulain made for his sword to unsheathe it against her:  “Cannot the lasses of Ulster find any other but us,” he said, “to give them their bird-hunt to-day?” “’Tis not seemly for thee to rage thus against them,” said Leborcham, “for it is on thy account that the women of Ulster have assumed one of their three blemishes, even the blemish of blindness.”  For there were three blemishes that the women of Ulster assumed, that of crookedness of gait, and that of a stammering in their speech, and that of blindness.  Each of the women who loved Conall the Victorious had assumed a crookedness of gait; each woman who loved Cuscraid Mend, the Stammerer of Macha, Conor’s son, stammered in her speech; each woman in like manner who loved Cuchulain had assumed a blindness of her eyes, in order to resemble Cuchulain; for he, when his mind was angry within him, was accustomed to draw in the one of his eyes so far that a crane could not reach it in his head, and would thrust out the other so that it was great as a cauldron in which a calf is cooked.

“Yoke for us the chariot, O Laeg!” said Cuchulain.  And Laeg yoked the chariot at that, and Cuchulain went into the chariot, and he cast his sword at the birds with a cast like the cast of a boomerang, so that they with their claws and wings flapped against the water.  And they seized upon all the birds, and they gave them and distributed them among the women; nor was there any one of the women, except Ethne alone, who had not a pair of those birds.  Then Cuchulain returned to his wife; and “Thou art enraged,” said he to her.  “I am in no way enraged,” answered Ethne, “for I deem it as being by me that the distribution was made.  And thou hast done what was fitting,” she said, “for there is not one of these woman but loves thee; none in whom thou hast no share; but for myself none hath any share in me except thou alone.”  “Be not angry,” said Cuchulain, “if in the future any birds come to the Plain of Murthemne or to the Boyne, the two birds that are the most beautiful among those that come shall be thine.”