THE HORSE AS AN EPIC CHARACTER 



Cuchullin were well bred, that they probably came from 

 northern Spain or Gaul. The author of the epic has a 

 different story. He says that Cuchullin caught them 

 as they came out of the lake, wrestled with them, and 

 subdued them. In the Feast of Bricriu, an episode of the 

 Irish Ulster epic cycle, Emer, wife of Cuchullin, boasts 

 of her husband's great prowess. " Sooth, lady," quoth 

 Conall the Victorious, "let that famous fellow come 

 here, that we may enquire of him." "No," quoth 

 Cuchullin, " I am to-day weary and exhausted. I will 

 not hold a duel till after I have had food and sleep." In 

 truth that was really so, inasmuch as it was the day on 

 which he had fallen in with his steed, the Gray of 

 Macha, by the side of the Gray Linn. On its having 

 come out of the loch, CuchuUin crept up to it and put his 

 two hands around the steed's neck, till they twain got a- 

 wrestling, and on that night Cuchullin came chasing with 

 his steed to Emain. He got the Black Sainglenn in like 

 wise from Lough Dubh Sainglenn. The Russian hero 

 Ilya has a steed, Cloudfall, from whose hoofs dripped 

 little rivers and lakes. From mountain to mountain he 

 sprang. Where his hoofs fell, founts of water gushed 

 forth. We are told, too, that in the village of Kara- 

 charovo, Ilya's birthplace, there is a chapel built upon 

 the spot where a fountain burst forth from beneath 

 Cloudfall's hoof. To this spring fierce bears still come to 

 quaff the water and gain heroic strength. In the Greek 

 epic, Arion, the horse of Adrastus, and Pegasus, ridden 

 by the Corinthian hero Bellerophon, are both the off- 



