Though I ruled all of Erin
And yellow Breg’s hill,
I’d give all, no small trial,
To know that land still.

“The quest then is a good one?” said Cuchulain.  “It is goodly indeed,” said Laeg, “and it is right that thou shouldest go to attain it, and all things in that land are good.”  And thus further also spoke Laeg, as he told of the loveliness of the fairy dwelling: 

I saw a land of noble form and splendid,
Where dwells naught evil; none can speak a lie: 
There stands the king, by all his hosts attended,
Brown Labra, swift to sword his hand can fly.

We crossed the Plain of Speech, our steps arrested
Near to that Tree, whose branches triumphs bear;
At length upon the hill-crowned plain we rested,
And saw the Double-Headed Serpent’s lair.

Then Liban said, as we that mount sat under: 
“Would I could see—­’twould be a marvel strange—­
Yet, if I saw it, dear would be that wonder,
if to Cuchulain’s form thy form could change.”

Great is the beauty of Aed Abra’s daughters,
Unfettered men before them conquered fall;
Fand’s beauty stuns, like sound of rushing waters,
Before her splendour kings and queens seem small.

Though I confess, as from the wise ones hearing,
That Adam’s race was once unstained by sin; —
Yet did I swear, when Fand was there appearing,
None in past ages could such beauty win.

I saw the champions stand with arms for slaying,
Right splendid was the garb those heroes bore;
Gay coloured garments, meet for their arraying,
’Twas not the vesture of rude churls they wore.

Women of music at the feast were sitting,
A brilliant maiden bevy near them stood;
And forms of noble youths were upwards flitting
Through the recesses of the mountain wood.

I saw the folk of song; their strains rang sweetly,
As for the lady in that house they played;
Had I not I fled away from thence, and fleetly,
Hurt by that music, I had weak been made.

I know the hill where Ethne took her station,
And Ethne Inguba’s a lovely maid;
But none can drive from sense a warlike nation
Save she alone, in beauty then displayed.

And Cuchulain, when he had heard that report, went on with Liban to that land, and he took his chariot with him.  And they came to the Island of Labraid, and there Labraid and all the women that were there bade them welcome; and Fand gave an especial welcome to Cuchulain.  “What is there now set for us to do?” said Cuchulain.  “No hard matter to answer,” said Labraid; “we must go forth and make a circuit about the army.”  They went out then, and they came to the army, and they let their eyes wander over it; and the host seemed to them to be innumerable.  “Do thou arise, and go hence for the present,” said Cuchulain to Labraid; and Labraid departed, and Cuchulain remained confronting the army.  And there were two ravens there, who spake, and revealed Druid secrets, but the armies who heard them laughed.  “It must surely be the madman from Ireland who is there,” said the army; “it is he whom the ravens would make known to us;” and the armies chased them away so that they found no resting-place in that land.