The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge Part 44

Then cast he a spell of concealment over his horses and over his fellow, so that they were not visible to any one in the camp, while all in the camp were visible to them, [3]and over this veil of protection he wounded each one and through it and behind it.[3] Well indeed was it that he cast that charm, for on that day the charioteer had to perform the three gifts of charioteers.h.i.+p, namely leaping over a cleft in the ranks, unerring driving, and the handling of the goad.

[3-3] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

Then [4]arose[4] the champion and battle-warrior and the instrument of Badb's corpse-fold[a] among the men of the earth,[c] Cuchulain son of Sualtaim, and he donned his war-dress of battle and fight and combat. To that war-dress of battle and fight and combat which he put about him belonged seven and twenty[b] waxed, board-like, equally close skin-tunics which were girded by cords and swathings and ropes on his fair skin, to the end that his wit and reason might not become deranged when the violence of his nature came over him.

[4-4] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[a] That is, the piled up bodies of the slain.

[c] 'Of Erin,' Eg. 93.

[b] 'Eight and twenty,'. Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

Over him he put on the outside his battle-girdle of a champion, of tough, tanned, stout leather cut from the forequarters of seven ox-hides of yearlings, so that it reached from the slender parts of his waist to the stout part under [W.2562.] his arm-pits. He was used to wear it to keep off spears and points and irons and lances and arrows. For in like manner they would bound back from it as if from stone or rock or horn they rebounded.

Then he took his silken, glossy trews with their band of spotted pale-gold against the soft lower parts of his loins. His brown, well-sewn kilt of brown leather from the shoulders of four ox-hides of yearlings, with his battle-girdle of cow-skins, he put underneath over the s.h.i.+ning silken trews on the outside, [1]so that it covered him from the slender part of his waist to the thick part of his thighs and reached up to the battle-belt of the hero.[1] Then the king-hero [LL.fo.77a.] [2]and king-warrior[2] seized his battle-arms of battle and fight and combat. This is what belonged to those warlike weapons of battle: He took his eight little swords together with the bright-faced, tusk-hilted straightsword [3]along with his quiver;[3] he took his eight little spears besides his five-p.r.o.nged spear; he took his eight little darts together with his javelin with its walrus-tooth ornaments; he took his eight little shafts along with his play-staff; he took his eight s.h.i.+elds for feats together with his dark-red bent-s.h.i.+eld, whereon a show-boar could lie in its hollow boss, with its very sharp, razor-like, keen-cutting, hard [4]iron[4] rim all around it, so that it would cut a hair against the stream because of its sharpness and fineness and keenness. When the young warrior would perform the edge-feat withal, it was the same whether he cut with his s.h.i.+eld or his spear or his sword. Next he put round his head his crested war-helm of battle and fight and combat, [5]wherein were four carbuncle-gems on each point and each end to adorn it,[5] whereout was uttered the cry of an hundred young warriors with the long-drawn wail from each of its angles and corners. [W.2583.]

For this was the way that the fiends, the goblins and the sprites of the glens and the demons of the air screamed before and above and around him, what time he went forth for the shedding of blood of heroes and champions, [1]exulting in the mighty deeds wrought underneath it[1]. His veil of concealment was thrown over him then, of raiment from Tir Tairngire ('the Land of Promise') which had been brought to him [2]as a gift[2] by Manannan son of Ler ('the Sea') from the king of Tir na Sorcha ('the Land of Light'), [3]his foster-father in magic[3]. [4]His fair, purple-red fan was placed in front of his face. Past it and through it and over it everything was visible to him and no one wounded him past it nor through it nor over it[4].

[1-1] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[2-2] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[3-3] LU. 1914.

[4-4] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[5-5] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[1-1] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[2-2] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[3-3] Stowe and LU. 1927.

[4-4] Eg. 93.

Then took place the first twisting-fit [5]and rage[5] of [6]the royal hero[6] Cuchulain, so that he made a terrible, many-shaped, wonderful, unheard of thing of himself. His flesh trembled about him like a pole against the torrent or like a bulrush against the stream, every member and every joint and every point and every knuckle of him from crown to ground.

He made a mad whirling-feat of his body within his hide. His feet and his s.h.i.+ns and his knees slid so that they came behind him. His heels and his calves and his hams s.h.i.+fted so that they pa.s.sed to the front. The muscles of his calves moved so that they came to the front of his s.h.i.+ns, so that each huge knot was the size of a soldier's balled fist. He stretched the sinews of his head so that they stood out on the nape of his neck, and as large as the head of a month-old child was each of the hill-like lumps, huge, incalculable, vast, immeasurable.

[5-5] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[6-6] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

He next made a ruddy bowl of his face and his countenance. He gulped down one eye into his head so that it [W.2603.] would be hard work if a wild crane succeeded in drawing it out on to the middle of his cheek from the rear of his skull. Its mate sprang forth till it came out on his cheek, [1]so that it was the size of a five-fist kettle, and he made a red berry thereof out in front of his head.[1] His mouth was distorted monstrously [2]and twisted up to his ears[2]. He drew the cheek from the jaw-bone so that the interior of his throat was to be seen. His lungs and his lights stood out so that they fluttered in his mouth and his gullet. He struck a mad lion's blow with the upper jaw [3]on its fellow[3] so that as large as a wether's fleece of a three year old was each [4]red,[4] fiery flake [5]which his teeth forced[5] into his mouth from his gullet. There was heard the loud clap of his heart against his breast like the yelp of a howling bloodhound or like a lion going among bears. [LL.fo.78a.] There were seen the [a]torches of the Badb,[a] and the rain clouds of poison, and the sparks of glowing-red fire, [6]blazing and flas.h.i.+ng[6] in hazes and mists over his head with the seething of the truly-wild wrath that rose up above him. His hair bristled all over his head like branches of a redthorn thrust into a gap in a great hedge. Had a king's apple-tree laden with royal fruit been shaken around him, scarce an apple of them all would have pa.s.sed over him to the ground, but rather would an apple have stayed stuck on each single hair there, for the twisting of the anger which met it as it rose from his hair above him. The Lon Laith ('Champion's Light') stood out of his forehead, so that it was as long and as thick as a warrior's whetstone, [7]so that it was as long as his nose, till he got furious handling the s.h.i.+elds, thrusting out the charioteer, destroying the hosts.[7] As high, as thick, as strong, as steady, as long as the sail-tree of some huge [W.2623.] prime s.h.i.+p was the straight spout of dark blood which arose right on high from the very ridgepole of his crown, so that a black fog of witchery was made thereof like to the smoke from a king's hostel what time the king comes to be ministered to at nightfall of a winter's day.

[1-1] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[2-2] Stowe.

[3-3] Reading with Stowe.

[4-4] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[5-5] Reading with Eg. 93.

[a-a] A kenning for 'swords.'

[6-6] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[7-7] LU. 1958-1959.

When now this contortion had been completed in Cuchulain, then it was that the hero of valour sprang into his scythed war-chariot, with its iron sickles, its thin blades, its hooks and its hard spikes, with its hero's fore-p.r.o.ngs, with its opening fixtures, with its stinging nails that were fastened to the poles and thongs and bows and lines of the chariot, [1]lacerating heads and bones and bodies, legs and necks and shoulders.[1]

[1-1] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

It was then he delivered [2]over his chariot[2] the thunder-feat of a hundred and the thunder-feat of two hundred and the thunder-feat of three hundred and the thunder-feat of four hundred, and he ceased at the thunder-feat of five hundred. For he did not deem it too much that such a great number should fall by his hand at his first onset and first battle-a.s.sault on four of the five grand provinces of Erin, [3]while avenging on them the slaughter of the youths and of Follomain son of Conchobar,[3] In such wise fared he forth for to seek his foes, and he drove his chariot in a wide circuit round about the hosts of the four grand provinces of Erin. And he led his chariot a heavy way. The chariot's iron wheels sank into the ground so that [4]the earth dug up by the iron wheels[4] might have served for a dun and a fortress, so did the chariot's iron wheels cut into the ground. For in like manner the clods and boulders and rocks and the clumps and the s.h.i.+ngle of the earth arose up outside on a height with the iron wheels. It was for this cause he made this circling [5]hedge[5] of the Badb [W.2646.] round about the hosts of four of the five grand provinces of Erin, that they might not escape him nor get away before he would come on them to press a reprisal for the boys. And he went into the midst of the ranks and mowed down huge walls of the corpses of his foes [1]and enemies and opponents[1] in a great circle round about the host. And he made the onslaught of a foe amongst foes upon them, so that they fell sole to sole, neck to neck, [2]arm to arm, elbow to elbow, and rib to rib, [3]such was the closeness of their bodies,[3] and there were pools of ruddy blood where they moved.[2] Thrice again in this manner he circled them round, so that he left them in beds of six in a great ring around them, even the soles of three to the backs of three men in a circle around the camp. Hence Sessrech Breslige ('Great sixfold Slaughter')[a] is the name of this event on the Tain, and it is one of the three unreckonable events of the Tain, which were, to wit, Sessrech Breslige, Immslige Glennamnach ('the Mutual Slaying at Glennamain'), and the battle of Garech [LL.fo.78b.] and Ilgarech; only that here, hound and horse and man were one to him [4]in the great rout on Mag Murthemni that night avenging the youths on four of the five grand provinces of Erin.[4]

[2-2] Eg. 93.

[3-3] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[4-4] Stowe.

[5-5] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[1-1] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[2-2] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[3-3] LU. 1996.

[a] Or, 'Ploughland of the Great Slaughter.'

[4-4] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

What others say is that Lug son of Ethliu fought on Cuchulain's side at the Sessrech Breslige.

Their number is not known and it cannot be reckoned how many fell there of the rabble rout, but only their chiefs have been counted. Here below are their names, to wit:--

The two Cruad, two Calad, two Cir, two Ciar, two Ecell, three Cromm, three Cur, three Combirge, four Feochar, four Furachar, four Ca.s.se, four Fota, five Caur, five Cerman, [W.2679.] five Cobtach, six Saxan, six Duach, six Dare, [1]six Dunchadh, six Daimiach,[1] seven Rochad, seven Ronan, seven Rurthech, eight Rochlad, eight Rochtad, eight Rindach, [2]eight Corpre,[2]

eight Malach, nine Daigith, nine Dare, nine Damach, ten Fiach, ten Fiacach, ten Fedlimid.

[1-1] Eg. 93 and H. 2. 17.

[2-2] LU. and YBL. 2010.

Ten and six-score[b] kings, [3]leaders and men of the land,[3] Cuchulain laid low in the great slaughter on the Plain of Murthemne, besides a countless horde of dogs and horses and women and boys and children and common folk; for there escaped not a third man of the men of Erin [4]without a wound or a hurt or a blueing or a reddening or a lump or a mark or breaking of thigh or of leg or of s.h.i.+nbone,[4] without having hip-bone broken or half his skull or an eye hurt, or without an enduring mark for the course of his life. [5]And he left them then after inflicting that battle upon them, without having his blood drawn or wound brought on himself or on his charioteer or on either of his horses.[5]

[b] 'Nineteen and nine-score,' H. 2. 17 and Eg. 93.