When Cuchulain lay in his sleep at Dun Imrid, there he heard a cry from the north; it came straight towards him; the cry was dire, and most terrifying to him. And he awaked in the midst of his sleep, so that he fell, with the fall of a heavy load, out of his couch,[FN#116] to the ground on the eastern side of his house. He went out thereupon without his weapons, so that he was on the lawns before his house, but his wife brought out, as she followed behind him, his arms and his clothing. Then he saw Laeg in his harnessed chariot, coming from Ferta Laig, from the north; and "What brings thee here?" said Cuchulain. "A cry," said Laeg, "that I heard sounding over the plains. "On what side was it?" said Cuchulain. "From the north-west it seemed," said Laeg, "that is, across the great road of Caill Cuan."[FN#117] "Let us follow after to know of it (lit. after it, to it for us)," said Cuchulain. [FN#116] Or "out of his room." The word is imda, sometimes rendered "bed," as here by Windisch sometimes also "room," as in the Bruidne da Derga by Whitley Stokes. [FN#117] Lough Cuan was the old name for Strangford Lough. They went out thereupon till they came to Ath da Ferta. When they were there, straightway they heard the rattle of a chariot from the quarter of the loamy district of Culgaire. Then they saw the chariot come before them, and one chestnut (lit. red) horse in it. The horse was one footed, and the pole of the chariot passed through the body of the horse, till a wedge went through it, to make it fast on its forehead. A red[FN#118] woman was in the chariot, and a red mantle about her, she had two red eye-brows, and the mantle fell between the two ferta[FN#119] of her chariot behind till it struck upon the ground behind her. A great man was beside her chariot, a red[FN#120] cloak was upon him, and a forked staff of hazel at his back, he drove a cow in front of him. [FN#118] The above is the Egerton text: the text of Y.B.L. gives "A red woman there, with her two eyebrows red, and her cloak and her raiment: the cloak fell," &c. [FN#119] It is not known certainly what the ferta were: Windisch translates "wheels," but does not give this meaning in his Dictionary: the ferta were behind the car, and could be removed to sound the depth of a ford. It is suggested that they were poles, projecting behind to balance the chariot; and perhaps could be adjusted so as to project less or farther. [FN#120] This is the Egerton text; the Y.B.L. text gives "a tunic forptha on him the meaning of forptha is unknown.