Chapter IV: Cúchulainn's Boyhood Deeds

Summary

The boy-troop

Fergus tells it to Ailill and Medb. Cúchulainn was reared by his father and mother on Murtheimne Plain and heard great rumours of the three times fifty boys always at play in Emain. Fergus says Conchobor spends a third of his day watching them, a third at fidchell and a third drinking ale until he falls asleep.

His mother told him to wait for some Ulster warriors to go with him. That was too long, he said, and set off north with a toy shield of sticks, a toy javelin, a hurling-stick and a ball, tossing the javelin ahead and catching it before its tail hit the ground. He ran onto the boys’ field without getting them to pledge his safety, not knowing that no one did. They flung three times fifty javelins at him and he stopped them all on his shield of sticks. He stopped every hurling-ball on his breast.

Then the Warp-Spasm overtook him. Each hair hammered into his head and stood upright with a fire-speck on its tip. He squeezed one eye narrower than a needle’s eye and opened the other wider than a goblet’s mouth, peeled back his lips till his gullet showed, and the hero-halo rose from his crown. He laid low fifty boys before they reached the gate of Emain. Nine flew past Conchobor and Fergus at their fidchell, and Cúchulainn came leaping after them across the board. Conchobor caught him by the wrist.

He gave his name as Sétanta, son of Sualdam and Conchobor’s sister Deichtine, and asked Conchobor’s protection against the boys. He got it, then offered the boys his own, and they got up with the help of their foster-mothers and fathers.

Sleep

He could not sleep in Emain unless the level under his head and feet was the same, so Conchobor had a block of stone brought for each and a bed fixed between. A man who went to wake him was struck on the forehead, and the dome of it was driven back into his brain. No one has dared wake him since.

When Eogan mac Durthacht challenged Ulster to battle, Cúchulainn was left asleep. Ulster was beaten, and Conchobor and his son Cúscraid Menn Macha were left for dead. The wailing woke him, and he cracked the two stone blocks as he stretched; Bricriu saw it. On the black field a half-headed man with half a corpse on his back asked him to carry it. He refused and was thrown down, and heard the Badb calling from among the corpses that it was a poor sort of warrior who lay down at the feet of a ghost. He knocked off the half-head with his hurling-stick and drove it before him like a ball across the plain.

He pulled Conchobor out of a trench, which six of the strongest Ulstermen could not have done. Conchobor said a cooked pig might bring him back to life. Cúchulainn killed a man cooking a boar in the wood, took his head as well as the pig, and Conchobor swallowed the boar. They found Cúscraid on the way, and Cúchulainn carried him to Emain Macha on his back.

Fergus adds that while the men lay in their pangs twenty-seven marauders came from the islands of Faichi. The boy-troop fled. Cúchulainn killed nine with throwing-stones and his hurling-stick, and was left with fifty wounds.

The Hound of Culann

Conall Cernach, who fostered the boy, tells the next. Culann the Smith was to entertain Conchobor and asked him not to bring a great company, having only what he earned with his tongs and his two hands. On the way Conchobor watched Cúchulainn beat three times fifty boys at ball and wrestling and the Stripping-Game, where he stripped them stark naked and they could not pluck the brooch from his cloak. The boy said he would follow later.

At the feast Culann asked if anyone was still to come. Conchobor said no, forgetting. Culann let loose his hound, which needed three chains with three men on each, and shut the gate. The boy arrived and the hound went for him. He kept at his game, striking his ball with his stick and casting his javelin after both. Conchobor and his people were in such anguish that they could not stir. The hound sprang. Cúchulainn took its throat-apple in one hand and its back in the other and smashed it against the nearest pillar until its limbs leaped from their sockets. According to another version he threw his ball into its mouth and tore out its entrails.

Culann said his life was a waste. Cúchulainn said he would rear him a pup from the same pack, and until it grew he would be Culann’s hound and guard all Murtheimne Plain. Cathbad said: “Cúchulainn shall be your name, the Hound of Culann.” Cúchulainn said he liked that for a name. Conall puts this at the end of his sixth year.

Arms and a chariot

Fiacha mac Fir Febe tells the next. Cathbad the druid, staying with his son Conchobor mac Nesa, told a pupil that a warrior who took up arms that day would have a name that endured forever. Cúchulainn overheard, claimed weapons, and broke all fifteen sets kept in store before he was given Conchobor’s own. Cathbad came in and said woe to the boy’s mother’s son, for he had not given that direction. The day, he said, brought fame and greatness, and a short life. Cúchulainn said that was a fair bargain.

Another day Cathbad said whoever mounted his first chariot would live forever in Ireland. Cúchulainn broke twelve chariots at a touch, and Conchobor’s survived. Its charioteer Ibor told him to get out. Cúchulainn told him to drive as far as the road would go.

The sons of Nechta Scéne

At Sliab Fuait they met Conall Cernach, who had the day’s care of the province boundary. Cúchulainn sent him back and smashed the shaft of his chariot with a sling-stone to test his aim. At Sliab Mondairn he had Ibor name the plains and forts, Breg Plain among them, until he came to the fort of the three sons of Nechta Scéne: Foill, Fannall and Tuachell, from the mouth of the river Scéne. Ulstermen had killed their father, Fer Ulli, and they claimed to have killed as many Ulstermen as were living.

Cúchulainn threw their spancel-hoop of challenge into the river, lay down by the pillar-stone, and told Ibor to wake him only if all of them came. He killed Foill with a spear through the back, Fannall in the ford, and Tuachell with the del chliss, which tore him asunder, and took the heads. Their mother screamed behind them.

The return to Emain

On Sliab Fuait he caught a wild stag alive and tethered it behind the chariot, and brought down eight swans with a small stone and twelve with a bigger. So he came to Emain Macha with a stag behind, swans overhead and three heads inside. The watcher cried that the court would be bled unless naked women went out to meet him. Cúchulainn turned the left chariot-board toward Emain in insult. Conchobor ordered the women out, and Mugain, his wife, led them and bared their breasts. Cúchulainn hid his face. The warriors plunged him in a vat of cold water, which burst, and a second, which boiled with bubbles the size of fists. In a third the heat and cold were equal. Mugain gave him a blue cloak and a hooded tunic, and he sat on Conchobor’s knee, and that was his seat ever after.