Chapter VIII: The Bull is Found. Further Single Combats. Cúchulainn and the Morrígan

Summary

Buide mac Báin and the bull

Medb takes a third of her force into the district of Cuib to search for the bull, meaning to lay waste the lands of the Ulstermen and the Picts along the Midluachair road as far as Dún Sobairche. Cúchulainn follows. He sees Buide mac Báin at the head of three score of Ailill's men, in cloaks, coming from Sliab Cuilinn with the bull among fifteen heifers. Asked his name he says, "One who neither fears nor favours you." Cúchulainn throws a short spear through his armpit and severs one of his livers in two. Ath Buide is named for him, but they get the bull into the camp.

Redg and the javelin

Ailill's satirist Redg is sent to get Cúchulainn's javelin from him, since he would be less troublesome without it. Cúchulainn will give any gift but that, and Redg wants nothing else. Cúchulainn strikes him, and Redg says he will take away his good name unless he gets the javelin. Cúchulainn throws it and it shoots through Redg's head. The satirist calls it a stunning gift, and the place is Ath Tolam Sét, the Ford of the Overwhelming Gift. The copper point comes to rest at a ford further east, Umarrith, Where the Copper Came to Rest.

Medb in the north

After a fortnight Medb turns back. At the capture of Dún Sobairche she has taken fifty women from Finnmór, wife of Celtchar mac Uthidir. Wherever she rested her horsewhip in Cuib the name Bile Medba, Medb's Whip, remains, and any ford or height she stopped at is called Medb's Ford or Medb's Hill.

They meet again at Focherd. The herdsman captured with the bull tries to make off with it, so they drive the herd after him into a narrow gap, beating shafts on shields, and the hooves drive him into the earth. Forgaimen was his name, and his body is there still, giving the hill its name.

Cúr mac Daláth

They send for Cúr mac Daláth, whose victims die within nine days if he draws their blood. Cúr sees a beardless boy, says it is unfitting, and offers to send a boy of his own age. Cormac Connlongas says he is mistaken.

Next morning Cúchulainn is practising his feats of arms, among them the apple-feat and the salmon-leap. For a third of the day Cúr plies his weapons from behind his shield and cannot reach him. Cúchulainn does not know he is attacked until Fiacha mac Fir Febe tells him. He flings the one apple left in his hand and it breaks out through the back of Cúr's head. Fergus reminds the army that the pact binds them to wait another day. Three more are killed in single combat.

Ferbaeth

Lugaid tells Laeg that Ferbaeth will go against Cúchulainn tomorrow, a comrade of them both, promised Finnabair and kingship over his people. Ferbaeth, who trained with Scáthach as Cúchulainn did, is seated beside Finnabair, who handles his portion of wine. He says Cúchulainn is his foster-brother and sworn to him forever, but he will meet him and hack off his head.

Cúchulainn says it is a black day. Ferbaeth comes that night with Fiacha mac Fir Febe to renounce their friendship and will not give way, though Cúchulainn begs him by their foster-brotherhood and their common fosternurse Scáthach. Cúchulainn leaves him in a fury. In the glen a piece of split holly drives into his foot and out at the knee. He pulls it out, calls to Ferbaeth to wait and see what he has found, and flings it after him when Ferbaeth says to throw it over. It pierces the hollow at the back of Ferbaeth's head and comes out of his mouth. He falls backward and says, "That was a throw."

Some say this is how Focherd, the Place of the Throw, got its name. Others say Fiacha mac Fir Febe remarked that Cúchulainn was throwing sharp today. Ferbaeth dies in the glen, which is Glenn Firbaith. Fergus chants over him and wonders whether Cúchulainn will pay for his comrade's death. Cúchulainn says that sometime he must.

Láréne

Ailill says they will get no one without trickery. Each night a great warrior is given wine, seated with Finnabair at his right hand and promised her for the head of the Warped One, and each is killed. At last they turn to Láréne mac Nois, brother to Lugaid king of Munster, a vainglorious man.

Lugaid asks Cúchulainn not to kill his brother, though he may punish him heavily. Next day Láréne goes out with the girl urging him on. Cúchulainn springs at him unarmed, takes his weapons roughly, and grinds and rattles him until the dung is forced out of him. The ford grows foul with his droppings and the air thickens with his dust. Cúchulainn flings him into Lugaid's arms. For the rest of his life Láréne cannot empty his bowels properly, is never free from chest-pains and cannot eat without groaning. He is the only man of all who met Cúchulainn on the Táin who escaped him alive, though it was a cruel escape.

King Buan's daughter

A young woman of noble figure in garments of many colours comes toward Cúchulainn. She says she is King Buan's daughter and loves him for the great tales she has heard. He says he cannot attend to a woman during a struggle like this. Then she will hinder him, she says. She will trip him in the ford as an eel, stampede the beasts against him as a grey she-wolf, and trample him as a hornless red heifer. To each he answers that he will break her ribs, burst her eye or shatter her leg, and that she will carry the mark forever unless he lifts it from her with a blessing. Then she leaves him.

Lóch mac Mofemis

Lóch mac Mofemis is offered land, war-harness, a chariot and the girl, but thinks it beneath him to fight a boy. His brother Long mac Mofemis takes the offer, fights Cúchulainn and is killed, and is carried up dead to Lóch. Lóch says he would avenge him if he could be sure a grown man killed him. The women call out that the camp mocks Cúchulainn for having no beard, so he makes one with berry juice, plucks a fistful of grass and speaks into it, and everyone believes he has a beard. Lóch says he will not fight for seven days. Medb sends a warrior out every night to steal up on Cúchulainn, and he kills them all: seven named Conall, seven Aengus, seven Uargus, seven Celtre, eight Fiac, ten Ailill, ten Delbath and ten Tasach. Those were his week's deeds at Ath Grencha.

Medb tells Lóch it is a great shame that the man who killed his brother can destroy their army while he stays home. Lóch goes out satisfied that he will meet a bearded man, and asks for the ford upstream, since he will not fight in the foul place where Long fell. As Cúchulainn goes there men drive cattle across, and the poet Gabrán says there will be a great trampling across his water today. Ath Tarteisc, "across your water," and Tír Mór Tairtesc get their names in this way.

The eel and the Morrígan

In the ford an eel flings three coils about Cúchulainn's feet and he falls, and Lóch sets on him with the sword until the ford is blood-red. Fergus says someone must put heart in Cúchulainn. The venom-tongued Bricriu mac Carbad stands up and taunts him, saying his strength is withered if a little salmon can put him down while the men of Ulster are rising from their pangs. Cúchulainn rises and smashes the eel's ribs. The cattle stampede eastward through the army and carry off the tents on their horns. A she-wolf drives them back upon him and he bursts the eye in her head with a stone. A hornless red heifer leads them through the fords and pools until he cries that he cannot tell ford from flood, and he breaks her legs with a stone. So Cúchulainn does to the Morrígan the three things he had sworn.

He chants that he is alone against hordes and almost worn out, and that Conchobor should come now. Then he fights Lóch with the sword and with the gae bolga, which his charioteer sends along the stream. He strikes up through Lóch's fundament, since when Lóch fights all his other parts are covered in a skin of horn. Lóch asks him to yield and leave him space. Cúchulainn yields before him and Lóch falls forward on his face, and Ath Traigid in Tír Mór is the Ford of Yielding. Then Cúchulainn cuts his head off.

The old woman and the cow

A great weariness falls on Cúchulainn. The Morrígan appears to him as a squint-eyed old woman milking a cow with three tits. He asks her for a drink and she gives him milk from the first tit, and her head is healed. The second tit heals her eye and the third her legs. She says he told her he would never heal her. He says that had he known it was her he would not have done it.