It is a fine pageant, with the richness of colour, so dear to the Irish heart, the burnished silver, the gleaming gold, and the rhythmical sound of the marching of many men. Though she was supported by so great a host, Medb could not make up her mind to start until she had taken counsel with her "druid," the man who could look into the future. He promised that at any rate Medb should return in safety. Her charioteer was not satisfied, and he asked the Queen's leave to turn the chariot round to the right, in the hope that they might see some omen which should assure them that the druid was telling the truth. When he had so turned, the Queen espied a thing which surprised her. A lone virgin of marriageable age, standing on the hind pole of a chariot, a little way off, drawing nigh her. And thus the maiden appeared: wearing lace was she, and in her right hand was a bordering rod of silvered bronze, with its seven strips of red gold at the sides. A many-spotted green mantle around her; a bulging, strong-headed pin of gold in the mantle over her bosom; a hooded tunic, with red interweaving about her. A ruddy, fair-faced countenance she had, narrow below and broad above. She had a blue-grey and laughing eye, each eye had three pupils. Dark and black were her eyebrows; the soft black lashes threw a shadow to the middle of her cheeks. Red and thin were her lips. Shining and pearly were her teeth; thou couldest believe they were showers of white pearls that had rained into her head. Like to fresh, Parthian crimson were her lips. As sweet as the strings of lutes, when long sustained they are played by masterplayers' hands, was the melodious sound of her voice and her fair speech. As white as snow in one night fallen was the sheen of her skin, and her body that shone outside of her dress. Slender and very white were her feet; rosy, even, sharp-round nails she had; two sandals with golden buckles about them. Fair-yellow, long-golden hair she wore; three braids of hair she wore; two tresses were wound around her head; the other tress from behind threw a shadow down on her calves. The maiden carried arms, and two black horses were under her chariot. This fair woman was a prophetess and a Connacht poetess: but she did not prophesy smooth things. Six times over, in reply to Medb's question, she answered: "Tell, O Fedelm, prophet maid, "Crimson red from blood they are; Then, though Medb protested that the Ulstermen were "in their pains," and therefore could not be dangerous to a host like hers, Fedelm predicted that Cuchulain would destroy the Connacht army: Relying, in spite of this, on the Ulstermen's " pains," Medb's host went on; soon they encountered Cuchulain. He and Medb agreed that the Connacht army should proceed, if, every day, one of their champions came out and fought single-handed with him. In these contests, Cuchulain was always victorious, and, thus, he slew 1 Conchabar and his followers had done wrong aforetime to the goddess Macha; as a punishment, they suffered from time to time from a strange weakness which unfitted them for action. As a rule, it lasted four nights and five days; but during Medb's invasion, it lasted about three months, and the defence of Ulster fell on Cuchulain. He and his father were not laid under this curse. 2 Only Cuchulain could handle this barbed spear. many of the most famous Connacht warriors, including, to his own great grief, his foster-brother, Ferdiad, with whom he fought for four whole days. The Táin describes Cuchulain as he approached Ferdiad: In the front of the chariot is a man with fair, curly, long hair. There is around him a cloak, blue, Parthian purple. A spear with red, keen-cutting blades, flaming red in his hand. The semblance of three heads of hair he had, namely, brown hair next to the skin of his head, blood-red hair in the middle, a crown of gold is the third head of hair. Beautiful is the arrangement of that hair, so that it makes three coils down behind over his shoulder. Even as a thread of gold it seems, when its hue has been wrought over the edge of an anvil: or like to the yellow of bees whereon shines the sun on a summer's day is the shining of each single hair of his hair. Seven toes he has on each of his feet, and seven fingers on each of his hands, and the brilliance of a very great fire is around his eye. Some idea of the terrific struggle which raged for four days, first with one weapon and then with another, before Cuchulain overthrew Ferdiad, is given by this description: Such was the closeness of the combat they made, that the boccanach and the bananach ('the puck-faced Fays' and 'the whitefaced Fays') and the sprites of the glens and the eldritch beings of the air screamed from the rims of their shields, and from the guards of their swords, and from the tips of their spears. For a while Ferdiad seemed to be the stronger, and Cuchulain cried: "O Ferdiad, thou hast a horn-skin me how it is closed or how it is opened." and thou hast not shown At last Cuchulain, really driven to the utmost, called for his famous barbed spear, Gae Bulga.1 Laeg, in whose charge it was, " set it" in the stream to make it ready for the battle, and then he "sent it to Cuchulain 1 This spear, on entering a body, spread out into thirty barbs. along the stream." Even armed with this, the son of the Sun-god resorted to a stratagem: When Ferdiad saw that his gilla1 had been thrown, and heard the Gae Bulga called for, he thrust his shield down to protect the lower part of his body. Cuchulain gripped the short spear which was in his hand, cast it off the palm of his hand over the rim of the shield, and over the edge of the corselet and horn-skin, so that its farther half was visible after piercing his heart in his bosom. Ferdiad gave a thrust of his shield upwards to protect the upper part of his body, though it was help that came too late. The gilla set the Gae Bulga down the stream, and Cuchulain caught it in the fork of his foot, and when Ferdiad raised his shield, Cuchulain threw the Gae Bulga as far as he could cast underneath at Ferdiad, so that it passed through the strong, thick, iron apron of wrought iron, and broke in three parts the huge, goodly stone the size of a mill-stone, so that it cut its way through the body's protection into him, till every joint and every limb was filled with its barbs. "Ah, that now sufficeth," sighed Ferdiad: "I am fallen of that! But, yet one thing more: mightily didst thou drive with thy right foot. And 'twas not fair of thee for me to fall by thy hand." * Thereupon Cuchulain hastened towards Ferdiad and clasped his two arms about him, and bore him with all his arms and his armour and his dress northwards over the ford, so that it should be with his face to the north (i.e., in Ulster) of the ford the triumph took place, and not to the west of the ford to the men of Erin (i.e., in Connacht). Cuchulain laid Ferdiad there on the ground, and a cloud and a faint and a swoon came over Cuchulain, there by the head of Ferdiad. Then, in song, Cuchulain lamented over Ferdiad, his foster-brother, in one of the earliest of a long line of beautiful elegies over the dead: 1 A youth of about eighteen, a man of rank, who would wait on an older man. Never have I met till now, At length, Laeg, his charioteer, persuaded Cuchulain to leave the spot, with these last words of lamentation: "Never trod in battle's ring; These repeated combats between Cuchulain and Medb's followers delayed her host's advance, and at last Medb grew weary: and also an incident before this waiting time must have shaken her confidence in her own safety: Cuchulain made a threat in Methe that wherever he saw Medb, he would cast a stone at her, and that it would not go far from the side of her head. That he also fulfilled. In the place where he saw Medb, west of the ford, he cast a stone from his sling at her, so that it killed the pet bird that was on her shoulder. Medb passed over the ford eastwards, and again he cast a stone from his sling at the east of the ford, so that it killed the tame squirrel that was on her shoulder. Eventually she broke her word and all the ancient Irish laws of soldierly honour, by marching straight on Conchabar's capital, Emain Macha, which she burned, as, on her way, she had pillaged and burned the province of Ulster. Here, too, she captured and led away the coveted prize, the Brown Bull. However, the three months of "pains" were done: Conchabar summoned the hosts of Ulster, and in a final battle the armies of Connacht were overthrown. With that strange taste for equalising results which runs through the Táin, even the honours of war were divided. Conchabar won the great battle, but Medb carried off the Brown Bull to Connacht. Nevertheless, at long last, the "utter ruin," predicted by Fedelm, fell on the arrogant Queen, for 1 Cuchulain's own son. 2 An ancient name of Ireland. |