’It is empty, this great rudder that is brought by my friend Fergus,’ said Cuchulainn; ’for there is no sword in its sheath except a sword of wood.  It has been told to me,’ said Cuchulainn; ’Ailill got a chance of them as they slept, he and Medb; and he took away his sword from Fergus, and gave it to his charioteer to take care of, and the sword of wood was put into its sheath.’

Then Fergus comes up.

‘Welcome, O friend Fergus,’ said Cuchulainn; ’if a fish comes into the estuary, you shall have it with half of another; if a flock comes into the plain, you shall have a duck with half of another; a spray of cress or seaweed, a spray of marshwort; a drink from the sand; you shall have a going to the ford to meet a man, if it should happen to be your watch, till you have slept.’

‘I believe it,’ said Fergus; ’it is not your provision that we have come for; we know your housekeeping here.’

Then Cuchulainn receives the message from Fergus; anti Fergus goes away.  Etarcomol remains looking at Cuchulainn.

‘What are you looking at?’ said Cuchulainn.

‘You,’ said Etarcomol.

‘The eye soon compasses it indeed,’ said Cuchulainn.

‘That is what I see,’ said Etarcomol.  ’I do not know at all why you should be feared by any one.  I do not see terror or fearfulness, or overwhelming of a host, in you; you are merely a fair youth with arms of wood, and with fine feats.’

‘Though you speak ill of me,’ said Cuchulainn, ’I will not kill you for the sake of Fergus.  But for your protection, it would have been your entrails drawn (?) and your quarters scattered, that would have gone from me to the camp behind your chariot.’

‘Threaten me not thus,’ said Etarcomol.  ’The wonderful agreement that he has bound, that is, the single 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.