[2-2] Stowe.

Thereat for the third time, Cuchulain arose with the speed of the wind, and the swiftness of a swallow, and the dash of a dragon, and the strength (of a lion) [3]into the clouds[3] of the air, till he alighted on the boss of the shield of Ferdiad son of Daman, so as to reach his head that he might strike it from above over the rim of his shield.  Then it was that the battle-warrior gave the shield a [4]violent and powerful[4] shake, so that Cuchulain flew from it into the middle of the ford, the same as if he had not sprung at all.

    [3-3] Stowe.

    [4-4] Stowe.

It was then the first twisting-fit of Cuchulain took place, so that a swelling and inflation filled him like breath in a bladder, until he made a dreadful, terrible, many-coloured, wonderful bow of himself, so that as big as a giant or a man [W.3805.] of the sea was the hugely-brave warrior towering directly over Ferdiad.

Such was the closeness of the combat they made, that their heads encountered above and their feet below and their hands in the middle over the rims and bosses of the shields.

Such was the closeness of the combat they made, that their shields burst and split from their rims to their centres.

Such was the closeness of the combat they made, that their spears bent and turned and shivered from their tips to their rivets.

Such was the closeness of the combat they made, that the boccanach and the bananach (’the puck-faced Fays’ and ‘the white-faced Fays’) and the sprites of the glens and the eldritch beings of the air screamed from the rims of their shields and from the guards of their swords and from the tips of their spears.

Such was the closeness of the combat they made, that they forced the river out of its bed and out of its course, so that there might have been a reclining place [LL.fo.87a.] for a king or a queen in the middle of the ford, and not a drop of water was in it but what fell there with the trampling and slipping which the two heroes and the two battle-warriors made in the middle of the ford.

Such was the closeness of the combat they made, that the steeds of the Gael broke loose affrighted and plunging with madness and fury, so that their chains and their shackles, their traces and tethers snapped, and the women and children and pygmy-folk, the weak and the madmen among the men of Erin brake out through the camp south-westward.

At that time they were at the edge-feat of swords.  It was then Ferdiad caught Cuchulain in an unguarded moment, and he gave him a thrust with his tusk-hilted blade, so that he buried it in his breast, and his blood fell into his belt, [W.3831.] till the ford became crimsoned with the clotted blood from the battle-warrior’s body.  Cuchulain endured it not, under Ferdiad’s attack, with his death-bringing, heavy blows, and his long strokes and his mighty, middle slashes at him.