Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/452

436 next thing to be noticed is his rapid growth and precocious manhood. When he is only five, he sets off to Emain and overcomes all the Ultonian youths at their games in the play-field. When he is seven he longs for a warrior's arms; but at that age he could only get them by a trick, which he explained as a misunderstanding of the words of the druid who was his tutor. This reminds one of Lleu, though the obstacle in Cúchulainn's way was not like that which Arianrhod had prepared for Lleu. Arms then he got, namely, from the king, who was induced even to lend him his own war-chariot: he next bade his comrades in the play-field adieu, and compelled the king's charioteer to drive him across the border into an enemy's land, where he performed wonders of valour. He at length returned with his foes' heads in his chariot, a swift-footed stag between its hind shafts, and a string of wild birds fluttering above his head, as the trophies of his achievements in war and his fleetness in the chase, to which no deer's foot, no bird's wing, was equal: other exploits of his childhood might be added. As he rapidly grew to more than a man's strength, he died young, though not too young, perhaps, to have become bearded, but it was a subject of repeated remark that he remained beardless. Sometimes, when warriors would decline to fight with such a stripling, he would put on a beard, or pick up a handful of grass and sing a charm over it, which would convert it into a beard for him for the time. Cúchulainn's beardlessness reminds one of the youthful Apollo, and stands in contrast to the conventional