Chapter III

§ 17. Bricriu, however, and his queen were in their soller. From hiscouch the condition of the palace was observable to him, and how thingswere going on withal. He exercised his mind as to how he shouldcontrive to get the women to quarrel as he had likewise incited the men.When Bricriu had done examining his mind, it just chanced as he couldhave wished that Fedelm-of-the-fresh-heart came from the palace withfifty women in her train, in mood hilarious. Bricriu observed her comingpast him. “Hail to thee to-night, wife of Loigaire the Triumphant!Fedelm-of-the-fresh-heart is no nickname for thee with respect to thineexcellency of form and of wisdom and of lineage. Conchobar, king of aprovince of Erin, is thy father, Loigaire the Triumphant thy husband; Ishould deem it but small honour to thee that any of the Ulster womenshould take precedence of thee in entering the banqueting hall; only atthy heel should all Ultonian women tread. If thou comest first into thehall to-night, the sovranty of queenship shalt thou enjoy for ever over allthe ladies of Ulster.” Fedelm anon takes a leap over three ridges fromthe hall.§ 18. Thereafter came Lendabair, daughter of Eogan mac Derthacht,wife of Conall the Victorious. Bricriu addressed her and spake: “Hail tothee, Lendabair; for thee that is no nickname; thou art the darling andpet of all mankind on account of thy splendour and of thy lustre. As faras thy spouse hath surpassed all the heroes of mankind in valour and incomeliness, so far hast thou distinguished thyself above the women ofUlster.” Though great the deceit he applied in the case of Fedelm, heapplied twice as much in the case of Lendabair.§ 19. Emer came out anon with half-a-hundred women [in her train].“Greeting and hail to thee, Emer, daughter of Forgall Manach (F. thetricky or shifty), wife of the best wight in Erin! Emer of the Fair Hair isfor thee no nickname; Erin’s kings and princes contend for thee in jealousrivalry. As the sun surpasseth the stars of heaven, so far dost thououtshine the women of the whole world in form and shape and lineage,in youth and beauty and elegance, in good name and wisdom andaddress.” Though great his deceit in the case of the other ladies, in thatof Emer he applied thrice as much.§ 20. The three companies thereupon went out till they met at onespot, to wit, three ridges from the hall. None of them wot that Bricriuhad incited them one against another. To the hall they straightwayreturn. Even and graceful and easy their carriage on the first ridge;scarcely did one of them raise a foot before the other. But on the ridgefollowing, their steps were shorter and quicker. Moreover, on the ridgenext the house it was with difficulty each kept up with the other; so theyraised their robes to the rounds of their limbs to compete in the attemptto go first into the hall. For what Bricriu said to each of them regardingthe other was, that whosoever should first enter should be queen of thewhole province. The amount of confusion then occasioned by thecompetition to enter the hall first was as it were the noise of fifty chariotsapproaching. The whole palace shook and the warriors sprang to theirarms and made essay to kill one another within.§ 21. “Stay,” quoth Sencha, “they are not enemies who have come; itis Bricriu who has set a-quarrelling the women who have gone out. Bythe god of my tribe, unless the hall be closed against them our dead willoutnumber our living.” Thereupon the doorkeepers close the doors.Emer, daughter of Forgall the Wily, wife of Cuchulainn, by reason of herspeed, outran the others and put her back against the door, andstraightway called upon the doorkeepers ere the other ladies [came], sothat the men within got up, each of them to open for his own wife thatshe might be the first to come within. “Bad [look-out] to-night,” quothConchobar. He struck the silver sceptre that was in his hand against thebronze pillar of the couch and the folks gat seated. “Stay,” quoth Sencha,“’tis not a warfare of arms that shall be held here; it will be a warfare ofwords.” Each woman went out under the protection of her spouse, andthen followed the Ulster women’s war-of-words.The Women’s War of Words.§ 22. Fedelm of the fresh heart, wife of Loigaire the Triumphant,made speech:—“Born of a mother in freedom, one in rank and in race mine elders;Sprung from loins that are royal, in the beauty of peerless breeding;Lovely in form I am reckoned, and noted for figure and comely,Fostered in warrior virtues, in the sphere of goodly demeanour:Loigaire’s hand, all-noble, what triumphs it scoreth for Ulster!Ulster’s marches from foemen, ever equal in strength, ever hostile—All by himself were they holden: from wounds a defence andprotection,Loigair(e), more famous than heroes, in number of victories greater,Why should not Fedelm the lovely step first in the mead-hall sofestive,Shapelier than all other women, triumphant and jealous of conquest?”§ 23. Thereupon spake Lendabair, daughter of Eogan mac Derthacht,wife of Conall Cernach, son of Amorgen:—“Mine is a mien too of beauty, of reason, with grace of deportment,Finely and fairly stepping in front of the women of Ulster,See me step to the mead-hall, my spouse and my darling the Conall.Big is his shield and triumphant, majestic his gait and commanding,Up to the spears of the conflict, in front of them all as he strideth:Back to me comes he proudly, with heads in his hands as his trophies;Swords he getteth together for the clashing in conflict of Ulster;Guardian of every ford-way, he destroyeth them too at his pleasure;Fords he defendeth from foemen, the wrongful attack he avengeth,Holdeth himself as a hero upon whom shall be raisèd a tombstone:Son of Amorgen noble, his is the courage that speaketh;Many the arts of the Conall and therefore he leadeth the heroes.Lendabair, great is her glory, in every one’s eye is her splendour;Why not the first when she enters the hall of a king so queenly?”§ 24. Emer, daughter of Forgall the tricky, wife of Cuchulainn, madespeech:—I am the standard of women, in figure, in grace and in wisdom;None mine equal in beauty, for I am a picture of graces.Mien full noble and goodly, mine eye like a jewel that flasheth;Figure, or grace, or beauty, or wisdom, or bounty, or chasteness,Joy of sense, or of loving, unto mine has never been likened.Sighing for me is Ultonia,—a nut of the heart I am clearly—(Now were I welcoming wanton, no husband were yoursto-morrow.) My spouse is the hound of Culann, and not a hound that is feeble;Blood from his spear is spurting, with life-blood his sword isdripping;Finely his body is fashioned, but his skin is gaping with gashes,Wounds on his thigh there are many, but nobly his eye lookswestward; [3]Bright is the dome he supporteth and ever red are his eyen,Red are the frames of his chariot, and red are also the cushions;Fighting from ears of horses and over the breaths of men-folk,Springing in air like a salmon when he springeth the spring of theheroes, Rarest of feats he performeth, the leap that is birdlike he leapeth,Bounding o’er pools of water, he performeth the feat cless nonbair; [4]Battles of bloody battalions, the world’s proud armies he heweth,Beating down kings in their fury, mowing the hosts of the foemen.Others to crôn [5] I liken, shamming[6] the travail of women,Ulster’s precious heroes compared with my spouse Cuchulainn.He unto blood may be likened, to blood that is clear and noble,They to the scum and the garbage, as crôn their value I reckon;Shackled and shaped like cattle, [7]as kine and oxen and horses,§ 25. Thus did the men in the hall behave on having heard thelaudatory addresses of the women—to wit, Loigaire and Conall; eachsprang into his hero’s light, and broke a stave of the palace at a like levelwith themselves, so that in this way their wives came in. Moreover,Cuchulainn upheaved the palace just over against his bed, till the stars ofheaven were to be seen from underneath the wattle. By that openingcame his own wife with half a hundred women attendants in her train, asalso half a hundred in waiting upon the other twain. Other ladies couldnot be compared with Emer, while no one at all was to be likened untoher spouse. Thereupon Cuchulainn let the palace down till seven feet ofthe wattle entered the ground; the whole dún shook, and Bricriu’sbalcony was laid flat to the earth, in such wise that Bricriu and his queentoppled down till they fell into the fosse in the middle of the courtyardamong the dogs. “Woe is me,” cried Bricriu, as he hastily got up,“enemies have come into the palace.” He took a turn round andperceived how it was lop-sided and inclined entirely to one side. Hewrung his hands, then betook himself within, so bespattered that none ofthe Ulster folk could recognise him. From his manner of speech only didthey do so.§ 26. Then from off the floor of the house Bricriu made speech: “Alas!that I have prepared you a feast, O Ultonians. My house is more to methan all my other possessions. Upon you, therefore, it is geis to drink, orto eat, or to sleep till ye leave my house as ye found it on your arrival.”Thereupon all the valiant Ulstermen went out of the house and tried totug it, but they did not raise it so much as that even the wind could passbetween it and the earth. That matter was a difficulty for the Ulstermen.“I have no suggestion for you,” quoth Sencha, “save that ye entreat ofhim who has left it lop-sided to set it upright.”§ 27. Whereupon the men of Ulster told Cuchulainn to restore thehouse to its upright position, and Bricriu made speech withal: “Oh kingof the heroes of Erin, if thou set it not straight and erect, none in theworld can do so.” All the Ulstermen then entreated of Cuchulainn tosolve the matter. That the banqueters might not be lacking for food orfor ale, Cuchulainn got up and anon tried to lift the house at a tug andfailed. A distortion thereupon gat hold of him, whilst a drop of bloodwas at the root of each single hair, and he absorbed his hair into hishead, so that, looked on from above, his dark-yellow curls seemed as ifthey had been shorn by scissors, and taking upon him the motion of amillstone he strained himself till a warrior’s foot could find roombetween each pair of ribs.§ 28. His natural resources and fiery vigour returned to him, and hethen heaved the house aloft and set it so that it reached its former level.Thereafter the consumption of the feast was pleasant to them, with thekings and the chieftains on the one side round about Conchobar theillustrious, the noble, high-king of Ulster. Moreover, the queens were onthe other side: Mugain Aitencaetrech, daughter of Eochaid Fedlech, wifeof Conchobar mac Nessa, Fedelm of the nine-shapes, daughter ofConchobar,—nine “shapes” she could assume, and each shape morelovely than the other; also Fedelm of the Fair Hair, another daughter ofConchobar, wife of Loigaire the Triumphant; Findbec, daughter ofEochaid, wife of Cethirnd, son of Fintan; Brîg Brethach, wife of Celtchar,son of Uthichar; Findige, daughter of Eochaid, wife of Eogan macDurthacht; Findchaem, daughter of Cathbad, wife of Amargin of the IronJaw, and Derborcall (Devorgilla), wife of Lugad of the Red Stripes, sonof Tri Find Emna; Emer of the Fair Hair, daughter of Forcall Manach,wife of Cuchulainn, son of Sualdam; Lendabair, daughter of Eogan macDurthacht, wife of Conall the Victorious; Niab, daughter of Celtchar macUthechar, wife of Cormac Condlongus, son of Conchobar. It would beovermuch to recount and to declare who of noble dames besides