From Gregory’s “Notes”: 'I am not enough of a scholar to read the old manuscripts from which these stories are taken, but the Irish text of the greater number has been printed either in Irische Texte, or the Revue Celtique, or by [Eugene] O’Curry, in Atlantis and elsewhere, and I have worked from this text, with the help of the translations given. In some cases, as in the greater part of "The War for the Bull of Cuailgne", the Irish text has not yet been printed, and I have had to work by comparing and piecing together various translations.

have had to put a connecting sentence of my own here and there, and I have condensed many passages, and I have sometimes tried to give the meaning of a formula that has lost its old meaning. Thus I have exchanged for the grotesque accounts of Cuchulain’s distortion - which no doubt merely meant that in time of great strain or danger he had more than human strength - the more simple formula that his appearance changed to the appearance of a god. In the same way, I have left out Levarcham’s distortion, which was the recognized way of saying she was a swift messenger.

As to the date of the stories, I cannot do better than quote from Mr Alfred Nutt’s "Cuchulain, the Irish Achilles" [... &c.]’ (p.544.)

"Notes", I: The Apology: 'The Irish text of a great number of the stories in this book has been published, and from this text I have worked, making my own translations as far as my scholarship goes, and when it fails, taking the meaning given by better scholars. In some cases the Irish text has not been printed, and I have had to work my comparing and piecing together various translations. I have had to put a connecting sentence of my own here and there, and I have fused different versions together, and condensed many passages, and I have left out many, using the choice that is a perpetual refusing, in trying to get some clear outline of the doings of the heroes.

I have found it more natural to tell the stories in the manner of the thatched houses, where I have heard so many legends of Finn and his friends, and Oisin and Patrick, and the Ever-Living Ones, and the Country of the Young, rather than in the manner of the slated houses, where I have not heard them.’ [Goes on to speak of Prof. Robert Atkinson (TCD) who famously condemned ancient Irish literature as 'intolerably low in tone’ and 'devoid of idealism’; idem; and see under Atkinson, in RICORSO, supra ; 309.]

'I believe that those who have once learned to care for the story of Cuchulain of Muirthemne, and of Finn and Lugh and Etain, and to recognise the enduring belief in an invisible world and an immortal life behind the visible and the mortal, will not be content with my redaction, but will go, first to the fuller versions of the best scholars, and then to the manuscripts themselves. I believe the forty students of old Irish lately called together by Professor Kuno Meyer will not rest satisfied until they have explored the scores and scores of uncatalogued and untranslated manuscripts in Trinity College Library, and that the enthusiasm which the Gaelic League has given birth to will lead to much fine scholarship.

A day or two ago I had a letter from one of the best Greek scholars and translators in England, who says of my "Cuchulain": "It opened up a great world of beautiful legend which, though accounting myself as an Irishman, I had never known at all. I am sending out copies to Irish friends in Australia who, I am sure, will receive the same sort of impression, almost an impression of pride in the beauty of the Irish mind, as I received myself." And President Roosevelt wrote to me a little time ago that after he had read Cuchulain of Muirthemne, he had sent for all the other translations from the Irish he could get, to take on his journey to the Western States.

I give these appreciative words not, I think, from vanity, for they are not for me but for my material, to show the effect our old literature has on those who come fresh to it, and that they do not complain of its "want of imagination" [in Atkinson’s phrase]. I am, of course, very proud and glad in having had the opportunity of helping to make it known, and the task has been pleasant, although toilsome. just now, indeed, on the 6th October, I am tired enough, and I think with sympathy of the old Highland piper, who complained that he was "withered with yelping the seven Fenian battalions." (Slaney Edn., pp.309-10.)

It was great work, now, that was done on that day at the ford; the two champions of western Europe, the two gift-giving and wage-giving hands of the northwest of the world; the two pillars and the two keys of the courage of the Gael; to be brought from far off, to fight one against the other, through the stirring up and the meddling of Ailell and Maeve. Each of them began to throw his weapons at the other, from the dawn of early morning to the middle of mid-day. And when mid-day came, the anger of the men grew hotter, and each of them drew nearer to the other. And then it was that Cuchulain leaped on to the boss of Ferdiad’s shield, to strike at his head over the rim of the shield. But Ferdiad gave the shield a blow of the left elbow, and threw Cuchulain from him-like a bird on the brink of the ford. Cuchulain leaped up again to the boss of the shield, but Ferdiad gave it a stroke of his left knee, and threw Cuchulain from him like a little child.

Laeg saw that done. “My grief indeed”, he said, “the fighter that is against you, Cuchulain, casts you away as a light woman would cast her child. He throws you as foam is thrown by the river; he grinds you as a mill would grind fresh malt; he cuts through you as the axe cuts through the oak; he binds you as the woodbine binds the tree; he darts on you as the hawk darts on little birds; and from this out, you have no call nor claim to courage or a brave name to the end of life and time, you little fairy fighter”, said Laeg.

It is then Cuchulain leaped up with the quickness of the wind, and with the readiness of the swallow, and with the fierceness of the lion, towards the troubled clouds of the air the third time, until he lit on the boss of Ferdiad’s shield, to strike at his head from above. And Ferdiad gave his shield a shake and cast Cuchulain from him, the same as if he had never been cast off before at all.

And it is then Cuchulain’s anger came on him, and the flames of the hero light began to shine about his head, like a red thorn bush in a gap, or like the sparks of a fire, and he lost the appearance of a man, and what was on him was the appearance of a god. [475]

So close was the fight they made now, that their heads met above and their feet below, and their hands in the middle, over the rims and bosses of their shields. So close was the fight, that they broke and loosened their shields from the rim to the middle. So close was the fight, that they turned and bent and shattered their spears from the points to the hilts. So close was the fight, that the Bocanachs and Bananachs and the witches of the valley screamed from the rims of their shields and from the hilts of their swords, and from the handles of their spears. So close was the fight, that they drove the river out of its bed and out of its course, so that it might have been a place for a king or a queen to rest in, so that there was not a drop of water in it, unless it dropped into it by the trampling and the hewing the two champions made in the middle of the ford.

So great was the fight, that the horses of the men of Ireland broke away in fright and shyness, with fury and madness, breaking their chains and their yokes, their ropes and their traces; and the women and the young lads and the children and the followers of the men of Ireland broke out of the camp to the south-west.

They were using the edge of their swords through that time; and it was then Ferdiad found a time when Cuchulain was off his guard, and he gave him a stroke of the sword, and hid it in his body, and the ford was reddened with Cuchulain’s blood, and Ferdiad kept on making great strokes at him. And Cuchulain could not bear with this, and he called to Laeg for the Gae Bulg, and it was sent down the stream to him, and he caught it with his foot. And when Ferdiad heard the name of the Gae Bulg, he made a stroke of his shield down to protect his body. But Cuchulain made a straight cast of the spear, the Gae Bulg, off the middle of his hand, over the rim of the shield, and it passed through his armour and went out through his body, so that its sharp end could be seen.

Ferdiad gave a stroke of his shield up to protect the upper part of his body, though it was “the relief after danger,” as the saying is. “That is enough,” said Ferdiad; I die by that. And I may say, indeed, you have left me sick after you, and it was not right that I should fall by your hand. O Hound of the beautiful feats, it was not right, you to kill me; the fault of my death is yours, it is on you my blood is. A foolish man does not escape when he goes into the gap of danger; my grief I am going away, my end is come. My ribs will not hold my heart, my heart is all turned to blood. I have not done well in the battle; you have killed me, Cuchulain.”

Cuchulain ran towards him after that, and put his two arms about him, and lifted him across the ford northwards, so that his body should be by the ford on the north, and not on the west of the ford with the men of Ireland.

He laid him down then, and a cloud and a weakness came on him as he stood over Ferdiad. Laeg saw that, and he saw that all the men of Ireland were rising up to come towards him. “Good Cuchulain,” said Laeg, “rise up now, for the men of Ireland are coming towards us, and it is not one man they will put to fight against us, now that Ferdiad has fallen by you.” “What use is it to me to rise up now, and he after falling by me?”, said Cuchulain

[...]

Then Cuchulain began to keen and to lament for Ferdiad there, and it is what he said: “Well, Ferdiad, it is a pity for you that it was not one of the men that knew my courage you asked an advice of before you came ot meet me in the fight that was too hard for you. It is a pity it was not Laeg, son of Riangabra, you asked how we stood one to another. It is a pity you did not ask a true advice of Fergus. It is a pity it was not pleasant comely Conall you asked which of us would put down the other.

”And these men know well”, he said, “there will never be born one among the men of Connaught who will do deeds equal to yours, to the end of life and time [..] Well, Ferdiad”, he said, it was great wrong and treachery was played on you by the men of Ireland, to bring you out to fight with me.” [...; 477.]