Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER V: TALES OF THE ULTONIAN CYCLE 185giant Firbolg flung him off. Thrice Cuchulain leaped high intothe air, seeking to strike Ferdia over his shield, but each timeas he descended Ferdia caught him upon the shield and flunghim off like a little child into the Ford. And Laeg mocked him,crying: “He casts thee off as a river flings its foam, he grinds [220]thee as a millstone grinds a corn of wheat; thou elf, never callthyself a warrior.”Then at last Cuchulain's frenzy came upon him, and he dilatedgiant-like, till he overtopped Ferdia, and the hero-light blazedabout his head. In close contact the two were interlocked,whirling and trampling, while the demons and goblins andunearthly things of the glens screamed from the edges of theirswords, and the waters of the Ford recoiled in terror from them,so that for a while they fought on dry land in the midst of theriverbed. And now Ferdia found Cuchulain a moment off hisguard, and smote him with the edge of the sword, and it sankdeep into his flesh, and all the river ran red with his blood. Andhe pressed Cuchulain sorely after that, hewing and thrusting sothat Cuchulain could endure it no longer, and he shouted to Laegto fling him the Gae Bolg. When Ferdia heard that he loweredhis shield to guard himself from below, and Cuchulain drove hisspear over the rim of the shield and through his breastplate intohis chest. And Ferdia raised his shield again, but in that momentCuchulain seized the Gae Bolg in his toes and drove it upwardagainst Ferdia, and it pierced through the iron apron and burst inthree the millstone that guarded him, and deep into his body itpassed, so that every crevice and cranny of him was filled withits barbs. “'Tis enough,” cried Ferdia; “I have my death of that.It is an ill deed that I fall by thy hand, O Cuchulain.” Cuchulainseized him as he fell, and carried him northward across the Ford,that he might die on the further side of it, and not on the sideof the men of Erin. Then he laid him down, and a faintnessseized Cuchulain, and he was falling, when Laeg cried: “Riseup, Cuchulain, for the host of Erin will be upon us. No single