'A great pity to slander Cuchulainn in his absence! For do you remember how when you gave battle to German Garbglas above the edge-borders of the Tyrrhene Sea, you left your sword with the hosts, and it was Cuchulainn who killed a hundred warriors in reaching it, and he brought it to you; and do you remember where we were that night?' said the lad.
'I do not know it,' said Fer Diad.
'At the house of Scathach's steward,' said the lad, 'and you went —— and haughtily before us into the house first. The churl gave you a blow with the three-pointed flesh-hook in the small of your back, so that it threw you out over the door like a shot. Cuchulainn came into the house and gave the churl a blow with his sword, so that it made two pieces of him. It was I who was steward for you while you were in that place. If only for that day, you should not say that you are a better warrior than Cuchulainn.'
'What you have done is wrong,' said Fer Diad, 'for I would not have come to seek the combat if you had said it to me at first. Why do you not pull the cushions [Note: LL fortchai. YBL has feirtsi, 'shafts.'] of the chariot under my side and my skin-cover under my head, so that I might sleep now?'
'Alas!' said the lad, 'it is the sleep of a fey man before deer and hounds here.'
'What, O lad, are you not fit to keep watch and ward for me?'
'I am fit,' said the lad; 'unless men come in clouds or in mist to seek you, they will not come at all from east or west to seek you without warning and observation.'
The cushions [Note: LL fortchai. YBL has feirtsi, 'shafts.'] of his chariot were pulled under his side and the skin under his head. And yet he could not sleep a little.
As to Cuchulainn it is set forth:
'Good, O my friend, O Loeg, take the horses and yoke the chariot; if Fer Diad is waiting for us, he is thinking it long.'