16 Chapter Sixteen: Táin Bó Cúailnge

Introduction

I. Mythological stories relating to the Tuatha Dé Danann (‘the Tribes of the Goddess Danu’), an ancient divine race said to have inhabited Ireland before the coming of the Celts;

II. the Ulster cycle, dealing with the exploits of King Conchobor and the champions of the Red Branch, chief of whom is Cúchulainn, the Hound of Ulster;

III. The Fenian cycle, stories of Finn mac Cumaill, his son Oisín, and the other warriors of the Fianna.

1. How Conchobor was Begotten and how he took the Kingship of Ulster
2. The Pangs of Ulster (included here, but we read this for last class)
3. Exile of the Sons of Uisliu (included in “Women of The Táin” chapter)

1. How Cúchulainn was Begotten
2. Cúchulainn’s Courtship of Emer and his Training in Arms with Scáthach (included in “Women of The Táin” chapter)
3. The Death of Aife’s One Son (included in “Women of The Táin” chapter)

XII. The Pact is Broken: The Great Carnage

I.2 The Pangs of Ulster (Macha)

What caused the pangs of the men of Ulster? It is soon told.

THERE was a very rich landlord in Ulster, Crunniuc mac Agnomain. He lived in a lonely place in the mountains with all his sons. His wife was dead. Once, as he was alone in the house, he saw a woman coming toward him there, and she was a fine woman in his eyes. She settled down and began working at once, as though she were well used to the house. When night came, she put everything in order without being asked. Then she slept with Crunniuc.

She stayed with him for a long while afterward, and there was never a lack of food or clothes or anything else under her care.

Soon, a fair was held in Ulster. Everyone in Ulster, men and women, boys and girls, went to the fair. Crunniuc set out for the fair with the rest, in his best clothes and in great vigour.

‘It would be as well not to grow boastful or careless in anything you say,’ the woman said to him.

‘That isn’t likely,’ he said.

The fair was held. At the end of the day the king’s chariot was brought onto the field. His chariot and horses won. The crowd said that nothing could beat those horses.

‘My wife is faster,’ Crunniuc said.

He was taken immediately before the king and the woman was sent for. She said to the messenger:

‘It would be a heavy burden for me to go and free him now. I am full with child.’

‘Burden?’ the messenger said. ‘He will die unless you come.

She went to the fair, and her pangs gripped her. She called out to the crowd:

‘A mother bore each one of you! Help me! Wait till my child is born.’

But she couldn’t move them.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘A long-lasting evil will come out of this on the whole of Ulster.’

‘What is your name?’ the king said.

‘My name, and the name of my offspring,’ she said, ‘will be given to this place. I am Macha, daughter of Sainrith mac Imbaith.’

Then she raced the chariot. As the chariot reached the end of the field, she gave birth alongside it. She bore twins. a son and a daughter. The name Emain Macha, the Twins of Macha, comes from this. As she gave birth she screamed out that all who heard that scream would suffer from the same pangs for five days and four nights in their times of greatest difficulty. This affliction, ever afterward, seized all the men of Ulster who were there that day, and nine generations after them. Five days and four nights, or five nights and four days, the pangs lasted. For nine generations any Ulsterman in those pangs had no more strength than a woman on the bed of labour. Only three classes of people were free from the pangs of Ulster: the young boys of Ulster, the women, and Cúchulainn. Ulster was thus afflicted from the time of Crunniuc, the son of Agnoman, son of Curir Ulad, son of Fiatach mac Urmi, until the time of Furc, the son of Dallán, son of Mainech mac Lugdach. (It is from Curir Ulad that the province and people of Ulster — Ulaid — have their name.)

II.1 Cúchulainn

His birth name was Setanta. At the age of seven, he was invited to a feast at Culann’s house in the Ulster kingdom of Cooley. As he approached the house after dark, Culann’s guard dog attacked him and he killed the dog. He volunteered to guard the house for a year while Culann raised and trained another hound, so Setanta became the Hound of Culann, Cú Chulainn in Irish.

IV. pillow talk

ONCE when the royal bed was laid out for Ailill and Medb in Cruachan fort in Connacht, they had this talk on the pillows:
‘It is true what they say, love,’ Ailill said, ‘it is well for the wife of a wealthy man.’
‘True enough,’ the woman said. ‘What put that in your mind?’
‘It struck me,’ Ailill said, ‘how much better off you are today than the day I married you.’
‘I was well enough off without you,’ Medb said.
‘Then your wealth was something I didn’t know or hear much about,’ Ailill said. ‘Except for your woman’s things, and the neighbouring enemies making off with loot and plunder.’
‘Not at all,’ Medb said, ‘but with the high king of Ireland for my father — Eochaid Feidlech the steadfast, the son of Finn, the son of Finnoman, the son of Finnen, the son of Finngoll, the son of Roth, the son of Rigéon, the son of Blathacht, the son of Beothacht, the son of Enna Agnech, the son of Aengus Turbech. He had six daughters: Derbriu, Ethne, Ele, Clothru, Muguin, and myself Medb, the highest and haughtiest of them. I outdid them in grace and giving and battle and warlike combat. I had fifteen hundred soldiers in my royal pay, all exiles’ sons, and the same number of freeborn native men, and for every paid soldier I had ten more men, and nine more, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And that was only our ordinary household.
‘My father gave me a whole province of Ireland, this province ruled from Cruachan, which is why I am called “Medb of Cruachan.” And they came from Finn the king of Leinster, Rus Ruad’s son, to woo me, and from Coirpre Niafer the king of Temair, another of Rus Ruad’s sons. They came from Conchobor, king of Ulster, son of Fachtna, and they came from Eochaid Bee, and I wouldn’t go. For I asked a harder wedding gift than any woman ever asked before from a man in Ireland — the absence of meanness and jealousy and fear.
‘If I married a mean man our union would be wrong, because I’m so full of grace and giving. It would be an insult if I were more generous than my husband, but not if the two of us were equal in this. If my husband was a timid man our union would be just as wrong because I thrive, myself, on all kinds of trouble. It is an insult for a wife to be more spirited than her husband, but not if the two are equally spirited. If I married a jealous man that would be wrong, too: I never had one man without another waiting in his shadow. So I got the kind of man I wanted: Rus Ruad’s other son — yourself, Ailill, from Leinster. You aren’t greedy or jealous or sluggish. When we were promised, I brought you the best wedding gift a bride can bring: apparel enough for a dozen men, a chariot worth thrice seven bondmaids, the width of your face of red gold and the weight of your left arm of light gold. So, if anyone causes you shame or upset or trouble, the right to compensation is mine,’
Medb said, ‘for you’re a kept man.’
‘By no means,’ Ailill said, ‘but with two kings for my brothers, Coirpre in Temair and Finn over Leinster. I let them rule because they were older, not because they are better than I am in grace or giving. I never heard, in all Ireland, of a province run by a woman except this one, which is why I came and took the kingship here, in succession to my mother Mata Muiresc, Mágach’s daughter. Who better for my queen than you, a daughter of the high king of Ireland?’
‘It still remains,’ Medb said, ‘that my fortune is greater than yours.’
‘You amaze me,’ Ailill said. ‘No one has more property or jewels or precious things than I have, and I know it.’
Then the lowliest of their possessions were brought out, to see who had more property and jewels and precious things: their buckets and tubs and iron pots, jugs and wash-pails and vessels with handles. Then their fingerrings, bracelets, thumb-rings and gold treasures were brought out, and their cloth of purple, blue, black, green and yellow, plain grey and manycoloured, yellow-brown, checked and striped. Their herds of sheep were taken in off the fields and meadows and plains. They were measured and matched, and found to be the same in numbers and size. Even the great ram leading Medb’s sheep, the worth of one bondmaid by himself, had a ram to match him leading Ailill’s sheep.
From pasture and paddock their teams and herds of horses were brought in. For the finest stallion in Medb’s stud, worth one bondmaid by himself, Ailill had a stallion to match. Their vast herds of pigs were taken in from the woods and gullies and waste places. They were measured and matched and noted, and Medb had one fine boar, but Ailill had another. Then their droves and free-wandering herds of cattle were brought in from the woods and wastes of the province. These were matched and measured and noted also, and found to be the same in number and size. But there was one great bull in Ailill’s herd, that had been a calf of one of Medb’s cows —Finnbennach was his name, the White Horned — and Finnbennach, refusing to be led by a woman, had gone over to the king’s herd. Medb couldn’t find in her herd the equal of this bull, and her spirits dropped as though she hadn’t a single penny.
Medb had the messenger Mac Roth called, and she told him to see where the match of the bull might be found, in any province in Ireland.
‘I know where to find such a bull and better,’ Mac Roth said: ‘in the province of Ulster, in the territory of Cuailnge, in Dáire mac Fiachna’s house. Donn Cuailnge is the bull’s name, the Brown Bull of Cuailnge.’
‘Go there, Mac Roth,’ Medb said. ‘Ask Dáire to lend me Donn Cuailnge for a year. At the end of the year he can have fifty yearling heifers in payment for the loan, and the Brown Bull of Cuailnge back. And you can offer him this too, Mac Roth, if the people of the country think badly of losing their fine jewel, the Donn Cuailnge: if Dáire himself comes with the bull I’ll give him a portion of the fine Plain of Ai equal to his own lands, and a chariot worth thrice seven bondmaids, and my own friendly thighs on top of that.’
Messengers set out to Dáire mac Fiachna’s house: there were nine of them with Mac Roth. Mac Roth was soon made welcome in Dáire’s house, as befitted Ireland’s chief messenger. Dáire asked him what brought him on his journey, and the chief messenger told him why he came, and about the squabble between Medb and Ailill.
‘So I am here to ask for the loan of the Donn Cuailnge, to match against Finnbennach,’ he said. ‘And you’ll get fifty yearling heifers back in payment for the loan, with the Donn Cuailnge himself and more besides. If you come with the bull yourself you’ll get a portion of the fine Plain of Ai equal to your own lands, and a chariot worth thrice seven bondmaids, and Medb’s friendly thighs on top of it all.’
Dáire was delighted, and jumped for joy till the seams of his cushion burst under him, and he cried:
‘True as my soul! I don’t care what the Ulstermen think, I’ll take my treasure, the Donn Cuailnge, to Ailill and Medb in the land of Connacht.’
Mac Roth was pleased at mac Fiachna’s decision.
Then they were looked after, and rushes and fresh straw were settled under them. They were given the best of good food and kept supplied with the festive fare until they grew drunk and noisy.
Two of the messengers were talking. One of them said:
‘There’s no doubt, the man of the house here is a good man.’
‘A good man certainly,’ the other said.
‘Is there a better man in Ulster?’ the first messenger said.
‘There is, certainly,’ the second messenger said. ‘His leader Conchobor is a better man. If the whole of Ulster gave in to him, it would be no shame for them. Anyway, it was good of him to give us the Donn Cuailnge. It would have taken four strong provinces of Ireland to carry it off from Ulster otherwise.’
A third man joined the talk.
‘What are you arguing about?’ he said.
‘This messenger here said, “The man of the house here is a good man.” “A good man certainly,” the other said.
“Is there a better man in Ulster?” the first messenger said. “There is, certainly,” the second messenger said.
“His leader Conchobor is a better man. If the whole of Ulster gave in to him, it would be no shame for them. But it was good of him to give us what the four strong provinces of Ireland would be needed to take from Ulster.”’
‘I’d as soon see the mouth that said that spout blood! We would have taken it anyway, with or without his leave.’
At that moment the man in charge of Dáire mac Fiachna’s household came into the hut, with a man carrying drink and another man with food, and heard what they were saying. He was seized with fury, and put down their food and drink, saying neither ‘Eat’ nor ‘Don’t eat.’ He went back straight to Dáire mac Fiachna’s hut and said:
‘Did you give our famous treasure, the Donn Cuailnge. to Medb’s messengers?’
‘Yes I did,’ Dáire said.
‘That was not a kingly thing to do. What they said is true: if you hadn’t given him up freely the hosts of Ailill and Medb, and the cunning of Fergus mac Roich, would have had him without your leave.’
‘By the gods I worship, nothing leaves here unless I choose to let it!’
They waited until morning. The messengers got up early the next day and went to Dáire’s hut.
Tell us, sir, where to find the Donn Cuailnge.’
‘I will not,’ Dáire said. ‘And only it isn’t my habit to murder messengers or travellers or any other wayfarers, not one of you would leave here alive.’
‘Why is this?’ Mac Roth said.
‘For a good reason,’ Dáire said. ‘You said if I didn’t give willingly, the hosts of Ailill and Medb, and Fergus’s cunning, would make me give.’
‘Indeed,’ Mac Roth said, ‘what messengers say into your food and drink hardly deserves your notice. You can’t blame Ailill and Medb.’
‘Still, I won’t give up my bull this time, Mac Roth, as long as I can help it.’
So the messengers set off again and came to Cruachan, the stronghold of Connacht. Medb asked them for the news and Mac Roth said Dáire wouldn’t give up his bull.
‘Why not?’ Medb said.
Mac Roth told what had happened.
‘We needn’t polish the knobs and knots in this, Mac Roth,’ Medb said. ‘It was well known it would be taken by force if it wasn’t given freely. And taken it will be.’

v. The Táin Bó Cuailnge Begins

AILILL and Medb assembled a great army in Connacht, and they sent word also to the other three provinces. . . . ‘Everyone leaving a lover or a friend today will curse me,’ she said. ‘This army is gathered for me.’

Medb sees Fedelm who “had hair in three tresses: two wound upward on her head and the third hanging down her back, brushing her calves. She held a light gold weaving-rod in her hand, with gold inlay. Her eyes had triple irises. Two black horses drew her chariot, and she was armed.

‘What is your name?’ Medb said to the girl.

‘I am Fedelm, and I am a woman poet of Connacht.’

‘Where have you come from?’ Medb said.

‘From learning verse and vision in Alba,’ Fedelm said.

‘Have you the imbas forasnai, the Light of Foresight?’ Medb said.

‘Yes I have,’ Fedelm said.

‘Then look for me and see what will become of my army.’

So Fedelm looked.

‘I see it crimson, I see it red.’

‘It can’t be true,’ Medb said. ‘Conchobor is suffering his pangs in Emain with all the rest of the Ulster warriors. My messengers have come from there and told me. Fedelm, prophetess; how seest thou our host?’

‘I see it crimson, I see it red,’ Fedelm said.

‘I see a battle: a blond man

with much blood about his belt

and a hero-halo round his head.

His brow is full of victories.

Seven hard heroic jewels

are set in the iris of his eye.

His jaws are settled in a snarl.

He wears a looped, red tunic.

I see him hurling against that host

two gae bolga and a spear

and an ivory-hilted sword,

He towers on the battlefield

in breastplate and red cloak.

Across the sinister chariot-wheel

the Warped Man deals death

— that fair form I

first beheld melted to a mis-shape.

Whole hosts he will destroy,

making dense massacre.

In thousands you will yield your heads.

I am Fedelm. I hide nothing.

VI. The Army Encounters Cúchulainn

What sort of man,’ Ailill said, ‘is this Hound of Ulster we hear tell of? How old is this remarkable person?’

‘It is soon told,’ Fergus said. ‘In his fifth year he went in quest of arms to the boy-troop in Emain Macha. In his seventh year he went to study the arts and crafts of war with Scáthach, and courted Emer. In his eighth year he took up arms. At present he is in his seventeenth year.’

‘Is he the hardest they have in Ulster?’ Medb said.

‘Yes, the hardest of all,’ Fergus said. ‘You’ll find no harder warrior against you — no point more sharp, more swift, more slashing; no raven more flesh-ravenous, no hand more deft, no fighter more fierce, no one of his own age one third as good, no lion more ferocious; no barrier in battle, no hard hammer, no gate of battle, no soldiers’ doom, no hinderer of hosts, more fine. You will find no one there to measure against him — for youth or vigour; for apparel, horror or eloquence; for splendour, fame or form; for voice or strength or sternness; for cleverness, courage or blows in battle; for fire or fury, victory, doom or turmoil; for stalking, scheming or slaughter in the hunt; for swiftness, alertness or wildness; and no one with the battle-feat ‘nine men on each point’—none like Cúchulainn.’

‘Let us not make too much of it,’ Medb said. ‘He has only one body. He can suffer wounding. He is not beyond being taken.’

X. single combat

When the high hero Cúchulainn seized his warrior’s battle-harness, this was the warlike battleharness he wore: twenty-seven tunics of waxed skin, plated and pressed together, and fastened with strings and cords and straps against his clear skin, so that his senses or his brain wouldn’t burst their bonds at the onset of his fury. Over them he put on his heroic deep battlebelt of stiff, tough, tanned leather from the choicest parts of the hides of seven yearlings, covering him from his narrow waist to the thickness of his armpit; this he wore to repel spears or spikes, javelins, lances or arrows — they fell from it as though dashed at stone or horn or hard rock. Then he drew his silk-smooth apron,with its lightgold speckled border, up to the softness of his belly. Over this silky skin-like apron he put on a dark apron of well-softened black leather from the choicest parts of the hides of four yearlings, with a battle- belt of cowhide to hold it. Then the kingly champion gripped his warlike battle weapons.

These were the warlike weapons he chose: eight short swords with his flashing, ivory-hilted sword; eight small spears with his five-pronged spear, and a quiver also; eight light javelins with his ivory javelin; eight small darts with his feat- playing dart, the del chliss; eight feat-playing shields with his dark red curved shield that could hold a prize boar in its hollow, its whole rim so razor sharp it could sever a single hair against the stream.

. . . .

The first warp-spasm seized Cúchulainn, and made him into a monstrous thing, hideous and shapeless, unheard of. His shanks and his joints, every knuckle and angle and organ from head to foot, shook like a tree in the flood or a reed in the stream. His body made a furious twist inside his skin, so that his feet and shins and knees switched to the rear and his heels and calves switched to the front. The balled sinews of his calves switched to the front of his shins, each big knot the size of a warrior’s bunched fist.

On his head the temple-sinews stretched to the nape of his neck, each mighty, immense, measureless knob as big as the head of a month-old child. His face and features became a red bowl: he sucked one eye so deep into his head that a wild crane couldn’t probe it onto his cheek out of the depths of his skull; the other eye fell out along his cheek. His mouth weirdly distorted: his cheek peeled back from his jaws until the gullet appeared, his lungs and liver flapped in his mouth and throat, his lower jaw struck the upper a lion-killing blow, and fiery flakes large as a ram’s fleece reached his mouth from his throat. His heart boomed loud in his breast like the baying of a watchdog at its feed or the sound of a lion among bears.

Malignant mists and spurts of fire — the torches of the Badb — flickered red in the vaporous clouds that rose boiling above his head, so fierce was his fury. The hair of his head twisted like the tangle of a red thornbush stuck in a gap; if a royal apple tree with all its kingly fruit were shaken above him, scarce an apple would reach the ground but each would be spiked on a bristle of his hair as it stood up on his scalp with rage. The hero-halo rose out of his brow, long and broad as a warrior’s whetstone, long as a snout, and he went mad rattling his shields, urging on his charioteer and harassing the hosts.

Then, tall and thick, steady and strong, high as the mast of a noble ship, rose up from the dead centre of his skull a straight spout of black blood darkly and magically smoking like the smoke from a royal hostel when a king is coming to be cared for at the close of a winter day. When that spasm had run through the high hero Cúchulainn he stepped into his sickle warchariot that bristled with points of iron and narrow blades, with hooks and hard prongs and heroic frontal spikes, with ripping instruments and tearing nails on its shafts and straps and loops and cords.

The body of the chariot was spare and slight and erect, fitted for the feats of a champion, with space for a lordly warrior’s eight weapons, speedy as the wind or as a swallow or a deer darting over the level plain. The chariot was settled down on two fast steeds, wild and wicked, neat-headed and narrow-bodied, with slender quarters and roan breast, firm in hoof and harness — a notable sight in the trim chariot-shafts. One horse was lithe and swift-leaping, high-arched and powerful, long-bodied and with great hooves. The other flowing-maned and shining, slight and slender in hoof and heel. champion, with space for a lordly warrior’s eight weapons, speedy as the wind or as a swallow or a deer darting over the level plain.

In that style, then, he drove out to find his enemies and did his thunder-feat and killed a hundred, then two hundred, then three hundred, then four hundred, then five hundred, where he stopped — he didn’t think it too many to kill in that first attack, his first full battle with the provinces of Ireland. Then he circled the outer lines of the four great provinces of Ireland in his chariot and he attacked them in hatred. He had the chariot driven so heavily that its iron wheels sank into the earth. So deeply the chariot-wheels sank in the earth that clods and boulders were torn up, with rocks and flagstones and the gravel of the ground, in a dyke as high as the iron wheels, enough for a fortress-wall. . . . He went into the middle of them and beyond, and mowed down great ramparts of his enemies’ corpses, circling completely around the armies three times, attacking them in hatred. They fell sole to sole and neck to headless neck, so dense was that destruction. He circled them three times more in the same way, and left a bed of them six deep in a great circuit, the soles of three to the necks of three in a ring around the camp. This slaughter on the Táin was given the name Seisrech Bresligi, the Sixfold Slaughter.

Combat of Ferdia and Cuchulainn

‘Well now, Ferdia, do you know why you were brought to our tent?’  asked Medb

‘I know the noblest men in Ireland are here,’ Ferdia said. ‘Why shouldn’t I be here too, as well as these fine warriors?’

‘That isn’t the reason,’ Medb said, ‘but to give you a chariot worth three times seven bondmaids, with warharness enough for a dozen men, and a portion of the fine Plain of Ai equal to the Plain of Murtheimne. Also the right to stay forever in Cruachan, with your wine supplied, and your kith and kin free forever from tax and tribute. And this leaf-shaped brooch of mine that was made out of ten score ounces and ten score half-ounces and ten score crossmeasures and ten score quarters of gold. And Finnabair, my daughter and Ailill’s, for your wife. And my own friendly thighs on top of that if needs be.’

‘No need!’ they all cried. ‘Those gifts and trophies are enough.’

‘They are certainly very great,’ Ferdia said. ‘But great as they are, Medb, I would sooner leave them with you than go out to fight my own foster-brother.’

‘What Cúchulainn said was true, my people,’ Medb said, as though she hadn’t heard Ferdia. She knew well how to stir up strife and dissension.

‘What did he say, Medb?’ Ferdia said.

‘He said he wouldn’t count it any great triumph if his greatest feat of arms were your downfall,’ Medb said.

‘He shouldn’t have said that. He never knew me slow or sluggish to fight, night or day. I swear by the gods I’ll be first at the ford of battle tomorrow morning to fight him.’ Ferdia said.

. . . .

Ferdia constructs an apron of twice-smelted iron and a stone to protect himself from Cúchulainn’s gae bolga.  However, Ferdia raised up the shield to cover his upper body too late. Cúchulainn caught the gae bolga in the fork of his foot and sent it casting toward Ferdia, and it went through the deep and sturdy apron of twice-smelted iron, and shattered in three parts the stout strong stone the size of a mill-stone, and went coursing through the highways and byways of his body so that every single joint filled with barbs.

That is enough now,’ Ferdia said, ‘I’ll die of that.

Cúchulainn: ‘Ferdia, dead by their deceit, our last meeting I lament. You are dead and I must live to mourn my everlasting loss. When we were away with Scáthach learning victory overseas, it seemed our friendship would remain unbroken till the day of doom. I loved the noble way you blushed, and loved your fine, perfect form. I loved your blue clear eye, your way of speech, your skillfulness. Your like, crimson son of Dáman, never moved to the tearing fray, never was seized with manly wrath nor bore shield on his broad back. Never till this very day, Ferdia, did I ever find your match for great deeds in battle since I slew Aife’s only son. Medb’s daughter Finnabair, whatever beauty she may have, she was an empty offering, a string to hold the sand, Ferdia.’

XI. The Pact is Broken: The Great Carnage

Medb had set up a shelter of shields to guard the rear of the men of Ireland. She had sent off the Brown Bull of Cuailnge to Cruachan by a roundabout road, with fifty of his heifers and eight messengers so that, whoever escaped, the Brown Bull of Cuailnge would be got safely away, as she had sworn. Then Medb got her gush of blood. ‘Fergus,’ she said, ‘take over the shelter of shields at the rear of the men of Ireland until I relieve myself.’ ‘By god,’ Fergus said, ‘you have picked a bad time for this.’

‘I can’t help it,’ Medb said. ‘I’ll die if I can’t do it.’ So Fergus took over the shelter of shields at the rear of the men of Ireland and Medb relieved herself. It dug three great channels, each big enough to take a household. The place is called Fual Medba, Medb’s Foul Place, ever since. Cúchulainn found her like this, but he held his hand. He wouldn’t strike her from behind. ‘Spare me,’ Medb said. ‘If I killed you dead,’ Cúchulainn said, ‘it would only be right.’ But he spared her, not being a killer of women.

He watched them all the way westward until they passed Ath Luain, and there he stopped.

He struck three blows of his sword at the stone hills nearby. The Bald-topped Hills is their name now, at Ath Luain, in answer to the three Bald-topped Hills in Meath.

The battle was over. Medb said to Fergus: ‘We have had shame and shambles here today, Fergus.’ ‘We followed the rump of a misguiding woman,’ Fergus said. ‘It is the usual thing for a herd led by a mare to be strayed and destroyed.’

They took the bull away on the day after the battle. On Ai Plain, at Tarbga — the place of bullgrief or bull-strife: the hill originally called Roi Dedonn — he met the bull Finnbennach, the White-Horned. Everyone who had escaped the battle stopped what he was doing, to see the two bulls fight together. . . . The Brown Bull of Cuailnge planted a hoof on the other bull’s horn. All day until nightfall he wouldn’t draw the hoof back toward him.

Fergus chided him and took a stick to his flank. ‘It would look bad,’ Fergus said, ‘to get this quarrelsome old calf so far, only to have him throw away the honour of his kind. Men have died on both sides because of you.’ At that, the bull jerked back his hoof. His leg broke, but the other bull’s horn was sent flying to the mountain nearby. It is called Sliab nAdarca, the Mountain of the Horn, ever since.

Then the bulls fought each other for a long time. Night fell upon the men of Ireland and they could only hear the uproar and fury in the darkness. That night the bulls circled the whole of Ireland. When morning came, the men of Ireland saw the Donn Cuailnge coming westward past Cruachan with the mangled remains of Finnbennach hanging from his horns.
He brandished them before him all that day, and at nightfall entered the lake near Cruachan. He came out with Finnbennach’s loins and shoulderblade and liver on his horns. The armies went to kill him, but Fergus stopped them and let him go anywhere he liked.

He headed toward his own land. He stopped to drink in Finnlethe on the way. He left Finnbennach’s shoulderblade there — from which comes Finniethe, the White One’s Shoulderblade, as the name of that district. He drank again at Ath Luain, and left Finnbennach’s loins there —that is how the place was named Ath Luain, the Ford of the Loins. He uttered a bellow at Iraird Cuillenn that was heard through the whole province.

He drank again at Tromma, where Finnbennach’s liver fell from his two horns — from which comes the name Tromma, or liver.

He came to Etan Tairb and set his brow against the hill at Ath Da Ferta — from which comes the name Etan Tairb, the Bull’s Brow, in Murtheimne Plain.

Then he went by the Midluachair road to Cuib, where he had dwelt with the milkless cow of Dáire, and he tore up the ground there — from which comes the name Gort mBúraig, the Field of the Trench.

Then he went on until he fell dead between Ulster and Uí Echach at Druim Tairb. So Druim Tairb, the Ridge of the Bull, is the name of that place.

Ailill and Medb made peace with Ulster and Cúchulainn. For seven years afterward none of their people was killed in Ireland. Finnabair stayed with Cúchulainn, the Connachtmen went back to their own country, and the men of Ulster went back to Emain Macha full of their great triumph. FINIT. AMEN.