Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Jeffrey Gantz [65]
Cú Chulaind, however, was approaching the boy, playing, with the arm of Emer daughter of Forgall round his neck. ‘Do not go down there!’ she said. ‘It is your son who is there. Do not slaughter your son, O impetuous, well-bred lad. Neither fair nor right it is to rise against your son of great and valorous deeds. Turn away from the skin-torment of the sapling of your tree; remember Scáthach’s warning. If Condlae sustained the left board, there would be a fierce combat. Turn to me! Listen! My advice is good! Let it be Cú Chulaind who listens. I know what name he bears, if that is Condlae the only son of Aífe who is below.’ But Cú Chulaind answered ‘Silence, woman! It is not a woman’s advice I seek regarding deeds of bright splendour. Such deeds are not performed with a woman’s assistance. Let us be triumphant in feats. Sated the eyes of a great king. A mist of blood upon my skin the gore from the body of Condlae. Beautifully spears will suck the fair javelin. Whatever were down there, woman, I would go for the sake of the Ulaid.’
Cú Chulaind went down to the shore, then. ‘Delightful your games, little boy,’ he said, but Condlae answered ‘Not delightful the game you play, for no two of you will come unless I identify myself.’ ‘Must I have a little boy in my presence? You will die unless you identify yourself.’ ‘Prove that,’ said the boy. He rose towards Cú Chulaind, then, and the two of them struck at each other; the boy performed the hair-cutting feat with his sword and left Cú Chulaind bald. ‘The mockery is at an end. Let us wrestle,’ Cú Chulaind said. ‘I would not reach your belt,’ answered the boy. But he stood upon two pillars and threw Cú Chulaind down between the pillars three times; he moved neither of his feet, so that they went into the stone up to his ankles.
They went to wrestle in the water, then, and the boy ducked Cú Chulaind twice. After that, Cú Chulaind rose out of the water and deceived the boy with the gáe bolga, for Scáthach had never taught that weapon to anyone but Cú Chulaind.1 He cast it at the boy through the water, and the boy’s innards fell at his feet.
‘That,’ said the boy, ‘is what Scáthach did not teach me. Alas that you have wounded me!’ ‘True that,’ said Cú Chulaind, and he took the boy in his arms and carried him up from the shore and showed him to the Ulaid, saying ‘Here is my son.’ ‘Alas, indeed,’ they said. ‘True enough,’ said the boy, ‘for, had I stayed among you five years, I would have slain men on all sides, and you would have possessed kingdoms as far distant as Rome. Now show me the great men who dwell here, that I may take my leave of them.’ He put his arms round the neck of each man in turn, then, and bade his father farewell and died. Cries of grief were raised, and his grave and marker were made, and for three days not a calf of the cattle of the Ulaid was left alive after him.
The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind & The Only Jealousy of Emer
Introduction
‘The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind & The Only Jealousy of Emer’ is one of the more remarkable Irish tales: part myth, part history, part soap opera. Even the text is unusual, for it is a conflation of two different versions. After the first quarter of the tale, there appears an interpolation (omitted in this translation) detailing Cú Chulaind’s advice to Lugaid Réoderg after the latter has been made king of Temuir; when the story proper resumes, Cú Chulaind is married to Emer instead of to Eithne Ingubai, and Lóeg is making a second trip to the otherworld with Lí Ban. The two versions have not been well integrated, and much evidence of confusion and duplication remains; but it is hard to say which tradition is older. Throughout the rest of the Ulster Cycle Cú Chulaind’s wife is named Emer, just as Conchubur’s is named Mugain