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By Root 641 0

that, the host outside the house sent up a shout, and the Ulaid fell silent. Bricriu said ‘Ulaid, what is this great heat that burns our feet? A whisper is clearer to me than a shout is to anyone else: it seems to me that we are being burned from above and below and that the house is locked.’ ‘This is how we will find out,’ said Triscatail Trénfer, and he rose and kicked at the iron door, but it neither creaked nor groaned nor yielded. ‘Not good the feast you have prepared for the Ulaid, Cú Chulaind,’ said Bricriu, for you have led us into the lair of the enemy.’ ‘Not so, Bricriu,’ said Cú Chulaind, ‘for I will perform a feat with my Crúadin that will enable the Ulaid to leave.’1 Cú Chulaind thrust his sword up to the hilt into the iron house and the two wooden houses. ‘There is an iron house here,’ he said, ‘between two houses of wood.’ ‘The worst of all tricks that,’ said Bricriu.

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… should visit them, my club will slay them.’ ‘Let me go,’ said Triscoth, ‘for anyone that I gaze upon with my wrathful look will die.’ ‘Let me go,’ aid Réordae Drúth. ‘Let me,’ said Nía Natrebuin Chró. ‘Let me,’ said Dóeltenga. ‘One of us will go,’ said Dub and Rodub. Everyone rose against his fellow, then, but Senchae said ‘Do not quarrel over this. The man the Ulaid choose should go, even if he is not the best warrior here.’ ‘Which of us is that?’ asked the Ulaid. ‘Cú Chulaind should go, even though he is not the best warrior here,’ said Senchae.

They rose and went to the courtyard, then, and Cú Chulaind led them. ‘Is this sprite the best warrior of the Ulaid?’ Findtan asked. With that, Cú Chulaind leapt up to the top of the courtyard, and he leapt valorously upon the front bridge so that the weapons in the fort all fell from their racks. The Ulaid were then taken into a house of oak with a vaulted roof and a door of yew three feet thick and two iron hooks and an iron bolt. This house was strewn with guilts and coverlets. Cromm Deróil brought their weapons and bade them sit down, and Cú Chulaind’s weapons hung overhead.

‘Heat water so that they may wash,’ said Ailill, and food and beer were brought to the Ulaid until they were intoxicated. Cromm Deróil visited them once more to see if there was anything else they might like. And when they were intoxicated, Senchae called for attention, and they all listened. ‘Give now your blessing to the sovereign to whom you have come, for he has been munificent. No hand in a poor field here. He has provided an abundance of food and beer – no need to complain about the preparations.’ ‘That is true,’ said Dóeltenga. ‘I swear by what my people swear by, there will return to your land only what the birds might carry away in their claws – the men of Ériu and Albu will inhabit your land and take your women and goods and break the heads of your children against stones.’

During the cattle raid of Cúailnge, Fergus said this about Dóeltenga:

Away with Dubthach Dóeltenga,

drag him behind the host.

Never has he done any good;

he has slain young women.

He has done a hideous, shameful deed:

the slaying of Fíachu son of Conchubur.

Neither is he any the more illustrious

for the slaying of Mane son of Fedilmid

He does not contest the kingship of Ulaid,

this son of Lugaid son of Casrubae.

Those people whom he cannot kill

he incites against each other.

‘No lie that,’ said Dubthach Dóeltenga. ‘But note the strength of the house and how the door is closed. Do you not see that, though you might want to leave, you cannot? Shame on me if, outside, there is not some dispute about attacking us. Let him whom the Ulaid consider their best warrior obtain news for us.’

With that, Cú Chulaind rose and did the hero’s salmon leap upwards, so that he went from the ridge pole of the house to the ridge pole of another house; and he saw the host gathered below, forming a solid front for the attack. Ailill placed his back against the door to protect those inside, and his seven sons joined hands in the doorway; but the host broke into the middle of the courtyard.

Cú Chulaind returned to his people, then, and