Chapter XIV: The Last Battle

Summary

The truce and the night before

Conchobor comes with his armies and asks Ailill for a truce until sunrise. Ailill agrees for the men of Ireland and the exiles, Conchobor for the men of Ulster. The tents go up and the ground between the armies lies bare.

In the half light between the camps the Morrígan chants of ravens gnawing necks and blades in bodies. She ends by hailing Ulster and mourning the men of Ireland, then turns it round, hailing Ireland and mourning Ulster. The reversed lines she says in Connachtmen's ears only, to hide the truth from them. That night Nét's wives, Nemain and the Badb, call out to the men of Ireland near the field at Gáirech and Irgairech, and a hundred warriors die of fright. Ailill tells Traigthrén to summon every group of three that is left, the three called Conaire, the three called Les and on through the provinces. These are all the men of Ireland that survived Cúchulainn's slaughter.

Cúchulainn listens

Cúchulainn lies nearby at Fedan Chollna, where the landowners feed him at night. His charioteer reports on the morning. A small herd has strayed from the western camp, servants from both sides come out to claim it, and the servants start fighting. Cúchulainn says everybody will go to help the servants, and that is what happens. The beardless boys join in, then the better-born at sunrise, while the kings are still asleep. Cúchulainn wishes he had the strength to join them.

Fachtna chants "Rise kings of Macha", or some say it was Conchobor chanting in his sleep. Conchobor says to wait for the sun. Then Cúchulainn sees the Connacht kings putting on their crowns and has his charioteer rouse Ulster. The Ulstermen rush naked to the battle with nothing but their weapons, and those facing east dash out through the backs of their tents. Necessity is a great spur, Cúchulainn says. Laeg reports that the men fight so closely he could drive over the armies from wing to wing and find no place for a hoof to sink through.

Fergus and Conchobor

Medb holds back nine chariot-fighters from Iruath, to pluck Ailill from the fray if the army is beaten or to kill Conchobor if it wins. She and Ailill reproach Fergus with all they have done for him in exile. Fergus says that if he had his sword he would pile jawbones on necks, necks on shoulders, and so on down to toes on nails. Ailill has the sword brought.

Fergus carves a gap of a hundred men in the ranks, and a hundred Ulster warriors die in the first onslaught. Conall Cernach tells him he rages at his kith and kin for the sake of a whore's backside. Medb drives all before her three times, until a wall of javelins turns her back.

Conchobor goes to find the man forcing the battle and raises the shield Ochain, the Ear of Beauty. Fergus strikes it three blows and cannot move even the rim. He raises the sword in both hands for a stroke at Conchobor, and Cormac Connlongas throws his arms around him and catches his wrists. Cormac tells him to strike crosswise at the three hills. With three strokes Fergus levels the three bald-topped hills of Meath.

Cúchulainn gets up

Cúchulainn hears the blows and orders the hazel twigs loosened. The rush wisps spring up like larks, and the bindings fly as far as Mag Tuag in Connacht. His wounds open afresh. Medb had sent two handmaids to lament over him and reopen them. He smashes their heads together so that each is stained grey from the other's brains. The warp-spasm seizes him, and he takes his whole chariot on his back.

He circles the battle looking for Fergus and calls three times before he is answered. Fergus had promised to give way before him, and Cúchulainn says it has fallen due. Fergus goes off with his three thousand. The men of Galeóin and of Munster go as well, leaving Medb and Ailill with their seven sons and nine troops. Cúchulainn joins the battle at noon. By the time the sun reaches the tresses of the wood he has smashed their last company, and nothing is left of his chariot but a handful of ribs and a handful of spokes.

Medb's foul place

Medb has set up a shelter of shields at the rear of the men of Ireland. She has already sent the Brown Bull of Cuailnge to Cruachan by a roundabout road, with fifty heifers and eight messengers.

Then Medb gets her gush of blood. She asks Fergus to take over the shelter until she relieves herself. She says she will die if she cannot. It digs three great channels, each big enough to take a household, and the place is called Fual Medba, Medb's Foul Place, ever since. Cúchulainn finds her like this and holds his hand, because he will not strike her from behind. He says it would only be right to kill her, but he spares her, not being a killer of women.

He watches them westward past Ath Luain and stops there. He strikes three blows at the stone hills nearby, and the Bald-topped Hills at Ath Luain are named in answer to the three in Meath. The battle is over. Fergus says it is the usual thing for a herd led by a mare to be strayed and destroyed.

The bulls

The day after the battle they take the bull away. On Ai Plain, at Tarbga, the place of bull-grief, he meets the White-Horned bull Finnbennach. The men of Ireland agree that Bricriu mac Carbad should judge between them, because he favours his friend no more than his enemy. He is brought to a gap between the bulls, and they trample across him and kill him. Kinsella's notes say this passage is supplied from the Book of Leinster, whose own story has Bricriu lying sick at Cruachan through the whole Táin.

The Brown Bull plants a hoof on the other bull's horn and will not draw it back all day. Fergus takes a stick to his flank. The bull jerks the hoof back. His leg breaks, and the other bull's horn flies to the mountain nearby, called Sliab nAdarca, the Mountain of the Horn, ever since. In the dark they circle the whole of Ireland. In the morning the Donn Cuailnge comes westward past Cruachan with the mangled remains of Finnbennach hanging from his horns. Fergus stops the armies killing him and lets him go where he likes.

The bull goes home

He leaves pieces of Finnbennach along the way. At Finnlethe he leaves the shoulderblade, which names the district. At Ath Luain he leaves the loins, and that is how the place got its name, the Ford of the Loins. He bellows at Iraird Cuillenn, and the whole province hears it. At Tromma the liver falls from his horns, which is where Tromma gets its name. At Ath Da Ferta he sets his brow against the hill, and the district in Murtheimne Plain is called Etan Tairb, the Bull's Brow. At Cuib, where he had lived with the milkless cow of Dáire, he tears up the ground, and it is called Gort mBúraig, the Field of the Trench. He falls dead between Ulster and Uí Echach, and Druim Tairb, the Ridge of the Bull, is the name of the place.

Ailill and Medb make peace with Ulster and Cúchulainn. For seven years none of their people is killed in Ireland. The men of Ulster go back to Emain Macha full of their great triumph. The text says Finnabair stayed with Cúchulainn. Kinsella's note calls this the storyteller's final flourish, which ignores her death and the fact that Emer was Cúchulainn's wife.