'If I turned my face backwards, it seems to me the chariot would come through the back of my neck.'
'O fellow,' said he, 'too greatly do you praise Cuchulainn, for it is not a reward for praising he has given you'; and it is thus he was giving his description, and he said:
'The help is timely,' etc.
It is not long afterwards that they met in the middle of the ford, and Fer Diad said to Cuchulainn:
'Whence come you, O Cua?' said he (for [Note: An interpolation.] cua was the name of squinting in old Gaelic; and there were seven pupils in Cuchulainn's royal eye, and two of these pupils were squinting, and the ugliness of it is no greater than its beauty on him; and if there had been a greater blemish on Cuchulainn, it is that with which he reproached him; and he was proclaiming it); and he made a song, and Cuchulainn answered:
'Whence art thou come, O Hound,' etc.
Then Cuchulainn said to his charioteer that he was to taunt him when he was overcome, and that he was to praise him when he was victorious, in the combat against Fer Diad. Then the charioteer said to him:
'The man goes over thee as the tail over a cat; he washes thee as foam is washed in water, he squeezes (?) thee as a loving mother her son.'
Then they took to the ford-play. Scathach's —— (?)came to them both. Fer Diad and Cuchulainn performed marvellous feats. Cuchulainn went and leapt into Fer Diad's shield; Fer Diad hurled him from him thrice into the ford; so that the charioteer taunted him again —— and he swelled like breath in a bag.
His size increased till he was greater than Fer Diad.