"He smote his three enemy blows upon Conor's shield 'Eochain' so that the shield screamed thrice upon him, and the three leading waves of Erin answered it.
"'Who,' cries Fergus, 'holds his shield against me in this battle?'[22]
"'O Fergus,' cried Conor, 'one who is greater and younger and handsomer, and more perfect than thyself is here, and whose father and whose mother were better than thine; one who slew the three great candles of the valour of the Gaels, the three prosperous sons of Usnach, in spite of thy guarantee and thy protection, the man who banished thee out of thy own land and country, the man who made of it a dwelling-place for the deer and the roe and the foxes, the man who never left thee as much as the breadth of thy foot of territory in Ulster, the man who drove thee to the entertainment of women,[23] and the man who will drive thee back this day in the presence of the men of Erin, [I] Conor, son of Fachtna Fathach, High-king of Ulster, and son of the High-king of Ireland."
Despite this boasting he would certainly have been slain by his great opponent had not one of his sons clasped his arms in supplication around Fergus's knees and conjured him not to destroy Ulster, and Fergus, melted by these entreaties, consented to remain passive if Conor retired to the other wing of the battle, which he did.
In the meantime Mève had sent away the Dun Bull with fifty heifers round him and eight men, to drive him to her palace in Connacht, "so that whoever reached Cruachan alive, or did not reach it, the Dun Bull of Cuailgne should reach it as she had promised."
Cuchulain, who had joined the Ultonians, and whose arms had been taken from him, lest in his enfeebled condition he should injure himself by taking part in the fray, unable to bear any longer the look of the battle, the shouting and the war-cries, rushes into the fight with part of his broken chariot for a weapon, and performs mighty feats. At length he ceases to slay at Mève's solicitation, whose life he spares, and the shattered remnants of her host begin slowly to withdraw across the ford. "Oilioll draws his shield of protection behind the host [i.e., covers the rear], Mève draws her shield of protection in her own place, Fergus draws his shield of protection, the Mainès draw their shield of protection, the sons of Magach draw their shield of protection behind the host; and in this manner they brought with them the men of Erin across the great ford westward," nor did they cease their retreat till Mève and her army found themselves at Cruachan in Connacht, whence they had set out.
The long saga ends with a decided anti-climax, the encounter between the Dun Bull, whom Mève had carried off, and her own bull, the White-Horned.[24] These bulls, according to one of the most curious of the short auxiliary sagas to the Táin, were really rebirths of two men who hated each other during life, and now fought it out in the form of bulls. When they caught sight of each other they pawed the earth so furiously that they sent the sods flying across their shoulders, "they rolled the eyes in their heads like flames of fiery lightning." All day long they charged, and thrust, and struggled, and bellowed, while the men of Ireland looked on, "but when the night came they could do nothing but be listening to the noises and the sounds." The two bulls traversed much of Ireland during that night.[25] Next morning the people of Cruachan saw the Dun Bull coming with the remains of his enemy upon his horns. The men of Connacht would have intercepted him, but Fergus, ever generous, swore with a great oath that all that had been done in the pursuit of the Táin was nothing to what he would do if the Dun Bull were not allowed to return to his own country with his kill. The Dun made straight for his home at Cuailgne in Louth. He drank of the Shannon at Athlone, and as he stooped one of his enemy's loins fell off from his horn, hence Ath-luain, the Ford of the Loin. After that he rushed, mad with passion, towards his home, killing every one who crossed his way. Arrived there, he set his back to a hill and uttered wild bellowings of triumph, until "his heart in his breast burst, and he poured his heart in black mountains of brown blood out across his mouth."
Thus far the Táin Bo Chuailgne.
[1] Pronounced "Taun Bo Hooiln'ya."
[2] Yet in the Brehon law a woman is valued at only the seventh part of a man, three cows instead of twenty-one; but if she is young and handsome she has her additional "honour price."
[3] "Findruini." See Book of Leinster, f. 42, for the old text of this, but I am here using a modern copy, not trusting myself to translate accurately from the old text.