Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/19

 man could not be wounded by point of spear or edge of sword. Cohoolin scoffed at the warning: he knew what to do. He took a ball of iron and threw it at the approaching warrior. It struck him in the middle of the forehead and broke in and out again behind, so that the air went through where the brain had been. Cohoolin cut off his head and kept it.

Now a second son of Nechtan, named Tuachell, came out.

'Thou needest not boast,' he said.

'I do not boast of killing one man,' retorted Cohoolin

'Then thou wilt never boast, for thou shalt die by this hand,' said Tuachell.

'Get thy weapons,' said Cohoolin.

Tuachell went away rapidly. Jubar was anxious: he told Cohoolin that if Tuachell was not slain by the first blow he would never be slain. The boy took Conachoor's spear called the Venomous, and at the first approach of Tuachell pierced him through with it so that he died.

At this Fainnle, the youngest of Nechtan's sons, came out.

'Thou hast been fighting with simpletons,' he said, and asked Cohoolin to come away from the ford to the deep water.

'Be careful,' said Jubar, 'this is Fainnle the Swallow, called so because of his swiftness in the water.'

'But I also have swum in the water, in the river at Emania,' said Cohoolin.

Fainnle and Cohoolin walked into the ford, and when they could no longer walk they began to wrestle. Cohoolin did not trouble to drown his foe, but cut off his head and let the body drift down stream. After that, Cohoolin and Jubar harried the fort and set fire