The Tain

by Ciaran Carson

  With that, Cú Chulainn got up and lashed out at the eel and broke its ribs, and so thunderous was the combat of the two heroes that the cattle ran amok east through the army and carried off their tents on their horns.

  Then a she-wolf attacked him and drove the cattle back westwards against him. He fired a stone from his sling at her that put out the eye in her head.

  She came in the shape of a hornless red heifer and led the cattle stampeding through the fords and pools. And he said:

  ‘I can’t see the ford for water!’

  He fired a stone at the heifer and broke the leg from under her.

  Then he turned to Lóch and assaulted him with the barbed gae bolga Láeg had sent downstream to him. He thrust it up through the rear portal10 of Lóch’s body, for when Lóch was fighting, the rest of him was covered by a skin of horn.

  ‘Grant me one favour,’ said Lóch. ‘I don’t ask for quarter like a coward. Yield me one step and let me stand up so I can fall forward to the east, for if I fall back to the west, the men of Ireland will think I’ve yielded to you.’

  ‘Granted,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘It is a warrior’s request.’

  He stepped back and Lóch fell forward on his face. Cú Chulainn cut off his head.

  Hence the name Áth Traiged – the Ford of the Step – in Tír Mór.

  Then a great weariness descended on Cú Chulainn, and he chanted this verse:

  I am alone against hordes

  I cannot stop nor let go.

  I stand here in the long cold hours

  alone against every foe.

  Tell Conchobar he must come now

  to help in this hour of need.

  Mágach’s sons have taken our cows

  to divide among their breed.

  In my fight I have been free

  but one stick will not make fire.

  Had I only two or three,

  then there’d be a blaze indeed.

  I am almost worn out

  by much fighting one on one.

  Their best soldiers make me doubt

  if I can stand here alone.

  The Morrígan appeared to him in the shape of a one-eyed old hag, milking a cow with three teats. He was dying with thirst, and he asked her for a drink. She gave him milk from the first teat.

  ‘Good health to the giver,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘and the blessings of the gods of heaven and earth on you!’

  With that, her ribs were healed.

  She gave him milk from the second teat, and her eye was healed.

  She gave him milk from the third teat, and her leg was healed.

  ‘You told me once,’ she said, ‘that you would never heal me.’

  ‘Had I known it was you,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘I never would have.’

  ‘Let’s ask Cú Chulainn for a truce,’ said Ailill and Medb.

  Lugaid went to him and Cú Chulainn granted the truce.

  ‘But have a man at the ford for me tomorrow,’ said Cú Chulainn.

  Medb had six hired princes in her private army, heirs to the royal family of Clann Dedad – the Three Dark-Haired Men of Imlech, and the Three Red-Headed Men of Sruthair.

  ‘Why don’t we gang up on Cú Chulainn?’ they said.

  They ganged up on Cú Chulainn and Cú Chulainn killed the six of them.

  Again Medb pondered what to do about Cú Chulainn. She was greatly pained by the number of casualties being inflicted by him on her army. She decided to seek a meeting with him on the pretext of negotiating a peace, and to have a gang of armed and dangerous men lying in wait there to overpower and apprehend him. She sent a messenger – Traigthrén, the Powerful Foot – asking Cú Chulainn to meet her, and to come unarmed, as she would be accompanied only by her retinue of women. Cú Chulainn undertook to do so.

  ‘Cú Chulainn,’ said Láeg, ‘how do you intend to approach this meeting tomorrow?’

  ‘As Medb requested,’ said Cú Chulainn.

  ‘Medb’s resources are many,’ said the charioteer. ‘Beware the hand behind her back.’

  ‘So how should I approach it?’ said Cú Chulainn.

  ‘With your sword at your hip,’ said the charioteer, ‘in case of ambush. A warrior without weapons has no recourse to a warrior’s compensation, but is worth only the paltry price of a non-combatant.’

  ‘Let it be done as you say,’ said Cú Chulainn.

  The meeting was in Ard Aignech, the Height of the Fleet Horses, known as Focherd today. Medb came and set a trap for Cú Chulainn with fourteen of the most formidable men in her personal guard – two called Glas Sinna, both sons of Briccride; two called Ardán, both sons of Lecc; two called Glas Ogma, both sons of Cronn; and Drúcht and Delt and Daithen and Téa and Tascur and Tualang and Taur and Glese.

  Cú Chulainn came to meet Medb. The men jumped out at him. Fourteen javelins were thrown at him simultaneously, but he dodged them so that neither hide nor hair of him was harmed. Then he went for them and killed the fourteen of them. These are the Focherd Fourteen, also known as the Casualties of Crónech, for they met their death at Crónech in Focherd.

  Then Cú Chulainn chanted:

  this great deed of mine outshines

  the brilliant spectral army

  thunderstruck by my attack

  lightning is the war I wage

  against the hidden squadrons

  likewise Ailill likewise Medb

  unfostering their dark arts

  through women conspirators

  who stalk with cold treachery

  over the true warrior

  and his words of brave advice

  that shine all the more brilliant

  because of his true deeds

  Some say that it was after this ‘great deed’ – fó-cherd – that Focherd was named.

  Then Cú Chulainn encountered the army as they were setting up camp and he killed two men called Daigre, two called Anle and four Dungaises of Imlech. On the same day the rules of fair fight were broken against him when he was attacked by a gang of five consisting of two Crúaids, two Calads and a Derethor. Cú Chulainn killed them single-handed.

  Fergus declared that there must be no more foul play. So they came to meet Cú Chulainn in single combat and in this manner he killed another five at Dún Cinn Coros, now called Delga, the Spike, in Muirthemne. Then he killed Fota in the field named after him, Bó Mailce on his ford, Salach in his marsh, Muinne in his ford, Luath in Lethbara and Fer Tóithle in Tóithle. So wherever these men were killed their names have survived them. Cú Chulainn killed Traig, Dorn and Derna – Foot, Fist and Palm – and Col, Mebal and Eraise – Lust, Shame and Trash – on this side of the ford of Tír Mór at Méithe and Cethe. These were three druids and their consorts.

  After this Medb sent a hundred men from her private army to kill Cú Chulainn. He killed them all at Áth Chéit Chúile – the Ford of the Crime of the One Hundred. It was here that Medb said: ‘It’s a crime, the way our people are being killed.’ Hence also the names Glais Chró – the Bloody Stream – and Cuilenn Cinn Dúin – the Crime at the Head of the Fort.

  Then he kept raining stones on them from the heights of Delga so that no living thing, man or beast, dared put its head past him southwards between Delga and the sea.

  ‘Bring him this offer,’ said Ailill: ‘he can have Finnabair, if he leaves our army alone.’

  Maine Athramail the Fatherlike went to him. He met his charioteer Láeg.

  ‘Whom do you serve under?’ he said.

  Láeg made no reply. Maine asked him the same thing three times.

  ‘I serve under Cú Chulainn,’ he said, ‘and stop pestering me or I’ll take your head off.’

  ‘What an ill-tempered fellow,’ said Maine, and turned from him.

  So he went to speak to Cú Chulainn. Cú Chulainn had taken off his shirt and was sitting waist-deep in the snow, except the snow had melted a man’s length around him from the heat of his warrior’s body. Maine asked him three times whom he served under.

  ‘I serve un
der Conchobar,’ he said, ‘and stop pestering me. If you keep on pestering me I’ll take off your head like a blackbird’s.’

  ‘It’s not easy talking with these two,’ said Maine.

  So he left then, and told Ailill and Medb what had happened.

  ‘Let Lugaid go,’ said Ailill, ‘and offer him the girl.’

  So Lugaid went and gave him the message.

  ‘Comrade Lugaid,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘this is a trick.’

  ‘It’s the word of a king,’ said Lugaid. ‘It’s no trick.’

  ‘Let’s do it, so,’ said Cú Chulainn.

  Lugaid went and gave Cú Chulainn’s answer to Ailill and Medb.

  ‘Let my fool go as me,’ said Ailill, ‘with a king’s crown on his head. Get him to stand at a distance from Cú Chulainn so that he won’t be recognized. He can take the girl with him, hand her over to Cú Chulainn, and leave them to it. Very likely Cú Chulainn will be distracted long enough not to bother us until such times as he joins up with the Ulstermen for the final battle.’

  So the fool – his name was Tamun, the Stump – went to Cú Chulainn with the girl and spoke to him from a distance. Cú Chulainn knew from the way he spoke that he was a fool. He was carrying a sling-stone in his hand and he threw it at him. It penetrated the fool’s head and knocked his brains out. Cú Chulainn went up to the girl and cut off her two plaits and thrust a pillar-stone through her cloak and her tunic. He thrust another pillar-stone through the fool’s middle. Their standing stones are still there, Finnabair’s Stone and the Fool’s Stone. Cú Chulainn left them like that.

  Ailill and Medb sent out a search party for them because they’d been away so long. They were found as they were. The story spread throughout the camp. After that there was no further truce between them and Cú Chulainn.

  VIII

  THE GREAT

  SLAUGHTER

  THE FOUR PROVINCES of Ireland set up a fortified camp in Muirthemne at Breslech Mor, Great Slaughter. They consigned their cattle and plunder southwards to Clithar Bo Ulad, the Ulster Cattle-Shelter. Cú Chulainn took up a position nearby at the mound of Lerga, and as dusk fell his charioteer Láeg Mac Riangabra, Son of the Horse-road, lit a fire for him. Off in the distance he could see, above the heads of the allied army, the fiery flickering of their golden weapons as the sun set in the evening clouds. A terrible rage filled him at the sight of that immense army, the enormous number of his enemies. He seized his two spears and his shield and his sword. He shook the shield and brandished the spears and waved the sword, and flung forth his warrior’s roar from deep in his throat so that the goblins and ghouls and sprites of the glen and the fiends of the air gave answer, so fearsome was his utterance. Then the Nemain threw the army into confusion. The spear-points and weapons of the allied army clashed tumultuously and a hundred warriors fell dead as their hearts burst with terror in the middle of the camp and on the ramparts that night.

  From where he stood Láeg saw a lone man crossing the camp, coming towards them from the north-east.

  ‘A lone man approaches, Little Cu,’ said Láeg.

  ‘What kind of man?’ said Cú Chulainn.

  ‘In brief, he’s a tall, good-looking man. He has a square-cut beard. Curly yellow hair. He wears a green cloak pinned to his breast with a bright silver brooch. Next to his white skin, a knee-length tunic of royal satin embroidered with red gold. He carries a black shield with a boss of white bronze, a five-pointed spear and a forked javelin. He whirls them about him in a display of spectacular skill, yet no one challenges him, and he takes no one under his notice, as if they couldn’t see him.’

  ‘Nor can they, my young friend,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘This is a friendly being come from the other world to offer me support, for they know the hardship I undergo as I fight alone on the Táin Bó Cúailnge against the four provinces of Ireland.’

  It was indeed as Cú Chulainn had said. When the warrior arrived, he commiserated with him.

  ‘This is brave work, Cú Chulainn,’ he said.

  ‘It’s nothing much,’ said Cú Chulainn.

  ‘I shall help you now,’ said the warrior.

  ‘Who exactly are you?’ said Cú Chulainn.

  ‘I am Lug Mac Ethlenn,1 your father in the other world.’

  ‘My wounds are serious. It’s time they were healed.’

  ‘Sleep now for a while, Cú Chulainn,’ said the warrior, ‘a deep sleep of three days and three nights here on the mound of Lerga, and I’ll withstand the army for that time.’

  His guardian sang him a low melody until he fell asleep, and he looked over his wounds, and saw to it that they were clean. Then Lug chanted:

  rise mighty son of Ulster

  now that your wounds have been healed

  a fair man facing your foes

  in the starlit ford of night

  against the onslaught of spears

  as multitudes are laid low

  aided by the other world

  to watch over your domain

  with forceful integrity

  as you stand guard all alone

  defending wandering herds

  to kill the ghosts that I kill

  their life in this world is not long

  so wreak fury and havoc on

  your faltering enemies

  leap into your chariot

  and then arise

  For three days and three nights Cú Chulainn slept, as well he might, for his sleep was as deep as his wounds. From the Monday after Samain2 until the Wednesday after Imbolc,3 Cú Chulainn had not slept, except in brief snatches after midday, leaning against his spear with head on fist and fist on spear and spear on knee, so deeply was he into slashing and stabbing and slaughtering and scything down the four great provinces of Ireland.

  Then the warrior from the other world applied healing herbs to Cú Chulainn’s wounds – cuts, hacks, gashes, bruises – so that he recovered in his sleep without knowing it.

  As he slept, the young fellows in Emain discussed what was going on.

  ‘It’s a crying shame,’ they said, ‘that Cú Chulainn has no one to help him.’

  ‘Let me ask you this,’ said Follomain the son of Conchobar: ‘do I have a company of fellows who will follow me to help him?’

  Three fifties of young fellows shouldered their hurleys and set off with him. The army saw them coming across the plain.

  ‘A body of men is advancing towards us,’ said Ailill.

  Fergus went to look.

  ‘These are some of the young fellows of Ulster,’ he said, ‘coming to help Cú Chulainn.’

  ‘Send out an armed force to engage them,’ said Ailill, ‘and don’t let Cú Chulainn know about it, for if they join up with him, there’ll be no beating them.’

  A detachment of soldiers went out to meet them. Three times the young fellows fought the army, and killed three times their own number, but at the end of that encounter at Lia Toll, the Hole-Stone, not one remained alive except Follomain the son of Conchobar. Follomain swore he would never go back to Emain unless he took Ailill’s head with him accompanied by its gold crown. But that was easier sworn than done: the two sons of Beithe Mac Báin, sons of Ailill’s foster-parents, tracked him down and attacked him, and he died at their hands.

  Meanwhile Cú Chulainn was sleeping the sleep of the just for three days and three nights at the mound of Lerga. Then he rose from his slumber and passed his hand over his face and turned crimson from head to foot: he felt strong and energetic, fit for a market day, or a march, or female company, or a drinking-bout, or one of the great assemblies of Ireland.

  ‘Warrior!’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

  ‘For three days and three nights,’ said the warrior.

  ‘More’s the pity,’ said Cú Chulainn.

  ‘Why so?’ said the warrior.

  ‘The army has been free from attack all that time,’ said Cú Chulainn.

  ‘Not so,’ said the warrior.

  ‘Why then, who attacke
d them?’ said Cú Chulainn.

  ‘The young fellows came south from Emain Macha, three fifties of them, sons of the kings of Ulster, led by Follomain the son of Conchobar. For the three days you were asleep they fought the army three times, and killed three times their own number, but not one of them survived except Follomain. And Follomain swore to take AiliU’s head, but that was easier sworn than done, for in the end he too was killed.’

  ‘Then it’s a terrible pity I hadn’t my strength,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for had I been fit, the young fellows would not have been killed, and Follomain the son of Conchobar would still be alive.’

  ‘Keep up the good fight, Little Cú; there’s no stain on your honour, no disgrace on your valour.’

  ‘Stay with us tonight,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘and together we may avenge the death of the boys.’

  ‘I will not stay,’ said the warrior, ‘for no matter what great deeds of courage a man does in your company, the glory and the fame and reputation will be yours, not his. So I will not stay. Take the fight to the army by yourself, for they have no power over your life at this time.’

  ‘The scythed chariot, comrade Láeg!’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘Can you get her geared up and ready to go? If that’s the case, let’s drive, and if not, don’t bother.’

  The charioteer sprang to his feet and put on his charioteer’s battle-garb. This was the outfit: first, the sleek deerskin tunic, soft and light as air, supple and smoothly tailored for maximum arm-movement. Over that, the cloak of raven’s-plumage black, which Simon Magus had made for Darius the king of the Romans, and which Darius had given to Conchobar, and Conchobar to Cú Chulainn, and Cú Chulainn to Láeg. Next, the plated, four-cornered, crested helmet, richly coloured and crafted, so perfectly poised on his shoulders as to seem weightless. With his two hands he adjusted the deep yellow headband to glow on his brow like a strip of red gold beaten out on an anvil’s edge; this was the badge that distinguished him from his master. He decked out the horses in their damascened armour, covering them from head to hoof with steel plate spiked with blades, tangs and spear-points; as for the chariot itself, it bristled at every angle and corner, front and rear, so that anywhere the vehicle moved it brought a lacerating edge to bear. He took the long whip and the ornamented goad in his right hand; his left hand grasped the reins that controlled the steeds. Then he cast a cloaking spell over them and his companion, rendering them invisible to all within the camp, while all remained visible to them. Under cover of that spell the charioteer could best exploit his special skills on the day – the snap jump, the frontal assault and the slalom at full speed.