It is there then that Ailill said to his charioteer Cuillius: 'Find
out for me to-day Medb and Fergus. I know not what has brought them
to this union. I shall be pleased that a token should come to me by
you.'
Cuillius came when they were in Cluichre. The pair remained behind,
and the warriors went on. Cuillius came to them, and they heard not
the spy. Fergus' sword happened to be beside him. Cuillius drew it
out of its sheath, and left the sheath empty. Cuillius came to
Ailill.
'So?' said Ailill.
'So indeed,' said Cuillius; 'there is a token for you.'
'It is well,' said Ailill.
Each of them smiles at the other.
'As you thought,' said Cuillius, 'it is thus that I found them, in
one another's arms.'
'It is right for her,' said Ailill; 'it is for help on the Foray
that she has done it. See that the sword is kept in good condition,'
said Ailill. 'Put it under your seat in the chariot, and a cloth of
linen around it.'
Fergus got up for his sword after that.
'Alas!' said he.
'What is the matter with you?' said Medb.
'An ill deed have I done to Ailill,' said he. 'Wait here, while I
go into the wood,' said Fergus; 'and do not wonder though it be
long till I come.'
It happened that Medb knew not the loss of the sword. He goes
thence, and takes the sword of his charioteer with him in his hand.
He makes a wooden sword in the wood. Hence there is Fid Mor Drualle
in Ulster.
'Let us go on after our comrades,' said Fergus. All their hosts
meet in the plain. They pitch their tents. Fergus is summoned to
Ailill to play chess. When Fergus went to the tent, Ailill began to
laugh at him. [Note: Here follows about two columns of rhetoric,
consisting of a taunting dialogue between Ailill, Fergus and Medb.]
***
Cuchulainn came so that he was at Ath Cruinn before them.
'O friend Loeg,' said he to his charioteer, 'the hosts are at hand
to us.'
'I swear by the gods,' said the charioteer, 'I will do a mighty
feat before warriors ... on slender steeds with yokes of silver,
with golden wheels ...'
'Take heed, O Loeg,' said Cuchulainn; 'hold the reins for great
victory of Macha ... I beseech,' said Cuchulainn, 'the waters to
help me. I beseech heaven and earth, and the Cronn in particular.'
The (river) Cronn takes to fighting against them; it will not let
them into Murthemne until the work of heroes be finished in Sliab
Tuath Ochaine.
Therewith the water rose up till it was in the tops of the trees.
Mane, son of Ailill and Medb, went before the rest. Cuchulainn
smites them on the ford, and thirty horsemen of Mane's retinue were
drowned in the water. Cuchulainn overthrew two sixteens of warriors
of them again by the water.
They pitch their tents at that ford. Lugaid Mac Nois, descendant of
Lomarc Allchomach, came to speak to Cuchulainn, with thirty
horsemen.
'Welcome, O Lugaid,' said Cuchulainn. 'If a flock of birds graze
upon Mag Murthemne, you shall have a duck with half of another; if
fish come to the estuaries, you shall have a salmon with half of
another. You shall have the three sprigs, the sprig of watercress,
and the sprig of marshwort, and the sprig of seaweed. You shall
have a man in the ford in your place.' [Note: This and the
following speech are apparently forms of greeting. Cuchulainn
offers Lugaid such hospitality as lies in his power. See a similar
speech later to Fergus.]
'I believe it,' said Lugaid. 'Excellence of people to the boy whom
I desire.'
'Your hosts are fine,' said Cuchulainn.
It would not be sad for you alone before them,' said Lugaid.
'Fair-play and valour will support me,' said Cuchulainn. 'O friend
Lugaid, do the hosts fear me?'
'I swear by God,' said Lugaid, 'one man nor two dare not go out of
the camp, unless it be in twenties or thirties.'
'It will be something extra for them,' said Cuchulainn, 'if I take
to throwing from the sling. Fitting for you will be this fellow-vassal,
O Lugaid, that you have among the Ulstermen, if there come to me
the force of every man. Say what you would have,' said Cuchulainn.
'That I may have a truce with you towards my host.'
'You shall have it, provided there be a token on it. And tell my
friend Fergus that there be a token on his host. Tell the
physicians, let there be a token on their host. And let them swear
preservation of life to me, and let there come to me provision
every night from them.'
Then Lugaid goes from him. Fergus happened to be in the tent with
Ailill. Lugaid called him out, and told him this. Something was
heard, namely Ailill. ... [Note: Rhetoric, six lines, the substance
of which is, apparently, that Ailill asks protection also.]
'I swear by God I cannot do it,' said Lugaid, 'unless I ask the boy
Again.'
'Help me, [Note: Spoken by Fergus?] O Lugaid, go to him to see
whether Ailill may come with a cantred into my troop. Take an ox
with bacon to him and a jar of wine.'
He goes to Cuchulainn then and tells him this.
'I do not mind though he go,' said Cuchulainn.
Then their two troops join. They are there till night. Cuchulainn
kills thirty men of them with the sling. (Or they would be twenty
nights there, as some books say.)
'Your journeyings are bad,' said Fergus. 'The Ulstermen will come
to you out of their weakness, and they will grind you to earth and
gravel. "The corner of battle" in which we are is bad.'
He goes thence to Cul Airthir. It happened that Cuchulainn had gone
that night to speak to the Ulstermen [Note: In LL and Y BL this
incident occurs later, and the messenger is Sualtaim, not
Cuchulainn. LU is clearly wrong here.]
'Have you news?' said Conchobar.
'Women are captured,' said Cuchulainn, 'cattle are driven away, men
are slain.'
'Who carries them off? who drives them away? who kills them?'
'... Ailill Mac Matae carries them off, and Fergus Mac Roich
very bold ...' [Note: Rhetoric.]
'It is not great profit to you,' said Conchobar, 'to-day, our
smiting has come to us all the same.'
Cuchulainn goes thence from them; he saw the hosts going forth.
'Alas,' said Ailill, 'I see chariots' ..., etc [Note: Rhetoric,
five lines.]
Cuchulainn kills thirty men of them on Ath Duirn. They could not
reach Cul Airthir then till night. He slays thirty of them there,
and they pitch their tents there. Ailill's charioteer, Cuillius,
was washing the chariot tyres [Note: See previous note on the word
_fonnod_; the word used here is _fonnod_.] in the ford in the
morning; Cuchulainn struck him with a stone and killed him. Hence
is Ath Cuillne in Cul Airthir. They reach Druim Feine in Conaille
and spent the night there, as we have said before.
Cuchulainn attacked them there; he slays a hundred men of them
every night of the three nights that they were there; he took a
sling to them from Ochaine near them.
'Our host will be short-lived through Cuchulainn in this way,' said
Ailill. 'Let an agreement be carried from us to him: that he shall
have the equal of Mag Murthemne from Mag Ai, and the best chariot
that is in Ai, and the equipment of twelve men. Offer, if it
pleases him better, the plain in which he was brought up, and three
sevens of cumals [Note: The _cumal_ (bondmaid) was a standard of
value.]; and everything that has been destroyed of his household (?)
and cattle shall be made good, and he shall have full compensation (?),
and let him go into my service; it is better for him than the
service of a sub king.'
'Who shall go for that?'
'Mac Roth yonder.'
Mac Roth, the messenger of Ailill and Medb, went on that errand to
Delga: it is he who encircles Ireland in one day. It is there that
Fergus thought that Cuchulainn was, in Delga.
'I see a man coming towards us,' said Loeg to Cuchulainn. 'He has
a yellow head of hair, and a linen emblem round it; a club of
fury(?) in his hand, an ivory-hilted sword at his waist; a hooded
tunic with red ornamentation on him.'
'Which of the warriors of the king is that?' said Cuchulainn.
Mac Roth asked Loeg whose man he was.
'Vassal to the man down yonder,' said Loeg.
Cuchulainn was there in the snow up to his two thighs, without
anything at all on him, examining his shirt.
Then Mac Roth asked Cuchulainn whose man he was.
'Vassal of Conchobar Mac Nessa,' said Cuchulainn.
'Is there no clearer description?'
'That is enough,' said Cuchulainn.
'Where then is Cuchulainn?' said Mac Roth.
'What would you say to him?' said Cuchulainn.
Mac Roth tells him then all the message, as we have told it.
'Though Cuchulainn were near, he would not do this; he will not
barter the brother of his mother for another king.'
He came to him again, and it was said to Cuchulainn that there
should be given over to him the noblest of the women and the cows
that were without milk, on condition that he should not ply his
sling on them at night, even if he should kill them by day.
'I will not do it,' said Cuchulainn; 'if our slavewomen are taken
from us, our noble women will be at the querns; and we shall be
without milk if our milch-cows are taken from us.'
He came to him again, and he was told that he should have the
slave-women and the milch-cows.
'I will not do it,' said Cuchulainn; 'the Ulstermen will take their
slave-women to their beds, and there will be born to them a servile
offspring, and they will use their milch-cows for meat in the
winter.'
'Is there anything else then?' said the messenger.
'There is,' said Cuchulainn; 'and I will not tell it you. It shall
be agreed to, if any one tell it you.'
'I know it,' said Fergus; 'I know what the man tried to suggest;
and it is no advantage to you. And this is the agreement,' said
Fergus: 'that the ford on which takes place (?) his battle and
combat with one man, the cattle shall not be taken thence a day and
a night; if perchance there come to him the help of the Ulstermen.
And it is a marvel to me,' said Fergus, 'that it is so long till
they come out of their sufferings.'
'It is indeed easier for us,' said Ailill, 'a man every day than a
hundred every night.'
_The Death of Etarcomol_
Then Fergus went on this errand; Etarcomol, son of Edan [Note: Name
uncertain. YBL has Eda, LL Feda.] and Lethrinne, foster-son of
Ailill and Medb, followed.
'I do not want you to go,' said Fergus, 'and it is not for hatred
of you; but I do not like combat between you and Cuchulainn. Your
pride and insolence, and the fierceness and hatred, pride and
madness of the other, Cuchulainn: there will be no good from your
meeting.'
'Are you not able to protect me from him?' said Etarcomol.
'I can,' said Fergus, 'provided only that you do not treat his,
sayings with disrespect.'
They go thence in two chariots to Delga. Cuchulainn was then
playing chess [Note: _Buanfach_, like _fidchell_, is apparently a
game something like chess or draughts.] with Loeg; the back of his
head was towards them, and Loeg's face.
'I see two chariots coming towards us,' said Loeg; 'a great dark
man in the first chariot, with dark and bushy hair; a purple cloak
round him, and a golden pin therein; a hooded tunic with gold
embroidery on him; and a round shield with an engraved edge of
white metal, and a broad spear-head, with rings from point to
haft(?), in his hand. A sword as long as the rudder of a boat on
his two thighs.'
'It is empty, this great rudder that is brought by my friend
Fergus,' said Cuchulainn; 'for there is no sword in its sheath
except a sword of wood. It has been told to me,' said Cuchulainn;
'Ailill got a chance of them as they slept, he and Medb; and he
took away his sword from Fergus, and gave it to his charioteer to
take care of, and the sword of wood was put into its sheath.'
Then Fergus comes up.
'Welcome, O friend Fergus,' said Cuchulainn; 'if a fish comes
into the estuary, you shall have it with half of another; if a
flock comes into the plain, you shall have a duck with half of
another; a spray of cress or seaweed, a spray of marshwort; a drink
from the sand; you shall have a going to the ford to meet a man, if
it should happen to be your watch, till you have slept.'
'I believe it,' said Fergus; 'it is not your provision that we have
come for; we know your housekeeping here.'
Then Cuchulainn receives the message from Fergus; anti Fergus goes
away. Etarcomol remains looking at Cuchulainn.
'What are you looking at?' said Cuchulainn.
'You,' said Etarcomol.
'The eye soon compasses it indeed,' said Cuchulainn.
'That is what I see,' said Etarcomol. 'I do not know at all why you
should be feared by any one. I do not see terror or fearfulness, or
overwhelming of a host, in you; you are merely a fair youth with
arms of wood, and with fine feats.'
'Though you speak ill of me,' said Cuchulainn, 'I will not kill you
for the sake of Fergus. But for your protection, it would have been
your entrails drawn (?) and your quarters scattered, that would
have gone from me to the camp behind your chariot.'
'Threaten me not thus,' said Etarcomol. 'The wonderful agreement
that he has bound, that is, the single combat, it is I who will
first meet you of the men of Ireland to-morrow.'
Then he goes away. He turned back from Methe and Cethe and said to
his charioteer:
'I have boasted,' said he, 'before Fergus combat with Cuchulainn
to-morrow. It is not possible for us [Note: YBL reading.] to wait
for it; turn the horses back again from the hill.'
Loeg sees this and says to Cuchulainn: 'There is the chariot back
again, and it has put its left board [Note: An insult.] towards us.'
'It is not a "debt of refusal,"' said Cuchulainn. 'I do not wish,'
said Cuchulainn, 'what you demand of me.'
'This is obligatory to you,' said Etarcomol.
Cuchulainn strikes the sod under his feet, so that he fell
prostrate, and the sod behind him.
'Go from me,' said Cuchulainn. 'I am loath to cleanse my hands in
you. I would have divided you into many parts long since but for
Fergus.'
'We will not part thus,' said Etarcomol, 'till I have taken your
head, or left my head with you.'
'It is that indeed that will be there,' said Cuchulainn.
Cuchulainn strikes him with his sword in his two armpits, so that
his clothes fell from him, and it did not wound his skin.
'Go then,' said Cuchulainn.
'No,' said Etarcomol.
Then Cuchulainn attacked him with the edge of his sword, and took
his hair off as if it was shaved with a razor; he did not put even
a scratch (?) on the surface. When the churl was troublesome then
and stuck to him, he struck him on the hard part of his crown, so
that he divided him down to the navel.
Fergus saw the chariot go past him, and the one man therein. He
turned to quarrel with Cuchulainn.
'Ill done of you, O wild boy!' said he, 'to insult me. You would
think my club [Note: Or 'track'?] short,' said he.
'Be not angry with me, O friend Fergus,' said Cuchulainn ... [Note:
Rhetoric, five lines.] 'Reproach me not, O friend Fergus.'
He stoops down, so that Fergus's chariot went past him thrice.