“Noble, indeed, is the dun,” said Cuculain.  “But it is yet early, for the sun is not yet risen from his red-flaming eastern couch, and the people of the dun, too, are in their heavy slumber.  I would repose now for a while and rest myself before the battles and hard combats which await me this day.  Wherefore, good Laeg, let down the sides and seats of the chariot, that I may repose myself for a little and take a short sleep.”

For just then precisely an unwonted drowsiness and desire for slumber possessed Cuculain.

“Witless and devoid of sense art thou,” answered Laeg, “for who but an idiot would think of sweet sleep and agreeable repose in a hostile territory, much more in full view of those who look out from a foeman’s dun, and that dun, Dun-Mic-Nectan?”

“Do as I bid thee,” said Cuculain.  “For one day, if for no other, thou shalt obey my commands.”

Laeg unyoked the chariot and turned the great steeds forth to graze on the druidic lawn, which was never done before at any time.  He let down the chariot and arranged it as a couch, and his young master laid himself therein, composing his limbs and pillowing tranquilly his head, and he closed his immortal eyes.  Very soon sweet slumber possessed him.  Laeg meanwhile kept watch and ward, and his great heart in his breast continually trembled like the leaf of the poplar tree, or like a rush in a flooded stream.  The awakening birds unconscious sang in the trees, the dew glittered on the grass; hard by the royal Boyne rolled silently.  The son of Sualtam slumbered without sound or motion, and the charioteer stood beside him upright, like a pillar, his grey bright eyes fixed upon the house of the sorcerers, the merciless, bloody, and ever-victorious sons of Nectan, the son of Labrad.

Of the people of the dun, Foil, son of Nectan, was the first to awake.  It was his custom to wander forth by himself early in the morning, devising snares and stratagems by which he might take and destroy men at his leisure.  He was more cruel than anything.  By him the great door of the dun, bound and rivetted with brass, was flung open.  With one hand he backshot the bar, which rushed into its chamber with a roar and crash as of a great house when it falls, and with the other he drew back the door.  It grated on its brazen hinges, and on the iron threshold, with a noise like thunder.  Then Foil stood black and huge in the wide doorway of the dun, and he looked at Laeg and Laeg looked at him.  The man was ugly and fierce of aspect.  His hair was thick and black; he was bull-necked and large-eared.  His mantle was black, bordered with dark red; his tunic, a dirty yellow, was splashed with recent blood.  There were great shoes on his feet soled with wood and iron.  In his hand he bore a staff of quick-beam, as it were a full-grown tree without its branches.  He being thus, strode forward in an ungainly manner to Laeg, and with a surly voice bade him drive the horses off the lawn.