So for that night they rested, but early the next morning they arose and came forward to the ford of combat. "What weapons shall we use to-day, O Ferdia?" said Cuchulain. "Thine is the choice to-day," said Ferdia, "because I chose yesterday."

"Let us then take our broad-bladed heavy spears to-day, for more grave will be the fight between us from the thrusting of our massive spears, than from the shooting of our light casting weapons yesterday, and let our chariots be yoked and our horses harnessed, that we may fight to-day from our chariots." "Let us do so," said the other.

Then the two warriors took their great protecting shields in their hands, and their broad-bladed spears, and they continued to thrust at, to wound and pierce each other from the dim light of early morning till the close of day.

Great and gaping cuts and wounds were upon both of them before the evening-tide. Even their horses were exhausted, and the heroes themselves were fatigued and worn out and dispirited. At length Cuchulain said, "O Ferdia, let us now cease from this, for even our very horses are fatigued, and our charioteers are exhausted. We are not like the Fomors, the giants of the sea, who must be for ever combating against each other; let the clamour of battle now cease between us, and let us be friends once more."

And Ferdia said, "Let us be at peace, indeed, if the time has come."

Then they ceased fighting, and threw their arms into the hands of their charioteers, and they ran to each other, and each of them put his arms about the neck of the other, and gave him three loving kisses of old friendship.

Their horses were again in the same paddock that night, and their charioteers slept by the same fire; and beds of green rushes were made for the warriors, with pillows to ease their wounds; for their injuries that night were so terrible, that the men of healing and the physicians could do nothing for them except to try to stanch the blood that flowed from them with charms and incantation.

And of all the charms and healing salves that were applied to sooth Cuchulain, he bade them take the same to Ferdia, and of every sort of dainty food and of pleasant satisfying drink that Ferdia received, he sent a good half to Cuchulain.

That night they rested as well as they could for their wounds, but early in the morning they arose and repaired to the ford of combat. Cuchulain saw an evil look and a dark lowering brow upon the face of Ferdia that day. "Ill dost thou look to-day, O Ferdia," said Cuchulain. "Thy hair seems to have become darkened, or is it clots of blood I see? Thine eye is dimmed, and thy own bright face and form have gone from thee. A deep disgrace it is in thee to have come out to fight with thy fellow-pupil; not Finnabar's beauty, nor the praises of Meave or Ailill, nor all the wealth of the world, would have brought me out to fight with thee, my comrade and my friend. Turn now back from this fight to-day, for a fight to death it must be between us, and I have not the heart to fight against thee; my strength fails me when I think of the evil that will befall thee; turn back, turn back, O friend, for false are the promises of Finnabar and Meave."

"O Cuchulain, gentle Hound, O valiant man, O true champion, bid me not return till the fight be done. Ill would it become me to return to Ailill and to Meave until my task be done. It is not thou who dost work me ill, O Cu of gentle ways; take the victory and fame that are thine by right, for thou art not in fault. Meave it is who is my undoing; but for all that I shrink not from the contest. My honour, at least, will be avenged; no fear of death afflicts me. There is a fate that brings each one of us to the place of our final rest in death, a fate none may resist. Reproach me not, O gentle friend and comrade, but let us fight the combat out to-day, as becomes two valiant men and warriors."

"If it must be so, what weapons shall we use?"

"Let us to-day take to our heavy smiting swords; for sooner shall we attain the end of our conflict by hewing with our swords, than by the thrusting of our spears yesterday." "Let it be so," said Cuchulain. So all that day they hewed and hacked each other with their long, two-edged heavy swords, and at evening they were wounded and torn from head to foot, so that it was hard to see a whole place on either of them.

"Let us cease now, O Cuchulain," said Ferdia. "Let us cease, indeed, if the time be come," he said.

They threw their arms into the hands of their charioteers, and, though pleasant and cheerful had been the first meeting of those two, it was in sadness and misery that they parted that night.

That evening their horses were not placed in the same paddock, nor did their charioteers sleep beside the same fire, but the charioteer of Cuchulain slept with his master on the north of the ford, and the charioteer of Ferdia slept on the south side of the ford.

Next morning Ferdia went forth alone to the ford of battle, for he knew that on that day the combat would be decided; that then and in that place one of them or both of them would fall.

On that day both heroes put on their full fighting array, their kilts of striped silk next their skin, and a thick apron of brown leather above that to protect the lower part of the body. And they put on their crested battle-helmets, with jewels of rubies and carbuncles and crystals blazing in the front, gems that had been brought from the East to Ireland. And they took their huge shields which covered the whole body, with great bosses in the centre of each shield, and their swords in their right hands, and thus they came forward to the battle. And as they went they displayed the many noble, quick-changing feats that Scáth had taught them, and it was difficult to tell which of them exceeded the other in the performance of those skilful weapon-feats.

Thus they came to the ford. And Cuchulain said:

"What weapons shall we choose this day, O Ferdia?"

"Thine is the choice to-day," said he. Then Cuchulain said, "Let us then practise the Feat of the Ford."

"We will do so," said Ferdia; but though he said that, sorrowful was he in saying it, for he knew that no warrior ever escaped alive from Cuchulain when they practised the Feat of the Ford.

Terrible and mighty were the deeds that were done that day by those two heroes, the Champions of the West, the pillars of valour of the Gael. Quietly they used their weapons in the early morning, parrying and casting with skill and warily, and neither did great harm to the other; but about midday, their anger grew hot, and they drew nearer to each other, and Cuchulain sprang upon his adversary, and made as though he would cut off his head over the rim of his shield. But Ferdia gave the shield a stroke upward with his left knee, and cast Cuchulain from him like a little child, and he fell down on the brink of the ford. Now Cuchulain's charioteer, who was watching the combat from the bank, saw this, and he began to reproach Cuchulain as his master had bade him do, if he should give way in the fight.

"Ah, indeed," said Laeg, "this warrior can cast the Hound of Ulster from him as a woman tosses up her child; he flings thee up like the foam on a stream; he smites thee as the woodman's axe fells an oak; he darts on thee as a hungry hawk pounces on little birds. Henceforth thou hast no claim to be called brave or valorous as long as thy life shall last, thou little fairy phantom!"

When Cuchulain heard these scoffing words, up he sprang with the swiftness of the wind, with the fierceness of a dragon, and with the strength of a lion, and his countenance was changed, and he became mighty and terrible in appearance, towering like a giant or like a Fomor of the sea above Ferdia. A fearsome fight they made together, gripping and striking each other from middle day to fall of eve; and their charioteers and the men of Erin who stood by shivered as they watched the conflict. So close was the fight they made that their heads met above and their feet below, and their arms around the middle of their mighty shields. So close was the fight they made, that their shields were loosened at their centers, and the bosses that were on them started out. So close was the fight they made, that their spears and swords were bent and shivered in their hands. The fairy people of the glens and the wild demon folk of the winds, and the sprites of the valleys of the air, screamed from the rims of their shields and from the points of their spears and from the hafts of their swords. So closely were they locked together in that deadly strife, that the river was cast out of its bed, and it was dried up beneath them, so that a king or a queen might have made a couch in the middle of its course without a drop of water falling on them, though drops of blood might have fallen on them from the bodies of the two champions contending in the hollow of the stream. Such was the terror of the fight they made, that the horses of the Gaels broke away from their paddocks, bursting their bonds and rushing madly in their fright into the woods, and the women and young people and camp followers fled away southwards out of the camp.

Just at that time Ferdia caught Cuchulain in an unguarded moment, and he smote him with a stroke of his straight-edged sword, and buried it in his body, so that his blood streamed down to his girdle, and all the bottom of the ford became crimsoned with his blood. So rapid were the strokes of Ferdia, blow after blow, and cut after cut, that Cuchulain could abide it no longer. And he turned to Laeg, and asked him to give him the Gae Bolga. Now, when the Gae Bolga was laid upon the water, it would move forward of itself to seek its enemy, and no one could stand before its deadly dart. So when Ferdia heard Cu ask for the Gae Bolga, he made a downward stroke of his shield to protect his body. But when Cuchulain saw that, he flung his spear above the shield and it entered the hero's chest; and as he fell, the Gae Bolga struck him and entered his body from below. "It is all over now, I fall by that," said Ferdia. "But alas that I fall by thy hand. It is not right that I should die by thee, O Hound."

But Cuchulain ran towards him, and clasped him in his two arms, and carried him in his fighting array across the ford to the Northern side of the stream and laid him down there. And over Cuchulain himself there came a weakness and faintness when he saw Ferdia lying dying at his feet, and he heeded not the warnings of his charioteer telling him that the men of Erin were gathering across the ford to do battle with him and to avenge the death of their champion. For Cuchulain said, "What availeth me to arise, now that my friend is fallen by my hand? For when we were with Scáth, Mother of great gifts, we vowed to each other that for ever and for ever we should do no ill to each other. And now alas! by my hand hast thou fallen, my comrade, through the treachery of the men of Erin, who sent thee to thy fate. And oh! Ferdia, ruddy, well-built son of Daman, until the world's end will thy like not be found among the men of Erin; would that I had died instead of thee, for then I should not now be alive to mourn thy death. Brief and sorrowful will be my life after thee.

"Let me see, now, O Laeg, the brooch that was given to Ferdia by Meave; the brooch for which he lost his life, and did combat with his friend." Then Laeg loosened the brooch from the mantle of Ferdia, and Cuchulain took it in his hand and looked upon it, and tears such as strong warriors weep poured from his eyes, and he lamented over Ferdia, and over the brooch for which he had given his life.

"And now," said Cuchulain, "we will leave the ford, O Laeg; but every other fight that I have made till now when I came to fight and combat with Ferdia, has been but play and sport to me compared with this combat that we have made together, Ferdia and I." And as he moved away he sang this lay:—

Bards of the Gael and Gall. The translation is in the metre and style of the original.") ?>