62 The Washer of the Ford the gear she is washing. In the characteristic attitude of prophecy she foretells his doom. In the Great Defeat on the Plain of Muirthemne the young war- rior Cuchulainn on his way to the battle comes similarly, upon a supernatural woman washing his gear at a ford. The details are slightly different. This woman is " slender and white of her body, yellow of her hair." The prophecy is not made by the woman herself, but is put into the mouth of the druid Cathbad who accompanies the hero. "See'st thou not yonder sight? She is Badb's daughter that with woe and mourning washes thy gear, because she signifies thy fall and thy destruction by Meave's great hosting. " 8 But the hero will not desist from his enterprise. "What though the fairy woman wash my spoils?" he replies. It is his consolation that she will wash the spoils of his enemies also. In the Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh, Triumphs of Torlough, written about 1350 by Seean MacCraith, hereditary historion of the O'Briens, the army of Donnchad O'Brien comes to the shore of a lake, and There they saw the monstrous and distorted form of a lone ancient hag, that stooped over the bright Lough shore. She was thatched with elf-locks, foxy grey and rough like heather, matted and like long sea-wrack, a bossy wrinkled, ulcerated brow, the hairs of her eyebrows like fish-hooks; bleared watery eyes peered with malignant fire between red inflamed lids; she had a great blue nose, flattened and wide, livid lips, and a stubbly beard. . . The hag was washing human limbs and heads with gory weapons and clothes, till all the lake was defiled with blood and brains and floating hair. Donnchad at last spoke: "What is your name and race, and whose kin are those maltreated dead? " " I am Bronach of Burren of the Tuatha D6 Danann. This slaughter-heap is of your army's heads. Your own is in the middle." 9 The prophecy having been delivered, the strange figure rises and disappears. In the same account Richard de Clare, the Norman leader, com- ing to the " running water of the fish-containing Fergus," meets a similar horrible beldame, " washing armour and rich robes till the red gore churned and splashed through her hands. " DeClare calls an Irish ally to question her. She declares that the armour 8 E. Hull, The Cuckullin Saga, p. 47.
Folk Lore XXL 188.
