Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Jeffrey Gantz [81]
The Ulaid rose about Conchubur, then, and he sent messengers out to invite the people of the province to Findtan’s feast. Conchubur himself went, in the company of the Cráebrúad, to Dún Dá Bend and the house of Findtan son of Níall Níamglonnach. All the Ulaid assembled at the feast, so that there was not a man from the smallest hamlet who did not attend. Each king came with his queen, each lord with his lady, each musician with his proper mate, each hospitaller with his female companion; but they were attended to as well as if only a small company had arrived. Lovely, well-built, finely appointed sleeping chambers were prepared. Beautiful, lofty balconies were strewn with rushes and fresh rushes, and there were long houses for the hosts, broad, capacious cooking houses, and a broad-entranced, multicoloured hostel, wide and high and handsome, with four comers and four doors, where the chieftains of Ulaid, men and women, might assemble and drink and make merry. Choice portions of food and drink were served them, so that sustenance for one hundred men reached every nine guests. Conchubur ordered the drinking house by deeds and divisions and families, by grades and arts, and by gentle manners, all towards the fair holding of the feast. Servers came to serve, cupbearers to pour, doorkeepers to guard the doors. Musicians came to play and sing and amuse. Poems and tales and encomia were recited, and jewels and gems and treasures were distributed.
It was then that Cú Chulaind said to Lóeg son of Ríanga-bur: ‘Go outside, good Lóeg, and examine the stars, and determine if midnight has arrived, for you have often waited and watched for me at the boundaries of distant lands.’ Lóeg went out, then, and he watched and waited until it was midnight; then he returned to the house and said ‘Midnight now, O Cú of the feats.’ When Cú Chulaind heard that, he told Conchubur, for he was sitting in the hero’s seat beside the king. Conchubur rose with a bright, shining buffalo horn, and the Ulaid fell silent when they saw their king standing. They were so quiet, a needle falling from the ridge pole to the floor could have been heard. It was geiss for the Ulaid to speak before their king did, but it was also geiss for the king to speak before his druids did. Thus, the most excellent druid Cathub said ‘What is it, Conchubur, noble high king of Ulaid?’ ‘Cú Chulaind here thinks it time to go to his feast,’ Conchubur replied. ‘Does he wish to earn the collective blessing of the Ulaid by leaving the young and the weak and the women behind?’ asked Cathub. ‘I do,’ said Cú Chulaind, ‘provided that our champions and warriors and fighters and singers and poets and musicians come with us.’
The Ulaid rose as one, then, and they went out on to the hard-turfed green. ‘Good friend Lóeg,’ said Cú Chulaind, ‘set a leisurely pace for the chariot.’ Lóeg possessed the three virtues of charioteering: turning round, backing up straight and leaping over chasms. ‘Good friend Lóeg,’ Cú Chulaind then said, ‘put the goad of battle to the horses’, whereupon Cú Chulaind’s horses broke into a warlike white leap. The horses of the Ulaid followed their example, and this is the road they took: on to the green of Dún Dá Bend, past Cathir Osrin, Lí Thúaga and Dún Rígáin to Ollarba in Mag Machae, past Slíab Fúait and Áth na Forare to Port Nóth Con Culaind, past Mag Muirthemni and Crích Saithni, across Dubad, across the rush of the Bóand and into Mag mBreg and Mide, into Senmag Léna in Mucceda, into Cláethar Cell, across the Brosnas of Bladma, with Berna Mera ingine Trega (today called Bern