ditches for a fortress. Thus Cúchulainn is on one occasion made to describe a heavy course of this kind round the camp of his enemies, and to extemporize a blockade in this way to delay their march until his friends should arrive on the scene.[1]
Lastly, Cúchulainn was distinguished for his good sense and wisdom, for the sweetness of his speech, and for many excellences or capacities in which he surpassed his contemporaries: among others are mentioned his superiority in the matter of intelligence, prophecy, chess-playing, and ability to tell at a glance the number of men in an enemy's camp.[2] In fact, two of the three cleverest countings of this kind which Irish memory handed down in the form of a triad, were ascribed to Lug and Cúchulainn respectively.[3] But the parallel extends much further than this instance would have led one to expect; for just as Lug excelled all the professional men of the Tuatha Dé Danann because he knew all their professions himself, so Cúchulainn, when he described[4] himself to the lady he wooed to be his wife, was made to say that he yielded superiority to the king alone, that he surpassed all the nobles of Ulster because he had learned all that each of them had to teach in his own profession. For besides what appertained to war and valour, he possessed wisdom in legal and tribal matters, and he revised the judgments of the Ultonians; he could take a part in the administrative work of the king's realm; he had acquired all that the chief file or
