Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Jeffrey Gantz [52]
After that, Ailill and Medb conversed. ‘A multitude of the kings of Ériu will besiege us if he takes the girl,’ said Ailill. ‘It would be best to set upon him and kill him now, before he can bring about our destruction.’ ‘Pitiful that,’ replied Medb, ‘and we will be dishonoured.’ ‘We will not be dishonoured, for I will arrange it so,’ said Ailill.
Ailill and Medb returned to the royal house. ‘Let us go out,’ he said, ‘to see the hounds hunt, until noon comes and they grow tired.’ Ailill and Medb went out to bathe in the river. ‘I am told,’ Ailill said to Fróech, ‘that you are good in the water. Come into this pool, that we may see you swim.’ ‘What sort of pool is this?’ Fróech asked. ‘We know of nothing dangerous in it,’ said Ailill, ‘and it is our custom to bathe here.’ Fróech took off his clothes, then, and went into the water, leaving his belt behind. Ailill opened Fróech’s wallet, then, and the thumb ring was in it, and he recognized it. ‘Come here, Medb!’ he said; Medb came, and he said to her ‘Do you recognize this?’ ‘I do,’ she replied. Ailill threw the ring into the river; Fróech perceived this, and he saw a salmon leap for the ring and catch it in its mouth. Fróech leapt after the salmon and caught it by the gills; he made for land and hid the fish in a secret place on the river bank.
After that, Fróech made to leave the water. ‘Do not come out,’ said Ailill, ‘until you have brought me a branch from yonder rowan on the river bank. I find its berries beautiful.’ Fróech went back, then, and brought the branch through the water on his shoulders. Findabair said afterwards that, whatever beautiful thing she saw, she thought it more beautiful to look at Fróech across the dark water, his body very white, his hair very beautiful, his face very shapely, his eyes very blue, he a gentle youth without fault or blemish, his face narrow below and broad above, he straight without blemish, the branch with the red berries between his throat and his white face. Findabair used to say that she had never seen anything to match a half or a third of his beauty.
Fróech brought the branches from the water to them, then. ‘These berries are choice and delicious. Bring us more.’ Fróech went back into the water, and in the centre of the pool a monster seized him. ‘A sword for me!’ he cried, but not a man there dared give him one for fear of Ailill and Medb. Findabair, however, threw off her clothes and leapt into the water with a sword. Her father cast a five-pointed spear at her so that it went through her two tresses. Fróech caught the spear, the monster at his side, and sent it back in a kind of play of weaponry, so that it went through Ailill’s scarlet mantle and through his shirt. The youths rose about Ailill then. Findabair came out of the water, but she left the sword in Fróech’s hand, and he struck off the monster’s head and brought it with him to land. Thus is named Dub-lind Froích in the river Brei in the land of the Connachta.
Ailill and Medb went back into the fort, then. ‘A great evil have we done,’ said Medb. ‘We regret what we have done against the man,’ said Ailill. ‘The girl, however, will die tomorrow night, and not for the crime of taking the sword to him. Have a bath prepared for the man, a broth of fresh bacon and the flesh of a heifer chopped up with an adze and an axe and added into the bath.’ All this was done.
Fróech’s hornplayers preceded him into the court, then, and such was their playing that thirty of Ailill’s dearest ones died of yearning. Fróech entered the fort, then, and went into the bath. A company of women rose about him to rub him and to wash his hair; after that, he was taken from the tub, and a bed was prepared for him to lie down. But the people heard weeping outside Crúachu, and they saw three fifties of women wearing scarlet mantles and bright green headdresses and silver animal bracelets on their wrists. Messengers were sent to find out why the women were weeping, and one woman said ‘Fróech son of Idath