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===Ulster Cycle=== The Morrígan's earliest narrative appearances, in which she is depicted as an individual,<ref name="CELT-Regamna">{{cite book |url=http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G301005/text002.html |title=Táin Bó Regamna |work=Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition |page=33 |author=Unknown}}</ref> are in stories of the [[Ulster Cycle]], where she has an ambiguous relationship with the hero [[Cú Chulainn]]. In the ''[[Táin Bó#Tains|Táin Bó Regamna]]'' ("''The Cattle Raid of Regamain''"), Cú Chulainn encounters the Morrígan, but does not recognise her, as she drives a [[cow|heifer]] from his territory. In response to this perceived challenge, and his ignorance of her role as a sovereignty figure, he insults her. But before he can attack her she becomes a black bird on a nearby branch. Cú Chulainn now knows who she is, and tells her that had he known before, they would not have parted in enmity. She notes that whatever he had done would have brought him ill luck. To his response that she cannot harm him, she delivers a series of warnings, foretelling a coming battle in which he will be killed. She tells him, "It is at the guarding of thy death that I am; and I shall be."<ref>"[http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/regamna.html The Cattle Raid of Regamna]", translated by A. H. Leahy, from ''Heroic Romances of Ireland'' Vol II, 1906</ref> In the ''[[Táin Bó Cúailnge]]'' ("''The Cattle Raid of Cooley''"), Queen [[Medb]] of [[Connacht]] launches an invasion of [[Ulaid|Ulster]] to steal the bull [[Donn Cuailnge]]; the Morrígan, like [[Alecto]] of the Greek [[Erinyes|Furies]], appears to the bull in the form of a crow and warns him to flee.{{sfn|O'Rahilly|1976|p=152}} Cú Chulainn defends Ulster by fighting a series of single combats at fords against Medb's champions. In between combats, the Morrígan appears to him as a young woman and offers him her love and her aid in the battle, but he rejects her offer. In response, she intervenes in his next combat, first in the form of an eel who trips him, then as a wolf who stampedes cattle across the ford, and finally as a white, red-eared heifer leading the stampede, just as she had warned in their previous encounter. However, Cú Chulainn wounds her in each form and defeats his opponent despite her interference. Later, she appears to him as an old woman bearing the same three wounds that her animal forms had sustained, milking a cow. She gives Cú Chulainn three drinks of milk. He blesses her with each drink, and her wounds are healed.{{sfn|O'Rahilly|1976|pp=176–177, 180–182}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Cecile (ed & trans) |last=O'Rahilly |url=http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T301035/index.html |title=Táin Bó Cualnge'' from the Book of Leinster'' |year=1967|pages=193–197}}</ref> He regrets blessing her for the three drinks of milk, which is apparent in the exchange between the Morrígan and Cú Chulainn: "She gave him milk from the third teat, and her leg was healed. 'You told me once,' she said,'that you would never heal me.' 'Had I known it was you,' said Cú Chulainn, 'I never would have.'"<ref>{{cite book |first=Ciaran |last=Carson |title=The Táin: A New Translation of the Táin Bó Cúlailnge |year=2007 |page=96}}</ref> As the armies gather for the final battle, she prophesies the bloodshed to come.{{sfn|O'Rahilly|1976|pp=229–230}} In one version of Cú Chulainn's death-tale, as Cú Chulainn rides to meet his enemies, he encounters the Morrígan as a [[hag]] washing his bloody armour in a ford, an omen of his death. Later in the story, mortally wounded, Cú Chulainn ties himself to a [[standing stone]] with his own entrails so he can die upright, and it is only when a crow lands on his shoulder that his enemies believe he is dead.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/cuchulain3.html |title=The Death of Cú Chulainn |work=Celtic Literature Collective}}</ref>
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