The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) Part 16

Medb looked at the two. 'It pleases me, yonder pair,' said she; 'a match between them would be fitting.'

'I will not stand in your way,' said Ailill; 'he shall have her if he brings me the head of the Riastartha.'

'I will bring it,' said Larine.

Then Lugaid comes. 'What man have you for the ford to-morrow?' said he.

'Larine goes,' said Ailill.

Then Lugaid comes to speak with Cuchulainn. They meet in Glenn Firbaith. Each gives the other welcome.

'It is for this I have come to speak to you,' said Lugaid: 'there is a churl here, a fool and proud,' said he, 'a brother of mine named Larine; he is befooled about the same maiden. On your friends.h.i.+p then, do not kill him, lest you should leave me without a brother.

For it is for this that he is being sent to you, so that we two might quarrel. I should be content, however, that you should give him a sound drubbing, for it is in my despite that he comes.'

Larine goes next day to meet Cuchulainn, and the maiden near him to encourage him. Cuchulainn attacks him without arms. [Note: This is apparently the sense, but the pa.s.sage seems corrupt.] He takes Larine's arms from him perforce. He takes him then between his two hands, and grinds and shakes him, ... and threw him till he was between Lugaid's two hands ...; nevertheless, he is the only man who escaped [even] a bad escape from him, of all who met him on the Tain.

_The Conversation of the Morrigan with Cuchulainn_

Cuchulainn saw a young woman coming towards him, with a dress of every colour on, and her form very excellent.

'Who are you?' said Cuchulainn.

'Daughter of Buan the king,' said she. 'I have come to you; I have loved you for your reputation, and I have brought my treasures and my cattle with me.'

'The time at which you have come to us is not good. For our condition is evil, through hunger. It is not easy to me to meet a woman, while I am in this strife.'

'I will be a help to you. ... I shall be more troublesome to you,'

said she, 'when I come against you when you are in combat against the men. I will come in the form of an eel about your feet in the ford, so that you shall fall.'

'I think that likelier than the daughter of a king. I will take you,' said he, 'between my toes, till your ribs are broken, and you will be in this condition till a doom of blessing comes (?) on you.'

'I will drive the cattle on the ford to you, in the form of a grey she-wolf.'

'I will throw a stone at you from my sling, so that it shall break your eye in your head; and you will be in that state till a doom of blessing comes on you.'

'I will come to you in the form of a hornless red heifer before the cattle. They will rush on you on the plains(?), and on the fords, and on the pools, and you will not see me before you.'

'I will throw a stone at you,' said he, 'so that your leg shall break under you, and you will be in this state till a doom of blessing comes on you.'

Therewith she goes from him.

So he was a week on Ath Grencha, and a man used to fall every day by him in Ath Grencha, i.e. in Ath Darteisc.

_The Death of Loch Mac Emonis_

Then Loch Mac Emonis was asked like the others, and there was promised to him a piece of the arable land of Mag Ai equal in size to Mag Murthemne, and the equipment of twelve warriors and a chariot worth seven c.u.mals [Note: A measure of value.]; and he did not think combat with a youth worthy. He had a brother, Long Mac Emonis himself. The same price was given to him, both maiden and raiment and chariots and land. He goes to meet Cuchulainn.

Cuchulainn slays him, and he was brought dead before his brother, Loch.

This latter said that if he only knew that it was a bearded man who slew him, he would kill him for it.

'Take a battle-force to him,' said Medb to her household, 'across the ford from the west, that you may go-across; and let fair-play be broken on him.'

Then the seven Manes, warriors, go first, so that they saw him on the edge of the ford westward. He puts his feast-dress on that day.

It is then that the women kept climbing on the men to look at him.

'I am sorry,' said Medb; 'I cannot see the boy about whom they go there.'

'Your mind will not be the gladder for it,' said Lethrend, Ailill's squire, 'if you could see him.'

He comes to the ford then as he was.

'What man is it yonder, O Fergus?' said Medb.

'A boy who wards off,' etc. ... 'if it is Culann's Hound.' [Note: Rhetoric, four lines.]

Medb climbed on the men then to look at him.

It is then that the women said to Cuchulainn 'that he was laughed at in the camp because he had no beard, and no good warriors would go against him, only wild men; it were easier to make a false beard.' So this is what he did, in order to seek combat with a man; i.e. with Loch. Cuchulainn took a handful of gra.s.s, and said a spell over it, so that every one thought he had a beard.

'True,' said the troop of women, 'Cuchulainn has a beard. It is fitting for a warrior to fight with him.'

They had done this on urging Loch.

'I will not make combat against him till the end of seven days from to-day,' said Loch.

'It is not fitting for us to have no attack on the man for this s.p.a.ce,' said Medb. 'Let us put a hero to hunt(?) him every night, if perchance we may get a chance at him.'

This is done then. A hero used to come every night to hunt him, and he used to kill them all. These are the names of the men who fell there: seven Conalls, seven Oenguses, seven Uarguses, seven Celtris, eight Fiacs, ten Ailills, ten Delbaths, ten Tasachs. These are his deeds of this week in Ath Grencha.

Medb asked advice, to know what she should do to Cuchulainn, for what had been killed of their hosts by him distressed her greatly.

This is the plan she arrived at, to put brave, high-spirited men to attack him all at once when he should come to an appointed meeting to speak with Medb. For she had an appointment the next day with Cuchulainn to make a peace in fraud with him, to get hold of him.

She sent messengers forth to seek him that he should come to meet her; and it was thus he should come, and he unarmed: 'for she would come only with her troop of women to meet him.'

The messenger, Traigtren, went to the place where Cuchulainn was, and tells him Medb's message. Cuchulainn promised that he would do so.

'In what manner does it please you to go to meet Medb to-morrow, O Cuchulainn?' said Loeg.

'As Medb has asked me,' said Cuchulainn.

'Great are Medb's deeds,' said the charioteer; 'I fear a hand behind the back with her.'

'How is it to be done then?' said he.

'Your sword at your waist,' said the charioteer, 'that you may not be taken at an unfair advantage. For the warrior is not ent.i.tled to his honour-price if he is without arms; and it is the coward's law that he deserves in that way.'