[a] Here follows in YBL. 51b,áinBóCú 38-57 a difficult passage in _rosc_ which I have omitted in the translation. Only a portion of it has been preserved in LL. and is here translated.
[b] Reading with Stowe, II. 1. 13, Add. and YBL. 51b, 45.
Whereupon, Fergus took his arms and went forward to the battle, [1]and he cleared a gap of an hundred in the battle-ranks with his sword in his two hands.[1] Ailill seized his weapons. Medb seized her weapons and entered the battle. [2]The Manè seized their arms and came to the battle. The macMagach seized their arms and came to the battle,[2] so that thrice the Ulstermen were routed before them from the north, till Cualgae[c] and sword drove them back again. [3]Or it was Cuchulain that drove the men of Erin before him, so that he brought them back into their former line in the battle.[3]
[c] The name of the wheeled towers described above, page 338 fl.
Conchobar heard that from his place in the line of battle, that the battle had gone against him thrice from the north. Then he addressed his bodyguard, even the inner circle of the Red Branch: "Hold ye here a while, ye men!" cried he; "even in the line [4]of battle[4] where I am, that I may go and learn by whom the battle has been thus forced against us thrice from the north." Then said his household: "We will hold out," said they, [5]"in the place wherein we are:[5] [W.5974.] for the sky is above us and the earth underneath and the sea round about us, [1]and[1] unless the heavens shall fall with their showers of stars on the man-face of the world, or unless the furrowed, blue-bordered ocean break o'er the tufted brow of the earth, or unless the ground yawns open, will we not move a thumb's breadth backward from here till the very day of doom and of everlasting life, till thou come back to us!"
Conchobar went his way to the place where he heard the battle had gone three times [LL.fo.102b.] against him from the north. [2]Then Conchobar made a rush at Fergus,[2] and he lifted shield against shield there, namely against Fergus mac Roig, even Ochain ('the Fair-ear')[a] of Conchobar with its four ears of gold and its four bracings of red gold. Therewith Fergus gave three stout blows of Badb on the Ochain of Conchobar, so that Conchobar's shield cried aloud on him [3]and the three chief waves of Erin gave answer, the Wave of Clidna, the Wave of Rudraige and the Wave of Tuag, to wit.[3] Whenever Conchobar's shield cried out, the shields of all the Ulstermen cried out. However great the strength and power with which Fergus smote Conchobar on the shield, so great also was the might and valour wherewith Conchobar held the shield, so that the ear of the shield did not even touch the ear of Conchobar.