past. Cúchulainn, at Lugaid's urging, shot a slingstone which hit Derbforgaill, penetrating her womb, and the two women fell on the beach in human form. Cúchulainn saved Derbforgaill's life by sucking the stone from her side, and she declared her love for him, but because he had sucked her side he could not marry her – evidently he had violated some geis or taboo. Instead he gave her to Lugaid. They married, and she bore him children. Deaths of Derbforgaill and Lugaid One day in deep winter, the men of Ulster made pillars of snow, and the women competed to see who could urinate the deepest into the pillar and prove herself the most desirable to men. Derbforgaill's urine reached the ground, and the other women, out of jealousy, attacked and mutilated her, gouging out her eyes and cutting off her nose, ears, and hair. Lugaid noticed that the snow on the roof of her house had not melted, and realised she was close to death. He and Cúchulainn rushed to the house, but Derbforgaill died shortly after they arrived, and Lugaid died of grief. Cúchulainn avenged them by demolishing the house the women were inside, killing 150 of them. Alternatives For Lugaid Réoderg, an alternative tradition exists that he met his death at the hands of the Trí Rúadchinn Laigen, the "Three Reds of the Laigin" also involved in the death of Conaire Mór. Lucius Gwynn suggested that what may have happened is an earlier King of Tara known as Lugaid Réoderg may have become confused with a separate and minor character from the Ulster Cycle associated with Cúchulainn. T. F. O'Rahilly, on the other hand, believed the epithet Riab nDerg to simply be a corruption of the earlier Réoderg, meaning something like "of the red sky", and does not believe them to be distinct legendary figures (see below). Further analysis The view advanced by O'Rahilly was that Lugaid Riab nDerg is yet another emanation of the heroic mytho-dynastic figure Lugaid, closely associated with the prehistoric Érainn, a population of late Iron Age Ireland who provide Irish legend with its earliest known Kings of Tara. One of their most notable representatives in that office is Lugaid's immediate predecessor, Conaire Mór. Specifically, O'Rahilly believed Lugaid Riab nDerg to be the double of Lugaid mac Con Roí, whose alternative epithet was mac Trí Con "son of Three Hounds", and who himself