Tathlum (Weapon)

According to the brief accounts in the Lebor Gabála Érenn, Lugh used the "sling-stone" (cloich tabaill) to slay his grandfather, Balor the Strong-Smiter in the Battle of Magh Tuired. The narrative Cath Maige Tured, preserved in a unique 16th century copy, words it slightly different saying that Lugh used the sling-stone to destroy the evil eye of Balor of the Piercing Eye (Bolur Birugderc).
The ammunition that Lugh used was not just a stone, but a tathlum according to a certain poem in Egerton MS. 1782 (olim W. Monck Mason MS.), the first quatrain of which is as follows:
A tathlum, heavy, fiery, firm,
  Which the Tuatha Dé Danann had with them,
  It was that broke the fierce Balor's eye,
  Of old, in the battle of the great armies.
 
—Meyer (1905) ed.
—O'Curry (1873) tr.
The poem goes on to describe the composition of this tathlum, as being formed from the bloods collected from toads, bears, the lion, vipers and the neck-base of Osmuinn, mixed with the sands of the Armorian Sea and the Red Sea.
Category:Weapons
Category:Slings
Category:Ammunition
Category:Legendary Weapons