Part 5

"Out started Conall, not weak of hand, To get news of the noble's son. Bitter and hard was the way of it; Conall was tied by Connlaoch."

"'Bring word from us to Hound's head,' Said the King in fierce sullen tones, To Dundalk sunny and bright, To the Hound, Dog's jaw."

Then Cuchulain (thus described by versions of the nickname won when he broke the jaws of Culann's hound) made answer:--

"Hard for us is hearing of the captivity Of the man whose plight is told; And hard it is to try the venom of blades With the warrior that bound Conall."

But the messenger pleads:--

"Do not think but to go to the rescue Of the destroying keen dangerous warrior, Of the hand that had no fear for any, To loose him, and he fettered."

Then (as Miss Brooke in the majestic manner of the eighteenth century puts it):--

"Then with firm step and dauntless air, Cucullin went and thus the foe addrest, Let me, O valiant knight (he cried), Thy courtesy request, To me thy purpose and thy name confide."

And so on through a sonorous description of dialogue and fight till:--

"At length Cucullin's kindling soul arose, Indignant shame recruited fury lends; With fatal aim his glittering lance he throws, And low on earth the dying youth extends."

Or, as I translate almost literally from James Kelly's version, which is considerably briefer than the text which Miss Brooke has so volubly expanded:--

"Out set the Hound of the keen, smooth blade To see the work that Conall made, Till he pierced with a bitter blow, That hero youth his hardy foe."

That is all we are told of the fighting; the ballad passes straight to a terse dramatic dialogue, which Cuchulain opens:--

"Champion, tell your story, For I see your wounds are heavy; 'Twill be short ere they raise your cairn, So hide your testament no longer."

"That's what he said to the son," said James Kelly, finishing the verse, and beginning afresh,

"Let me fall on my face, For methinks 'tis you are my father, And for fear lest men of Eire should see Me retreating from your fierce grapple."

"Then," said James, "the son spoke for to tell him the reason he couldn't spake at the first":--

"I took pledges to my mother Not to give my story to any single man, If I would give it to any under the sun, It is to your bright body I would tell it."

("Complimenting him, like," said James.) Then he recited the stanza which tells by implication how in the long duel Cuchulain was at last driven to use the irresistible stroke of Sgathach's teaching:--

"I lay my curse on my mother, That she put me under pledge; But if it were not for the feat of magic I had not been got for nothing."

(It is a fine phrase surely, "You had paid dear in blood before you mastered me.")

Cuchulain answers groaning, with a wail for the lineage that is cut off:

"I lay my curse on your mother, For she destroyed a multitude of young ones; And because the treachery that was in her Left your smooth flesh reddened."

Then comes, with the boy's dying word, the revelation of the most tragic moment in the fight.

"Cuchulain, beloved father, Is it not a wonder you did not know me When I cast my spear crooked and feebly Against your bush of blades."

Where will you find a finer stroke of invention? The boy, tongue-tied by his pledge, knows his father and feels his defence failing against the terrible onset; he would not, if he could, be the victor, but he thinks of a way within the honour of his bond which may awaken knowledge of him; and he casts his javelin with a clumsiness not to be looked for in the champion "that tied Conall." It is useless, the battle madness is in Cuchulain, he thinks only of conquest, an end to the supple, quick parrying, and he throws the gaebulg, a spear of dragon's bones bristling with points (his "bush of blades"), with the magic cast that there is no meeting. And now there is nothing left to him but the lamentation,

"Och, och! Great is my madness! I lifting here my young lad! My son's head in my one hand, His arms and his raiment on the other.

"I, the father that slew his son, May I never throw spear nor noble javelin; The hand that slew its son, May it win torture and sharp wounding.