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By Root 725 0

turn cast his spear at the giant and also failed. The giant then stretched out his hand to take Cú Chulaind in his grasp as he had taken the other two men, but Cú Chulaind performed the hero’s salmon leap and his coursing feat, with his sword overhead, so that he was as swift as a hare, and he hovered in a circle like a mill wheel. ‘My life for yours!’ said the giant. ‘My requests, then,’ said Cú Chulaind. ‘You will have them even as you breathe them,’ said the giant. ‘Supremacy over the warriors of Ériu from this time on and the champion’s portion without contest and precedence for my wife over the women of Ulaid for ever,’ said Cú Chulaind. ‘You will have that,’ said the giant. With that, he vanished, and Cú Chulaind did not know where he had gone.

Cú Chulaind then thought about the leap that his comrades had made over the stronghold wall, which was high and broad, for he assumed that Lóegure and Conall must have leapt it. He attempted the leap twice and failed twice. ‘A shame all the trouble I have taken over the champion’s portion, to see it pass from me through failing to make the leap the others made,’ he said, and he mused over this folly. He sprang back from the stronghold the length of a spear-cast, and he sprang forward to where he had been standing, so that his forehead just touched the wall. He leapt straight up so that he could see everything that was happening inside, and he descended so that he sank into the ground up to his knees. And he did not remove the dew from the grass, even with the ardour of his feeling and the vigour of his disposition and the extent of his valour. With the fury and the ríastarthae that overcame him, he finally leapt the stronghold wall, so that he landed at the entrance to the royal house. He went inside and heaved a great sigh, and Bláthnait said ‘Indeed, not a sigh of shame but a sigh after victory and triumph’, for the daughter of the king of Inis Fer Falga knew of the trials Cú Chulaind had endured that night.

Not long after that, they saw Cú Ruí coming towards them in the house; he had the war gear of the three nines whom Cú Chulaind had killed, along with their heads and the head of the beast. After taking the heads from his chest and putting them in the centre of the house, he said ‘The lad who has collected all these trophies in one night is fit to watch over the stronghold of a king. That which they dispute, the champion’s portion, truly belongs to Cú Chulaind in preference to every youth of Ériu, for none could meet him in combat.’ Cú Rui thus awarded the champion’s portion to Cú Chulaind, naming him the most valorous of the Goídil and giving his wife precedence over the other women of Ulaid in entering the drinking house. Moreover, he gave Cú Chulaind seven cumals’ worth of gold and silver as a reward for the deeds he had done that night.

The three heroes bade farewell to Cú Ruí, then, and returned to Emuin Machae before the end of the day. When it came time for the servers to divide and distribute, they removed the champion’s portion and its drink and set them aside. ‘We are certain that you will not be contesting the champion’s portion tonight,’ said Dubthach Dóeltenga, ‘for you will have received judgement from him to whom you went.’ But Lóegure and Conall said that the champion’s portion had not been awarded to any of the three in preference to the others, and, as for the judgement of Cú Ruú upon the three, they said that he had awarded nothing at all to Cú Chulaind since they had reached Emuin Machae. Cú Chulaind then said that he would not contest the champion’s portion, for the good of having it would be no greater than the trouble involved. Thus, the champion’s portion was not awarded until after the warriors’ bargain at Emuin Machae.

Once, when the Ulaid were at Emuin Machae, tired after the fair and the games, Conchubur and Fergus and the other Ulaid chieftains returned from the playing field to sit in Conchubur’s Cráebruad. Lóegure and Conall and Cú Chulaind were not there that evening, but the best of the other warriors of Ulaid were. As night drew on,