Ochaine

Overview

Ochaine is a hill in Cuailnge, near the sea. Kinsella's list of place-names gives it as Trumpet Hill. The text also calls it Mount Ochaine and the mountain-top of Ochaine, and the army's route list passes it "southward by Ochaine hill."

Before anything happens there, it is promised. Dubthach, at Trego Plain, chants that the river Cronn will rise and bar the way to Murtheimne "until that warrior's work is done at Mount Ochaine to the north." Cúchulainn says nearly the same thing when he calls on the Cronn to fall to in the fight, "until the warrior's work is done on the mountain-top of Ochaine."

The work is a sling. The army stays three nights in that place, and Cúchulainn kills a hundred men on each of them, plying the sling from the hill nearby. Ailill sees that at this rate the army will melt away at his hands, and offers a part of Ai Plain equal to the whole plain of Murtheimne, with the best chariot at Ai and harness for a dozen men. If Cúchulainn would like it more, he can have his native plain back, with twenty-one bondmaids and payment for anything of his that has been destroyed, cattle or household goods. In return he is to take service under Ailill, who calls himself more worthy of him than the half-lord he serves now. Mac Roth, who could circle the whole of Ireland in a day, takes the message to Delga, where Fergus thought Cúchulainn might be found. That night a heavy snow turns all the provinces into a white plain.

The hill is named once more in the single combats. Nadcranntail has been boasting that Cúchulainn ran from him, when all Cúchulainn did was refuse to kill a man who carried no real weapons. When Fiacha mac Fir Febe tells him of the boast, Cúchulainn answers that Nadcranntail can come the next day, "between the hill Ochaine and the sea." He goes to their meeting-place and watches through the night. In the morning he throws his cloak about himself and, without noticing, about a standing stone nearby as big as himself. Nadcranntail arrives, and the fight goes on from there: thrown spears, no dodging except upward.