76. They spent a full year in that secret conference, so that Grellach Dollaid is called the Amrun of the Men of the Goddess.
77. Then the druids of Ireland were summoned to them, together with their physicians and their charioteers and their smiths and their wealthy landowners and their lawyers. They conversed together secretly.
78. Then he asked the sorcerer, whose name was Mathgen, what power he wielded. He answered that he would shake the mountains of Ireland beneath the Fomoire so that their summits would fall to the ground. And it would seem to them that the twelve chief mountains of the land of Ireland would be fighting on behalf of the Tuatha De Danann: Slieve League, and Denda Ulad, and the Mourne Mountains, and Bri Erigi and Slieve Bloom and Slieve Snaght, Slemish and Blaisliab and Nephin Mountain and Sliab Maccu Belgodon and the Curlieu hills and Croagh Patrick.
79. Then he asked the cupbearer what power he wielded. He answered that he would bring the twelve chief lochs of Ireland into the presence of the Fomoire and they would not find water in them, however thirsty they were. These are the lochs: Lough Derg, Lough Luimnig, Lough Corrib, Lough Ree, Lough Mask, Strangford Lough, Belfast Lough, Lough Neagh, Lough Foyle, Lough Gara, Loughrea, Marloch. They would proceed to the twelve chief rivers of Ireland–the Bush, the Boyne, the Bann, the Blackwater, the Lee, the Shannon, the Moy, the Sligo, the Erne, the Finn, the Liffey, the Suir–and they would all be hidden from the Fomoire so they would not find a drop in them. But drink will be provided for the men of Ireland even if they remain in battle for seven years.
80. Then Figol mac Mamois, their druid, said, “Three showers of fire will be rained upon the faces of the Fomorian host, and I will take out of them two-thirds of their courage and their skill at arms and their strength, and I will bind their urine in their own bodies and in the bodies of their horses. Every breath that the men of Ireland will exhale will increase their courage and skill at arms and strength. Even if they remain in battle for seven years, they will not be weary at all.
81. The Dagda said, “The power which you boast, I will wield it all myself.”
“You are the Dagda [‘the Good God’]!” said everyone, and “Dagda” stuck to him from that time on.
82. Then they disbanded the council to meet that day three years later.
83. Then after the preparation for the battle had been settled, Lug and the Dagda and Ogma went to the three gods of Danu, and they gave Lug equipment for the battle; and for seven years they had been preparing for them and making their weapons.
Then she said to him, “Undertake a battle of overthrowing.” The Morrigan said to Lug,
“Awake. . . .”
Then Figol mac Mamois, the druid, was prophesying the battle and strengthening the Tuatha De, saying,
“Battle will be waged.
84. The Dagda had a house in Glen Edin in the north, and he had arranged to meet a woman in Glen Edin a year from that day, near the All Hallows of the battle. The Unshin of Connacht roars to the south of it.
He saw the woman at the Unshin in Corann, washing, with one of her feet at Allod Echae (that is, Aghanagh) south of the water and the other at Lisconny north of the water. There were nine loosened tresses on her head. The Dagda spoke with her, and they united. “The Bed of the Couple” was the name of that place from that time on. (The woman mentioned here is the Morrigan.)
85. Then she told the Dagda that the Fomoire would land at Mag Ceidne, and that he should summon the aes dana of Ireland to meet her at the Ford of the Unshin, and she would go into Scetne to destroy Indech mac De Domnann, the king of the Fomoire, and would take from him the blood of his heart and the kidneys of his valor. Later she gave two handfuls of that blood to the hosts that were waiting at the Ford of the Unshin. Its name became “The Ford of Destruction” because of that destruction of the king.
86. So the aes dana did that, and they chanted spells against the Fomorian hosts.
87. This was a week before All Hallows, and they all dispersed until all the men of Ireland came together the day before All Hallows. Their number was six times thirty hundred, that is, each third consisted of twice thirty hundred.
88. Then Lug sent the Dagda to spy on the Fomoire and to delay them until the men of Ireland came to the battle.
89. Then the Dagda went to the Fomorian camp and asked them for a truce of battle. This was granted to him as he asked. The Fomoire made porridge for him to mock him, because his love of porridge was great. They filled for him the king’s cauldron, which was five fists deep, and poured four score gallons of new milk and the same quantity of meal and fat into it. They put goats and sheep and swine into it, and boiled them all together with the porridge. Then they poured it into a hole in the ground, and Indech said to him that he would be killed unless he consumed it all; he should eat his fill so that he might not satirize the Fomoire.
90. Then the Dagda took his ladle, and it was big enough for a man and a woman to lie in the middle of it. These are the bits that were in it: halves of salted swine and a quarter of lard.
91. Then the Dagda said, “This is good food if its broth is equal to its taste.” But when he would put the full ladle into his mouth he said, “‘Its poor bits do not spoil it,’ says the wise old man.”
92. Then at the end he scraped his bent finger over the bottom of the hole among mould and gravel. He fell asleep then after eating his porridge. His belly was as big as a house cauldron, and the Fomoire laughed at it.
93. Then he went away from them to Traigh Eabha. It was not easy for the warrior to move along on account of the size of his belly. His appearance was unsightly: he had a cape to the hollow of his elbows, and a gray-brown tunic around him as far as the swelling of his rump. He trailed behind him a wheeled fork which was the work of eight men to move, and its track was enough for the boundary ditch of a province. It is called “The Track of the Dagda’s Club” for that reason. His long penis was uncovered. He had on two shoes of horsehide with the hair outside.
As he went along he saw a girl in front of him, a good-looking young woman with an excellent figure, her hair in beautiful tresses. The Dagda desired her, but he was impotent on account of his belly. The girl began to mock him, then she began wrestling with him. She hurled him so that he sank to the hollow of his rump in the ground. He looked at her angrily and asked, “What business did you have, girl, heaving me out of my right way?”
“This business: to get you to carry me on your back to my father’s house.”
“Who is your father?” he asked.
“I am the daughter of Indech, son of De Domnann,” she said.
She fell upon him again and beat him hard, so that the furrow around him filled with the excrement from his belly; and she satirized him three times so that he would carry her upon his back.
He said that it was a ges for him to carry anyone who would not call him by his name.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Fer Benn,” he said.
“That name is too much!” she said. “Get up, carry me on your back, Fer Benn.”
“That is indeed not my name,” he said.
“What is?” she asked.
“Fer Benn Mach,” he answered.
“Get up, carry me on your back, Fer Benn Mach,” she said.
“That is not my name,” he said.
“What is?” she asked. Then he told her the whole thing. She replied immediately and said, “Get up, carry me on your back, Fer Benn Bruach Brogaill Broumide Cerbad Caic Rolaig Builc Labair Cerrce Di Brig Oldathair Boith Athgen mBethai Brightere Tri Carboid Roth Rimaire Riog Scotbe Obthe Olaithbe. . . . Get up, carry me away from here!”
“Do not mock me any more, girl,” he said.
“It will certainly be hard,” she said.
Then he moved out of the hole, after letting go the contents of his belly, and the girl had waited for that for a long time. He got up then, and took the girl on his back; and he put three stones in his belt. Each stone fell from it in turn-and it has been said that they were his testicles which fell from it. The girl jumped on him and struck him across the rump, and her curly pubic hair was revealed. Then the Dagda gained a mistress, and they made love. The mark remains at Beltraw Strand where they came together.
Then the girl said to him, “You will not go to the battle by any means.”
“Certainly I will go,” said the Dagda.
“You will not go,” said the woman, “because I will be a stone at the mouth of every ford you will cross.”
“That will be true,” said the Dagda, “but you will not keep me from it. I will tread heavily on every stone, and the trace of my heel will remain on every stone forever.”
“That will be true, but they will be turned over so that you may not see them. You will not go past me until I summon the sons of Tethra from the sid-mounds, because I will be a giant oak in every ford and in every pass you will cross.”
“I will indeed go past,” said the Dagda, “and the mark of my axe will remain in every oak forever.” (And people have remarked upon the mark of the Dagda’s axe.)
Then however she said, “Allow the Fomoire to enter the land, because the men of Ireland have all come together in one place.” She said that she would hinder the Fomoire, and she would sing spells against them, and she would practice the deadly art of the wand against them–and she alone would take on a ninth part of the host.
94. The Fomoire advanced until their tenths were in Scetne. The men of Ireland were in Mag Aurfolaig. At this point these two hosts were threatening battle.
“Do the men of Ireland undertake to give battle to us?” said Bres mac Elathan to Indech mac De Domnann.
“I will give the same,” said Indech, “so that their bones will be small if they do not pay their tribute.”
95. In order to protect him, the men of Ireland had agreed to keep Lug from the battle. His nine foster fathers came to guard him: Tollusdam and Echdam and Eru, Rechtaid Finn and Fosad and Feidlimid, Ibar and Scibar and Minn. They feared an early death for the warrior because of the great number of his arts. For that reason they did not let him go to the battle.
96. Then the men of rank among the Tuatha De were assembled around Lug. He asked his smith, Goibniu, what power he wielded for them.
97. “Not hard to say,” he said. “Even if the men of Ireland continue the battle for seven years, for every spear that separates from its shaft or sword that will break in battle, I will provide a new weapon in its place. No spearpoint which my hand forges will make a missing cast. No skin which it pierces will taste life afterward. Dolb, the Fomorian smith, cannot do that. I am now concerned with my preparation for the battle of Mag Tuired.”
98. “And you, Dian Cecht,” said Lug, “what power do you wield?”
99. “Not hard to say,” he said. “Any man who will be wounded there, unless his head is cut off, or the membrane of his brain or his spinal cord is severed, I will make him perfectly whole in the battle on the next day.”
100. “And you, Credne,” Lug said to his brazier, “what is your power in the battle?”
101. “Not hard to answer,” said Credne. “I will supply them all with rivets for their spears and hilts for their swords and bosses and rims for their shields.”