They stayed there that night. They got up early the next morning and went out to the ford of battle.
‘What weapons shall we use today, Fer Diad?’ said Cú Chulainn.
‘It’s your choice of weapons until nightfall,’ said Fer Diad, ‘for it was my choice yesterday.’
‘Then,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘let’s try our beloved broad stabbing-spears, for we might get closer to the final blow today by stabbing than by yesterday’s throwing. And let the horses be brought out and hitched up to the chariots. Today we’ll fight from chariot and horse.’
‘Let’s do that,’ said Fer Diad.
So that day they took up their specially strengthened broad-shields and their beloved broad stabbing-spears, and began to stab and cut each other, pushing and thrusting from the half-light of early morning until the evening sunset. If it were customary for birds in flight to pass through men’s bodies, they would have flown through their bodies that day and brought with them gobbets of blood and flesh through their open cuts into the air and the clouds beyond. By evening the horses were done and the charioteers dead beat and the great heroes themselves were ready to drop.
‘Let’s lay off now, Fer Diad,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘for our horses are done and our charioteers dead beat, and if they’re crying out for rest, why shouldn’t we cry out for rest too?’
And having said that, he said:
No more juddering of wheels
or Titan-struggle.
Let the noise of battle cease.
Tie up the horses.
‘Very well,’ said Fer Diad, ‘if it’s time to lay off, let’s lay off.’
They laid off then and threw their weapons to their charioteers. Then they came up to each other and each put an arm around the other’s shoulders, and gave him three kisses. Their horses grazed together that night and their charioteers warmed themselves by the same fire. And their charioteers made beds and pillows of fresh rushes for the wounded men. Then teams of doctors came to examine them and watch over them and tend them that night. So terrible were their countless cuts and stabs and gashes that all that could be done was to lay amulets on them and chant spells over them to staunch the flow of blood and ease the pain. For every amulet and spell and charm that was laid on Cú Chulainn’s cuts and gashes, he sent the same to Fer Diad on the south side of the ford. And for every piece of food, and pleasant, wholesome and reviving drink that the men of Ireland gave Fer Diad, he sent the same to Cú Chulainn on the north side of the ford; Fer Diad had more suppliers than Cú Chulainn, for he was looked after by all the men of Ireland, but only the people of Brega Plain were looking after Cú Chulainn. They came to visit him and talk to him on a daily basis.
They stayed there that night. They got up early the next morning and proceeded to the ford of battle. That day Cú Chulainn noted Fer Diad’s haggard and ghastly appearance.
‘You do not look well today, Fer Diad,’ he said. ‘Your hair has grown dull overnight, and your eye is clouded. You are not in good shape.’
‘It’s not from any fear or dread of you,’ said Fer Diad, ‘for there’s not a warrior in Ireland I can’t overcome.’
Cú Chulainn lamented and pitied him then. With Fer Diad making answer, he spoke these words:
Fer Diad, if this be you,
now I know it was your fate
when a woman sent you here
to fight against your comrade.
Fer Diad:
Cú Chulainn, you know what’s known
by any soldier brave:
every man must step upon
the sod that is his grave.
Cú Chulainn:
Medb’s daughter Finnabair
with whom you pleasured your sight
was not given out of love
but for you to prove your might.
Fer Diad:
My might is long since proven,
O meticulous Hound;
and until this very day
no one braver has been found.
Cú Chulainn:
Son of Dáman Mac Dáire,
you have played the renegade –
coming at a woman’s word
to fight against your comrade.
Fer Diad:
Though we are partners, dear Hound,
should we part without a fight
my good name and renown
would be shamed by Ailill and Medb.
Cú Chulainn:
Food has not passed his lips,
nor was the man ever born
to high king or shining queen
for whose sake I’d do you harm.
Fer Diad:
Cú Chulainn, I know well
that Medb betrayed us to the hilt.
You will win victory and fame
and do so free of all guilt.
Cú Chulainn:
My brave heart is a dead weight,
my soul near torn from its roots;
I’d welcome any other fate,
than to fight you, Fer Diad.
‘You can fault me all you like today,’ said Fer Diad. ‘What weapons shall we use?’
‘It’s your choice of weapons until nightfall today,’ said Cú Chulainn. ‘It was my choice yesterday.’
‘Then,’ said Fer Diad, ‘let’s try our great broadswords. We might get closer to the final blow today by hacking rather than yesterday’s stabbing.’
‘Let’s do it, then,’ said Cú Chulainn.
So they took up their two great full-length shields. They lifted their heavy hacking-swords and began to hack and hew each other, slashing and striking and cutting lumps the size of a baby’s head from each other’s shoulders and flanks and backs. They hacked away at each other like this from the half-light of early morning until the evening sunset.
‘Let’s lay off, Cú Chulainn,’ said Fer Diad.
‘Very well,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘if it’s time to lay off, let’s lay off.’
So they laid off and threw their weapons to their charioteers. And they were two sad men who parted that night, so sorrowful and sick at heart that it seemed the pair who had met that morning were happy men, radiating joy and walking on air. Their horses did not graze together that night, nor did their charioteers warm themselves by the same fire.
They spent the night there. Fer Diad got up early the next morning and went alone to the ford of battle, for he knew that this would be the decisive day of their encounter, and that one or other, or both, would fall. He put on his battle-garb before he went to meet Cú Chulainn. This was the outfit: next to his fair skin, the apron of filmy silk with a variegated gold border; over that, the apron of stitched brown leather; over that, a sheet of rock the size of a millstone; and over that, for fear and dread of the gae bolga, he put on a double-thick apron of double-smelted iron. He set on his head the battle-hardened war-helmet elaborately decorated with forty precious carbuncles, and studded with tesserae of red enamel and crystal and rubies and gleaming gems from the East. In his right hand he took his deadly, death-dealing spear. In his left he took his curved battle-sword with the gold pommel and hilt of red gold. On the arch-slope of his back he slung his massive horn shield with its fifty knobs and bosses, each big enough to cup a prize boar, not to speak of the great central boss of red gold. That day Fer Diad displayed many amazing and manifold feats that he had learned from no one – not foster-mother nor foster-father, nor Scáthach nor Uathach nor Aífe – but were inspired that day by the prospect of coming up against Cú Chulainn.
Cú Chulainn arrived at the ford and saw Fer Diad’s many amazing and manifold feats.
‘Observe, comrade Láeg, the many amazing and manifold feats displayed by Fer Diad, for he will deploy them against me when the time comes. And if at any time my defeat seems imminent, you must needle and nettle me and bad-mouth me to get my temper up. But if at any time his defeat seems imminent, you must applaud me and sing my praises and cheer me on to even greater efforts.’
‘You can count on me, little Cú,’
said Láeg.
Then Cú Chulainn put on his war-hardened battle-garb and displayed many amazing and manifold feats he had learned from no one, not Scáthach nor Uathach nor Aífe. Fer Diad observed those feats and knew they would be deployed against him when the time came.
‘How shall we fight today, Fer Diad?’ said Cú Chulainn.
‘It’s your choice how we’ll fight until nightfall,’ said Fer Diad.
‘Then,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘let’s try ford-combat.’
‘By all means let us try that,’ said Fer Diad.
Even as he said it, he knew that ford-combat was the last thing he wanted to undertake, for no warrior or great soldier had ever overcome Cú Chulainn in ford-combat. Great deeds were done by the two heroes that day in the ford, by those two champion fighters of Western Europe, those two bright torches of Irish bravery, those two most liberal and lavish givers of gifts and trophies in the north-west of the world, those two keys to Ireland’s feats of arms, brought head to head by the low trickery of Ailill and Medb. They brought all their skills to bear on one another from the half-light of early morning until high noon, and when noon came the rage of the two men mounted to fever pitch as they bore closer and closer to each other.
Then Cú Chulainn made a leap from the brink of the ford on to the great central boss of Fer Diad Mac Damáin’s shield to strike down at his head from over the rim of the shield. Fer Diad gave the shield a dunt with his left elbow and threw Cú Chulainn off like a bird on to the brink of the ford. Again Cú Chulainn made a leap from the brink of the ford on to the great central boss of Fer Diad’s shield to strike down at his head over the rim of the shield. Fer Diad gave the shield a dunt with his left knee and threw Cú Chulainn off like a baby on to the brink of the ford.
Láeg saw what was happening.
‘Some contest!’ he said. ‘The enemy cuffs you as a mother cuffs a bad child! He beats you up like flax in a pond! He grinds you like malt in a mill! He goes through you like a drill through oak! He climbs all over you like ivy over a tree! He’s a hawk, and you’re a sparrow! And never again can you call yourself a proper warrior, or boast about your great deeds and skill at arms, you twisted little imp!’
Cú Chulainn rose up for the third time, quick as the wind and swift as a swallow, dragon-like and angry as a storm, and landed on the great central boss of Fer Diad’s shield to strike down at his head over the rim of the shield. The warrior gave a shake of the shield that hurled Cú Chulainn off into the middle of the ford as if he hadn’t been there in the first place.
With that Cú Chulainn torqued himself a hundredfold. He swelled and bellied like a bladder full of breath until he arched up over Fer Diad like a monstrously distorted rainbow, tall and horrible as a Fomorian giant2 or a deep-sea merman.
Then so closely did they fight each other that they grappled head to head and foot to foot and hand to hand beyond the shelter of their shields, which burst and split from boss to rim, so closely did they fight. So closely did they fight, their spear-points bent and buckled from tip to rivet. So closely did they fight that the ear-splitting shrill-shrieking of their swords and shields and spears as their edges clashed was echoed by the shrieks and screeches of the goblins and ghouls and sprites of the glens and the fiends of the air. So closely did they fight that the river was tossed from its course and its bed and left room enough for the final resting-chamber of a great king or queen, with not a drip nor drop in it save what was splashed up by the two champions as they trampled and scattered the mud of the floor of the ford. So closely did they fight that the horses of the Irish army reared up and went buck-mad and broke loose from their ropes and reins and shackles and the women and children and youngsters and cripples and madmen broke out south-westward from the camp.
They were deep into sword-fighting when Cú Chulainn let his guard drop and in that instant Fer Diad sank his ivory-hilted blade into Cú Chulainn’s breast and the blood spouted over his belt to run red into the ford from the warrior’s body. Cú Chulainn could no longer endure Fer Diad’s overwhelming onslaught of cut and thrust and he called out to Láeg for the gae bolga. This was what the gae bolga was: it was cast downstream for him, and was thrown from the fork of the foot; it made a single wound when it entered a man’s body, whereupon it opened up into thirty barbs, and it could not be taken from a man’s body without the flesh being cut away from around it.
When Fer Diad heard the gae bolga being called for he dropped his shield to cover the lower parts of his body. Cú Chulainn launched a javelin from the cup of his hand over the rim of Fer Diad’s shield to bypass the edge of his horn-skin so that it drove through the heart in his breast and out from his back to the half of its length. Fer Diad pulled up his shield to cover the upper parts of his body, but that was help that came too late.
‘Here comes the gae bolga,’ said the charioteer, and he sent it downstream.
Cú Chulainn caught it in the fork of his foot and launched it at Fer Diad and it went through the double-thick apron of double-smelted iron and broke in three the sheet of rock the size of a millstone and entered the rear portal of Fer Diad’s body to fill every nook and cranny of him with its barbs.
‘That’s enough for now,’ said Fer Diad. ‘That’s done for me. And it was a powerful throw from your right foot. It wouldn’t be right to die by your hand.’
He uttered these words:
Hound of the great deeds,
you killed me wrongly.
Your guilt bleeds on me
as my blood stains you.
The gap of deceit
is where men find death.
I struggle for words.
I draw my last breath.
My ribs are all crushed,
my heart thick with blood.
I have not fought well.
Hound, I am done for.
Cú Chulainn went to him and put his two arms around him and carried him, armour, weapons and all, north across the ford so that all that remained of Fer Diad would be on the north side of the ford and not on the south side with the men of Ireland. Cú Chulainn set Fer Diad down there and as he did so he was smitten by a sudden daze of faintness and fell to the ground. Láeg saw this and feared the men of Ireland might then attack him.
‘Get up, little Cú!’ said Láeg. ‘The men of Ireland will come to attack us and they won’t be interested in single combat, now that you have killed Fer Diad Mac Damáin.’
‘Why should I get up, my friend,’ he said, ‘and this one fallen by my hand?’
Then, with Cú Chulainn answering, the charioteer spoke these words:
On your feet, great battle-hound!
Bring all your courage to bear!
You felled Fer Diad of the hosts,
though the fight was hard, I swear!
Cú Chulainn:
What use have I for courage?
I am driven mad with pain
for my great deed – this body
I pierced again and again.
Láeg:
There’s no need to grieve for him.
Indeed you should boast instead.
He too stuck his spear in you
and left you wounded half-dead.
Cú Chulainn:
He could have cut off my arm,
my leg, and still I would mourn
Fer Diad of the steeds, who was
part of me, and breathes no more.
Láeg:
The daughters of the Red Branch3
are not sorry, that’s for sure.
Fer Diad dead and you alive –
that parting they can endure.
Cú Chulainn:
Since the day I left Cúailnge
to watch for Connacht’s great queen,
the number of her hordes I killed
she holds in grave esteem.
Láeg:
Watching over your own herds
you have not slept in peace,
waking early most mornings
when your company was least
.
Then Cú Chulainn began to grieve and lament for Fer Diad, and spoke these words:
‘Ah, Fer Diad, it was a sorry thing that you didn’t speak with those who knew my high, brave deeds, before you came to fight me.
‘A sorry thing, that Láeg Mac Riangabra did not put you to shame with stories of our fostering together.
‘A sorry thing, that you turned away from Fergus’s sound advice.
‘A sorry thing, that Conall, kind and brave, experienced in battle, could not have helped your sorry case.
‘For these are men who do not heed the whims and whisperings and false promises of fair-headed Connachtwomen. These are men who could have told you that there will not be born among the Connachtmen a being to achieve the overwhelming greatness of my deeds with sword and javelin and shield, with chess and draughts and horse and chariot.
‘And never will there be a hero’s hand to hack the flesh of warriors like the honourable hand of Fer Diad. The red-mouthed Badb will never screech again so loud above the shields that glimmer in the gap of battle. And never till the day of doom will Crúachan get the bargain that they got in you, O bright-faced son of Damán.’
Then Cú Chulainn got up and stood over Fer Diad.
‘Ah, Fer Diad,’ said Cú Chulainn, ‘greatly did the men of Ireland deceive you and abandon you when they sent you to oppose and fight me, for to oppose and fight me on the Táin Bó Cúailnge is no easy task.’
And having said that, he spoke these words:
The Tain Page 14