Emer

Overview

The price

The men of Ulster decide Cúchulainn needs a wife, and Conchobor's nine men in each province find none in a year. Cúchulainn goes himself to the Gardens of Lug with his charioteer Laeg, to a girl he knows. Emer is out on the green with her foster-sisters, the daughters of landowners, all studying embroidery and fine stitching with her. She lifts her lovely face, knows him, and blesses his road.

They speak together in riddles. He sees her breasts over the top of her dress and says he sees a sweet country where he could rest his weapon. She says no man will travel this country until he has killed a hundred men at every ford from Scenmenn ford on the river Ailbine to Banchuing, done the salmon-leap with twice his weight in gold, struck down three groups of nine men with one stroke and left the middle man of each unharmed, and gone sleepless from Samain until the autumn. To each he answers that in that sweet country he will rest his weapon.

Forgall

The girls tell their fathers, and the landowners tell Forgall, who works out that this is the warped one from Emain Macha and that his daughter has fallen in love with him. He comes to Emain Macha dressed as a royal messenger from Gaul and praises Cúchulainn until the hero agrees to go to Domnall Míldemail and Scáthach. Emer tells him in the morning that it was Forgall, and warns him that her father will try to destroy him wherever he goes. Each promises to stay pure until they meet again, unless the other dies.

While Cúchulainn is in Alba, Forgall promises her to Lugaid mac Nois of Munster. At the wedding she is brought to sit at Lugaid's hand, but she holds his cheeks and swears on his life and honour that she loves Cúchulainn, that she is under Cúchulainn's protection, and that for anyone else to take her would be a crime against honour. Lugaid does not dare sleep with her for dread of Cúchulainn and goes home.

The fort

Back in Ulster Cúchulainn spends a year at Forgall's ramparts without reaching her. Then he drives the sickle-chariot at the fort and leaps the three enclosures, killing eight men from each of three groups and leaving her three brothers standing. Forgall flees over the rampart, falls and kills himself. Cúchulainn takes Emer and her foster-sister with their weight in gold and silver, and leaps back over the ramparts.

The pursuit reaches Ath Imfóit on the Boann, where she gets out of the chariot. At Glondáth he kills a hundred men and she says that was a great deed. At Crúfóit she tells him he has made a hill of bloody sods, and the place is named for it. Cúchulainn kills a hundred men at every ford from Ath Scenmenn to the Boann, doing all he told her he would do. Bricriu then says that she must sleep that night with Conchobor, and the cushion bursts under Cúchulainn. The Ulstermen settle it by putting her in Conchobor's bed with Fergus and Cathbad. Conchobor pays her dowry the next day.

Later

When the boy in the bronze boat is beating Ulster at the strand, she puts her arm round her husband's neck and tells him not to go down, since it is his own son, and to remember Scáthach's strict warning. He tells her to be quiet, since he wants no woman's help with his work. He goes down and kills the boy with the gae bolga.

The night before the first day with Ferdia, Laeg asks Cúchulainn what he will do that night. The next speech, which the text does not assign, says Ferdia will be washed and bathed and have the four provinces with him, and that Cúchulainn should go where he gets the same attention, to sweet-haired Emer waiting at Sliab Fuait. He goes that night and stays with his wife. The text adds that no more is said about that. Kinsella's note on the closing lines of the book says the storyteller's flourish forgets that Emer was Cúchulainn's wife.