Note 3 — Chapter XXIV

This is the periodic curse which overtook the Ulstermen at certain periods, rendering them feeble as a woman in child-bed, in consequence of the malediction of the goddess Macha, who was, just before the birth of her children, inhumanly obliged by the Ultonians to run against the king's horses. The only people of the northern province free from this curse were the children born before the curse was uttered, the women, and the hero Cuchulain. It transmitted itself from father to son for nine generations, and is said to have lasted five nights and four days, or four nights and five days. But one would think from the Táin Bo Chuailgne that it must have lasted much longer. For this curse see Jubainville's "Epopée Celtique," p. 320. I was, not long ago, told a story by a peasant in the county Galway not unlike it, only it was related of the mother of the celebrated boxer Donnelly.