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The story opens on a historical note, with a description of how the Ulaid celebrated Samuin, the annual end-of-the-year assembly; but the arrival of beautiful, red-gold-chained, otherworld birds on the lake at Mag Muirthemni and the appearance of the two women, one in green and one in crimson, who beat Cú Chulaind with horsewhips testify to the story’s mythic origin. The central idea is also that of the first section of the Welsh ‘Pwyll Lord of Dyved’: the shadowy rulers of the otherworld have need of mortal strength; the pursuit of the hero by the otherworld beauty, moreover, is common to the second section of ‘Pwyll’. Much of the tale is related in verse, and, while the poetry is neither particularly old nor particularly dense, it is clear and brilliant and affecting:

At the doorway to the east,

three trees of brilliant crystal,

whence a gentle flock of birds calls

to the children of the royal fort.

Near the end of the tale, the tone shifts towards the psychological – an unusual circumstance in these stories – as Fand and Emer fight over Cú Chulaind; the writing, which seems very literary at this point, is emotional but never sentimental. Even the poetry assumes a gnomic quality: Emer complains that ‘what’s new is bright… what’s familiar is stale’, while Fand merely points out that ‘every rule is good until broken’. Although Fand ultimately yields – after Cú Chulaind has been moved by Emer’s plea – she admits that she still prefers Cú Chulaind to her own husband; Cú Chulaind, seeing her leave, wanders madly into the mountains of Ulaid, and it requires the spells of Conchubur’s druids and Manandán’s magic cloak to make him forget.

The story is the original source for Yeats’s play The Only Jealousy of Emer.

The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind

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The Only Jealousy of Emer

Each year the Ulaid held an assembly: the three days before Samuin and the three days after Samuin and Samuin itself. They would gather at Mag Muirthemni, and during these seven days there would be nothing but meetings and games and amusements and entertainments and eating and feasting. That is why the thirds of Samuin are as they are today.

Thus, the Ulaid were assembled at Mag Muirthemni. Now the reason they met every Samuin was to give each warrior an opportunity to boast of his valour and exhibit his triumphs. The warriors put the tongues of those they had killed into their pouches – some threw in cattle tongues to augment the count – and then, at the assembly, each man spoke in turn and boasted of his triumphs. They spoke with their swords on their thighs, swords that turned against anyone who swore falsely.

Now there had come to this particular assembly every man but two: Conall Cernach and Fergus son of Roech. ‘Let the assembly be convened,’ said the Ulaid. Cú Chulaind, however, protested, saying ‘Not until Conall and Fergus come’, for Conall was his foster-brother and Fergus his foster-father. So Senchae said ‘Let us play fidchell and have the poets recite and the acrobats perform.’

While they were at these amusements, a flock of birds settled on the lake, and no flock in Ériu was more beautiful. The women grew very excited over these birds and began to argue over who should have them. Eithne Attencháithrech, Conchubur’s wife, said, ‘I desire a bird for each shoulder’, but the other women replied ‘We all want that too.’ ‘If anyone is to have them, I should,’ said Eithne Ingubai, the wife of Cú Chulaind. ‘What will we do?’ asked the women. ‘Not difficult,’ said Lebarcham, the daughter of Óa and Adarc. ‘I will go and ask Cú Chulaind.’

She went to Cú Chulaind, then, and said ‘The women desire those birds from you.’ But he seized his sword to ply against her, saying ‘Have the sluts of Ulaid nothing better for us than to hunt their birds?’ ‘Indeed, you ought not to be angry with them,’ answered Lebarcham, ‘for you are the cause of their third blemish.’ The women of Ulaid suffered three blemishes: every woman who loved Conall had a crooked neck; every woman who loved Cúscraid Mend Machae son of Conchubur