So Cuchulainn himself went and stayed a month in the Celtic Paradise with Fand, the fairest woman of the Sídhe. Returning to the land of mortals, he made a tryst with the goddess to meet him again in his own country by the yew-tree at the head of Baile’s strand.
But Emer came to hear of it, and went to the meeting-place herself, with fifty of her maidens, each armed with a knife to kill her rival. There she found Cuchulainn, Laeg, and Fand.
“What has led you, Cuchulainn,” said Emer, “to shame me before the women of Erin and all honourable people? I came under your shelter, trusting in your faithfulness, and now you seek a cause of quarrel with me.”
But Cuchulainn, hero-like, could not understand why his wife should not be content to take her turn with this other woman—surely no unworthy rival, for she was beautiful, and came of the lofty race of gods. We see Emer yield at last, with queenly pathos.
“I will not refuse this woman to you, if you long for her,” she said, “for I know that everything that is new seems fair, and everything that is common seems bitter, and everything we have not seems desirable to us, and everything we have we think little of. And yet, Cuchulainn, I was once pleasing to you, and I would wish to be so again.”
Her grief touched him. “By my word,” he said, “you are pleasing to me, and will be as long as I live.”
“Then let me be given up,” said Fand. “It is better that I should be,” replied Emer. “No,” said Fand; “it is I who must be given up in the end.
“It is I who will go, though I go with great sorrow. I would rather stay with Cuchulainn than live in the sunny home of the gods.
“O Emer, he is yours, and you are worthy of him! What my hand cannot have, my heart may yet wish well to.
“A sorrowful thing it is to love without return. Better to renounce than not to receive a love equal to one’s own.