gle combat, it is I who will
first meet you of the men of Ireland to-morrow.'

Then he goes away. He turned back from Methe and Cethe and said to
his charioteer:

'I have boasted,' said he, 'before Fergus combat with Cuchulainn
to-morrow. It is not possible for us [Note: YBL reading.] to wait
for it; turn the horses back again from the hill.'

Loeg sees this and says to Cuchulainn: 'There is the chariot back
again, and it has put its left board [Note: An insult.] towards us.'

'It is not a "debt of refusal,"' said Cuchulainn. 'I do not wish,'
said Cuchulainn, 'what you demand of me.'

'This is obligatory to you,' said Etarcomol.

Cuchulainn strikes the sod under his feet, so that he fell
prostrate, and the sod behind him.

'Go from me,' said Cuchulainn. 'I am loath to cleanse my hands in
you. I would have divided you into many parts long since but for
Fergus.'

'We will not part thus,' said Etarcomol, 'till I have taken your
head, or left my head with you.'

'It is that indeed that will be there,' said Cuchulainn.

Cuchulainn strikes him with his sword in his two armpits, so that
his clothes fell from him, and it did not wound his skin.

'Go then,' said Cuchulainn.

'No,' said Etarcomol.

Then Cuchulainn attacked him with the edge of his sword, and took
his hair off as if it was shaved with a razor; he did not put even
a scratch (?) on the surface. When the churl was troublesome then
and stuck to him, he struck him on the hard part of his crown, so
that he divided him down to the navel.

Fergus saw the chariot go past him, and the one man therein. He
turned to quarrel with Cuchulainn.

'Ill done of you, O wild boy!' said he, 'to insult me. You would
think my club [Note: Or 'track'?] short,' said he.

'Be not angry with me, O friend Fergus,' said Cuchulainn ... [Note:
Rhetoric, five lines.] 'Reproach me not, O friend Fergus.'

He stoops down, so that Fergus's chariot went past him thrice.

He asked his charioteer: 'Is it I who have caused it?'

'It is not you at all,' said his charioteer.

'He said,' said Cuchulainn, 'he would not go till he took my head,
or till he left his head with me. Which would you think easier to
bear, O friend Fergus?' said Cuchulainn.

'I think what has been done the easier truly,' said Fergus, 'for it
is he who was insolent.'

Then Fergus put a spancel-withe through Etarcomol's two heels and
took him behind his own chariot to the camp. When they went over
rocks