Chapter XI: Combat of Ferdia and Cúchulainn

Summary

Ferdia is sent for

The armies agree that the man to stop Cúchulainn is Ferdia, the horn-skinned warrior from Irrus Domnann, his own foster-brother. Ferdia has every feat Cúchulainn has except the gae bolga, and they think his horn skin will save him from it. Ferdia will not come when Medb's messengers call, so she sends poets, bards and satirists to shame him with mockery. In dread of that he comes to the tent. Finnabair is put beside him. She hands him the goblets with three kisses for every cup, and offers him sweet apples at the neck of her shirt, saying he is her chosen beloved of the whole world.

Medb lists the price: a chariot, land equal to Murtheimne Plain, a place at Cruachan with his wine supplied, her leaf-shaped gold brooch, and Finnabair for a wife, "and my own friendly thighs on top of that if needs be." The others cry that there is no need. Ferdia says he would sooner leave the gifts with her than fight his foster-brother. Medb acts as though she hasn't heard and says Cúchulainn claimed it would be no great triumph if his greatest feat were Ferdia's downfall. She knew well how to stir up strife. Ferdia swears to be first at the ford. She asks whether it is fitting for Cúchulainn to guard Ulster because his mother belonged there, but not for Ferdia, a Connacht king's son, to guard Connacht. In a chanted bargain Ferdia asks for six princes as sureties, and Medb offers him a choice of men, even her own two sons. He pledges to fight Cúchulainn or, failing that, six warriors.

Fergus's warning

Fergus hears of the bargain and tells his tent that Cúchulainn will be slain in the morning. No one will carry the warning to Ferdia, so Fergus drives to the ford himself. Cúchulainn says he does not want the meeting, not for fear of Ferdia but because he loves him so much. Fergus warns him about the horn skin. Cúchulainn says that Ferdia's joints will bend like reeds in the river at the point of his sword.

Laeg suggests that since Ferdia will come washed and bathed with his hair freshly plaited, Cúchulainn should go where he will get the same attention. He spends the night with Emer at Cairthenn Cluana-Dá-Dam, the Meadow of the Two Oxen, at Sliab Fuait. "No more is said here about that."

Ferdia's morning

Ferdia's tent is gloomy. His greatest worry is that his life and head will never be his own again once he appears before Cúchulainn. His charioteer says they would do better not to go. Ferdia has the chariot turned three times to face the men of Ireland, to bid them farewell. It passes close to Medb, who is making water on the floor of the tent.

"Do you hear your new son-in-law bidding you farewell?" she asks Ailill. She swears he will not come back on his own feet. Ailill says it is all the same to them if both die, though it might be better if Ferdia escaped.

At the ford Cúchulainn is not yet there, and Ferdia says he has vanished from fear. His charioteer says it is shameful to slander him in his absence. He reminds Ferdia how Cúchulainn killed a hundred warriors to bring back his lost sword, and cut in two Scáthach's steward, who had knocked Ferdia out the door with a flesh-fork. Ferdia says he wouldn't have come looking for this fight if he had been reminded earlier. He lies down to sleep, and cannot.

Four days at the ford

Cúchulainn arrives. He says he could trust Ferdia's welcome once but not now. They remind each other that Cúchulainn was once Ferdia's body-servant under Scáthach, and that he was young and small then. They break off their friendship in verse. Ferdia calls him Squinter and little bush, and Cúchulainn pleads that Finnabair was promised falsely to fifty men, and he put every one of them in his grave.

On the first day, as Ferdia has the choice of weapons, they use their feat-playing gear until midday and then flax-bound spears until sunset. Neither draws blood with the first, and both are wounded by the second. They break off, kiss three times, and their horses spend the night in one paddock and their charioteers at one fire. Cúchulainn sends the same healing herbs across the ford to Ferdia as are put on his own wounds, and Ferdia sends back an equal share of his food and drink, since all the men of Ireland supply Ferdia and only the people of Breg Plain supply Cúchulainn. On the second day, with Cúchulainn choosing, they use stabbing-spears from horse and chariot until the horses are spent and the charioteers dazed.

On the third day Cúchulainn sees a darkness on Ferdia and laments. They fight with swords, cutting pieces the size of babies' heads from each other. That night their horses are in different paddocks and their charioteers at different fires.

The gae bolga

On the fourth day Ferdia comes first and puts on a stone the size of a millstone under an apron of twice-smelted iron, for dread of the gae bolga. Cúchulainn tells Laeg to abuse him if he seems near defeat and praise him if Ferdia does. They choose to fight in the ford water. Ferdia knocks him back with an elbow and then a knee. Laeg tells him his enemy shook him as easily as a mother slaps her son, and that he has no claim to great deeds. The third time Cúchulainn warps into his fury-spasm and looms over Ferdia like a Fomorian giant. They fight so closely that their shields split and they drive the river out of its bed, leaving a dry space in the ford big enough for a royal burial-ground.

Ferdia buries his sword in Cúchulainn's breast. Cúchulainn calls for the gae bolga. Ferdia lowers his shield to cover his body below, and Cúchulainn throws a short javelin over the rim and through the horn skin and heart. As Ferdia raises the shield Laeg sends the spear down the stream, Cúchulainn catches it in the fork of his foot and casts it through the iron apron and the stone, and every joint fills with barbs. Ferdia says he will die of it, and that Cúchulainn has killed him unfairly.

The lament

Cúchulainn carries Ferdia north across the ford, so the spoils will not lie with the men of Ireland, and faints beside his head. Laeg says the army is coming. Cúchulainn asks why he should rise with this one fallen by his hand. He mourns Ferdia in prose and in verse, has Laeg strip the body to show him the brooch Ferdia fought for, and has Laeg cut it open and take out the gae bolga. He recalls Scáthach's school and the war against Germán Garbglas, where he and Ferdia stood together in the door of the fort. At Laeg's urging they leave the ford. Cúchulainn chants "All play, all sport, until Ferdia came to the ford." He says the army has lost between a half and a third.

Kinsella's note says this episode is an interpolation of not earlier than the eleventh century, and has the characteristics of a separate work.