Part 9 (2/2)

Then Labraid bade welcome to Laeg, and he said to him: ”Welcome, O Laeg! for the sake of the lady with whom thou comest, and for the sake of him from whom thou hast come. Do thou now go to thine own land, O Laeg!” said Labraid, ”and Liban shall accompany thee.”

Then Laeg returned to Emain, and he gave news of what he had seen to Cuchulain, and to all others beside; and Cuchulain rose up, and he pa.s.sed his hand over his face, and he greeted Laeg brightly, and his mind was strengthened within him for the news that the lad had brought him.

[At this point occurs the break in the story indicated in the preface, and the description of the Bull-Feast at which Lugaid Red-Stripes is elected king over all Ireland; also the exhortation that Cuchulain, supposed to be lying on his sick-bed, gives to Lugaid as to the duties of a king. After this insertion, which has no real connection with the story, the story itself proceeds, but from another point, for the thread is taken up at the place where Cuchulain has indeed awaked from his trance, but is still on his sick-bed; the message of Angus appears to have been given, but Cuchulain does not seem to have met Liban for the second time, nor to have sent Laeg to inquire. Ethne has disappeared as an actor from the scene; her place is taken by Emer, Cuchulain's real wife; and the whole style of the romance so alters for the better that, even if it were not for the want of agreement of the two versions, we could see that we have here two tales founded upon the same legend but by two different hands, the end of the first and the beginning of the second alike missing, and the gap filled in by the story of the election of Lugaid.

Now as to Cuchulain it has to be related thus: He called upon Laeg to come to him; and ”Do thou go, O Laeg!” said Cuchulain, ”to the place where Emer is; and say to her that women of the fairies have come upon me, and that they have destroyed my strength; and say also to her that it goeth better with me from hour to hour, and bid her to come and seek me;” and the young man Laeg then spoke these words in order to hearten the mind of Cuchulain:

It fits not heroes lying On sick-bed in a sickly sleep to dream: Witches before thee flying Of Trogach's fiery Plain the dwellers seem: They have beat down thy strength, Made thee captive at length, And in womanish folly away have they driven thee far.

Arise! no more be sickly!

Shake off the weakness by those fairies sent: For from thee parteth quickly Thy strength that for the chariot-chiefs was meant: Thou crouchest, like a youth!

Art thou subdued, in truth?

Have they shaken thy prowess and deeds that were meet for the war

Yet Labra's power hath sent his message plain: Rise, thou that crouchest: and be great again.

And Laeg, after that heartening, departed; and he went on until he came to the place where Emer was; and he told her of the state of Cuchulain: ”Ill hath it been what thou hast done, O youth!” she said; ”for although thou art known as one who dost wander in the lands where the fairies dwell; yet no virtue of healing hast thou found there and brought for the cure of thy lord. Shame upon the men of Ulster!” she said, ”for they have not sought to do a great deed, and to heal him.

Yet, had Conor thus been fettered; had it been Fergus who had lost his sleep, had it been Conall the Victorious to whom wounds had been dealt, Cuchulain would have saved them.” And she then sang a song, and in this fas.h.i.+on she sang it:

Laeg! who oft the fairy hill[FN#31]

Searchest, slack I find thee still; Lovely Dechtire's son shouldst thou By thy zeal have healed ere now.

Ulster, though for bounties famed, Foster-sire and friends are shamed: None hath deemed Cuchulain worth One full journey through the earth.

Yet, if sleep on Fergus fell, Such that magic arts dispel, Dechtire's son had restless rode Till a Druid raised that load.

Aye, had Conall come from wars, Weak with wounds and recent scars; All the world our Hound would scour Till he found a healing power.

Were it Laegaire[FN#32] war had pressed, Erin's meads would know no rest, Till, made whole from wounds, he won Mach's grandchild, Conna's son.

Had thus crafty Celthar slept, Long, like him, by sickness kept; Through the elf-mounds, night and day, Would our Hound, to heal him, stray.

Furbaid, girt by heroes strong, Were it he had lain thus long; Ah! our Hound would rescue bear Though through solid earth he fare.

[FN#31] The metre of these verses is that of the Irish.

[FN#32] p.r.o.nounced Leary.

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