“There was fear upon thee,” said Cuculain.

“There is fear upon thyself,” answered Laeg.  “It was in thy mind that I would refuse.”

“Nay, there is no such fear upon me,” said Cuculain.

“Then there is fear upon me,” said Laeg.  “A charioteer needs a champion who is stout and a valiant and faithful.  Yea, truly there is fear upon me,” answered Laeg.

“Verily, dear comrade and bed-fellow,” answered Cuculain, “it is through me that thou shalt get thy death-wound, and I say not this as a vaunt, but as a prophecy.”

And that prophecy was fulfilled, for the spear that slew Laeg went through his master.

After that Laeg stood by Cuculain’s side and held his peace, but his face shone with excess of joy and pride.  He wore a light graceful frock of deerskin, joined in the front with a twine of bronze wire, and a short, dark-red cape, secured by a pin of gold with a ring to it.  A band of gold thread confined his auburn hair, rising into a peak behind his head.  In his hands he held a goad of polished red-yew, furnished with a crooked hand-grip of gold, and pointed with shining bronze, and where the bronze met the timber there was a circlet of diamond of the diamonds of Banba.  He had also a short-handled scourge with a haft of walrus tooth, and the rope, cord, and lash of that scourge were made of delicate and delicately-twisted thread of copper.  This equipment was the equipment of a proved charioteer; the apprentices wore only grey capes with white fringes, fastened by loops of red cord.

Laeg was one of three brothers, all famous charioteers.  Id and Sheeling were the others.  They were all three sons of the King of Gabra, whose bright dun arose upon a green and sloping hill over against Tara towards the rising of the sun.  Thence sprang the beautiful stream of the Nemnich, rich in lilies and reeds and bulrushes, which to-day men call the Nanny Water.  Laeg was grey-eyed and freckled.

Then there were led forward by two strong knights a pair of great and spirited horses and a splendid war-car.  The King said, “They are thine, dear nephew.  Well I know that neither thou, nor Laeg, will be a dishonour to this war equipage.”

Cuculain sprang into the car, and standing with legs apart, he stamped from side to side and shook the car mightily, till the axle brake, and the car itself was broken in pieces.

“It is not a good chariot,” said the lad.

Another was led forward, and he broke it in like manner.

“Give me a sound chariot, High Lord of the Clanna Rury, or give me none,” he said.  “No prudent warrior would fight from such brittle foothold.”

He brake in succession nine war chariots, the greatest and strongest in Emain.  When he broke the ninth the horses of Macha neighed from their stable.  Great fear fell upon the host when they heard that unusual noise and the reverberation of it in the woods and hills.