on him.

Their horses were in the same enclosure, and their charioteers at the same fire."

When the fight reaches its third day the worn and wounded Ferdiad, by his irritable temper, and testy, taunting words, shows that he is getting the worst of it. On their meeting, Cuchullain notices the sad change that has come over Ferdiad's darkened countenance: "It is not from fear or terror of thee that I am so disdained," said Ferdiad, "for there is not in Eirinn this day a champion that I could not subdue." And again he says vauntingly of himself: "Of none more valiant have I heard, or to this day did I ever meet."

Cuchullain replies to his boasting:

"Not one has yet put food unto his lips,
Nor has there yet been born,

Of king or queen, without disgrace,
One for whom I would do thee evil."

He

Cuchullain's persistent tenderness backs up the tide of Ferdiad's bad humour, and gives outlet for a time to his better nature. replies:

"O Cuchullain of the battle triumph,

It was not thee, but Medb that betrayed me.
Take thou victory and fame,

Thine is not the fault."

Cuchullain's reply:

"My faithful heart is a clot of blood,
From me my soul hath nearly parted,
I have not strength for feats of valour
To fight with thee, O Ferdiad."

But the weariness of the long, long struggle had so sorely told upon both of them that there is bitterness in their fight to-day as well as fierceness, till the hour of even's close.

"Let us desist now from this, O Cuchullain,' said Ferdiad. "Let us desist, now, indeed, if the time hath come,' said Cuchullain. They ceased.

"They cast their arms from them into the hands of their charioteers. Though it was the meeting-pleasant, happy, griefless, and spirited of two (men), it was the separation-mournful, sorrowful, dispirited, of two (men) that night.

"Their horses were not in the same enclosure that night. Their charioteers were not at the same fire"

As will have been noticed from the references, the Red Branch Knights and other famous knights of their day used chariots and frequently fought from them.

Cuchullain's charioteer, Laeg, is, too, clothed in immortality, because of the frequent references to him in The Táin. Laeg's usefulness to Cuchullain did not end with his superb ability as a charioteer: he was worth gold, for abusing and taunting his master into hotter ire and fiercer effort, whenever in the course of a fight his master relaxed, or weakened, or was being worsted.

For instance, on one day of the fight, Ferdiad who evidently knew a little psychology and profited by his knowledge, took occasion, before the fight began, and within sight of Cuchullain, to practise himself in some of his most startling sword feats. The display had its desired effect.

"I perceive, my friend, Laeg" (said Cuchullain), "the noble, varied, wonderful, numerous feats which Ferdiad displays on high, and all these feats will be tried on me in succession, and therefore it is that if it be I that shall begin to yield this day, thou art to excite, reproach, and speak evil to me, so that the ire of my rage and anger shall grow the more on me. If it be I that prevail, then shalt thou laud me, and praise me, and speak good words to me, that my courage may be the greater."

"It shall so be done, indeed, O Cuchullain," said Laeg.

And it was so done, indeed. When Cuchullain was getting the worst of it that day, the fourth and last, the faithful Laeg came to his rescue.

"Alas, indeed," said Laeg, "the warrior who is against thee casts thee away as a lewd woman would cast her child. He throws thee as foam is thrown by the river. He grinds thee as a mill would grind fresh malt. He pierces thee as the felling axe would pierce the oak. He binds thee as the woodbine binds the tree. He darts on thee as the hawk darts on small birds, so that henceforth thou hast not call, or right, or claim to valour or bravery to the end of time and life, thou little fairy phantom."

Laeg's abusive efforts are fruitful. Cuchullain rallies to the fight more fiercely, more terribly, more overpoweringly than ever, and at length gives to his friend, Ferdiad, the coup de grace.

""That is enough now, indeed,' said Ferdiad. 'I fall of that. But I may say, indeed, that I am sickly now after thee. And it did not behove thee that I should fall by thy hand.'

"Cuchullain ran toward him after that and clasped his two arms about him, and lifted him with his arms and his armour.

"Cuchullain laid Ferdiad down then; and a trance, and a faint, and a weakness fell on Cuchullain over Ferdiad there.'

Laeg called upon Cuchullain to arise, because the Connaught host would be so frenzied by the fall of their champion that forgetting the ethics of combat, they would throw themselves upon Cuchullain.

"What availeth me to arise, O servant,' said Cuchullain, ‘after him that hath fallen by me.'

Cuchullain deplores what he calls the treachery and abandonment played upon Ferdiad by the men of Connaught, in pitting Ferdiad against himself who is invincible. And he sang this lay:

"O Ferdiad, treachery has defeated thee.
Unhappy was thy last fate,

Thou to die, I to remain,

Sorrowful for ever is our perpetual separation.

"When we were far away, in Alba

With Scathach, the gifted Buanand,

We then resolved that till the end of time
We should not be hostile to each other.

"Dear to me was thy beautiful ruddiness,
Dear to me thy comely, perfect form,
Dear to me thy grey clear-blue eye,
Dear to me thy wisdom and thy eloquence.

"There hath not come to the body-cutting combat,
There hath not been aroused by manly exertion,
There hath not held up shield on the field of spears,
Thine equal, O ruddy son of Daman.

"Never until now have I met,

Since I slew Aife's only son,

Thy like in deeds of battle

Never have I found, O Ferdiad.

"There has not come to the gory battle.

Nor has Banba nursed upon her breast,
There has not come off sea, or land,
Of the sons of Kings, one of better fame."

After long wars and doughty deeds done on both sides, Medb gets the coveted brown bull, and fights her way back to Connaught with the rare prize. Yet, does he make Connaught, in its very short possession of him, sorely rue his carrying away.

As the account of Cuchullain's fighting gives us an idea of the remarkable chivalry of the fighters in ancient Eire-at least the chivalry of that very ancient time in which the poet wrote, if not of that time in which the hero fought-so the account of his courtship gives us some impression of the quality and character of the women of Eire in the faraway time, and the loftiness of men's ideals regarding them.

When Cuchullain, chariot-driven by his faithful Laeg, went upon his famous courting journey, to woo the Lady Emer, the beautiful daughter of Forgaill the Brugaid (Hospitaller) of Lusc, the spectacle was impressive to all the wondering ones who beheld it. When he arrived at her father's Bruighean, the honoured Lady, modest as she was beautiful, was on the Faithe (lawn) sewing, and teaching sewing among a group of maidens, daughters of the neighbouring farmers. The hero was not only smitten by her beauty and her modesty, but captivated by her womanly accomplishments.

For Emer was possessed of the six womanly gifts, namely, "the gift of beauty of person, the gift of voice, the gift of music, the gift of embroidering and needlework, the gift of wisdom, and the gift of virtuous chastity."

When, to her maidenly confusion, she learns the purpose of Cuchullain's visit, she, with magnificent modesty, and as noblehearted generosity, urges upon her wooer the prior and superior claims of her elder sister, thereby involuntarily making herself doubly desirable. Beyond all doubt she is and must be the one woman in all the Island suited to mate with and make happy, Eire's champion most renowned. And eventually she did make him happy.

Cuchullain died as a hero should-on a battlefield, with his back to a rock and his face to the foe, buckler on arm, and spear in hand.

He died standing, and in that defiant attitude (supported by the rock) was many days dead ere the enemy dared venture near enough to reassure themselves of his exit-which they only did when they saw the vultures alight upon him, and, undisturbed, peck at his flesh.

CHAPTER VIII

TWO FIRST CENTURY LEADERS

THE first century of the Christian Era saw two remarkable movements in Ireland-wherein the whole national structure was forcibly turned upside down by one remarkable man-and then as forcibly re-adjusted by another man even still more remarkable.

These two great leaders were the usurper, Carbri Cinn Cait, and the monarch, Tuathal the Desired.

It was early in the first century that occurred the great Aithech Tuatha revolution. The Aithech Tuatha meant the rent-paying peoples. They were probably the Firbolgs and other conquered peoples who had been in bondage and serfdom to the Milesians for hundreds of years.

Among these serfs arose an able leader, chief of one of their tribes in Leinster, named Carbri Cinn Cait-which some translate "cat-head," a term of derision applied to him by the Milesians— but which Sullivan (introduction to O'Curry) more reasonably interprets "head of the unfree ones."

Amongst these people who by the Milesian law were excluded from every profession, art and craft that carried honour, and ground down by rents and compulsory toil, this remarkable man succeeded in spreading a great, silent conspiracy. When they were ripened for revolution, the Aithech Tuatha invited all the royalties and all the nobility of the Milesians to a great feast, on a plain in the County Galway, which is now called Magh Cro, or the bloody plain, and there treacherously falling upon their guests, slew them. After which, the rent-payers, for five years, governed the land with Cinn Cait as their monarch. The Four Masters say of Carbri's reign, "Evil was the state of Ireland: fruitless her corn, for there used to be only one grain on the stock; fruitless her rivers; milkless her cattle; plentiless her fruit, for there used to be but one acorn on the stalk."

On the death of Carbri, his son Morann, who had become noted as a lawgiver and who was surnamed "the Just," refused the crown, and said that it should be given to the rightful one. Now Baine,