On seeing these, Cuchulinn said to his charioteer, “I perceive there, my friend Laeg, the noble, varied, wonderful, numerous feats which Ferdia displays on high, and all these will be tried on me in succession. Therefore if it be I who shall begin to yield this day thou must excite, reproach, and speak evil to me, that the paroxysm of my rage and anger shall grow the more. If it be I who shall prevail then thou shalt laud and praise and speak good words to me, that my courage may be the greater.” “It shall be so done indeed, O Cuchulinn,” replied the faithful Laeg. The champions then arranged to try the ford feat. And the saga remarks: “Great was the deed, now, that was performed on that day at the ford—the two heroes, the two warriors, the two champions of Western Europe, the two gifted and stipend-bestowing hands of the north-west of the world, the two beloved pillars of the valour of the Gael, and the two keys of the bravery of the Gael, to be brought to fight from afar through the instigation and intermeddling of Ailill and Meve.” First, they began to shoot with missive weapons, till, getting more furious, Cuchulinn sprang at his opponent twice for the purpose of striking his head over the rim of his shield, but each time Ferdia gave the shield a stroke of his left knee or elbow, and cast Cuchulinn from him like a little child on the brink of the ford. Laeg perceived that act, and, true to the instructions of his master, began taunting him. “Alas! indeed,” said he, “the warrior who is against thee casts thee away as a lewd woman would cast her child. He throws thee as a mill would grind fresh malt. He pierces thee as the felling axe would pierce the oak. He binds thee as the woodbine binds the tree. He darts on thee as the hawk darts on small birds, so that henceforth thou hast not call, or right, or claim to valour or bravery to the end of time and life, thou little fairy phantom.” At that word up sprang the fallen hero with the rapidity of the wind, and with the readiness of the swallow, and with the fierceness of the dragon, and the strength of the lion, into the troubled clouds of the air the third time, and he alighted on the boss of the shield of Ferdia, but with the same humiliating result. “It was then that Cuchulinn’s first distortion came on, and he was filled with swelling and great fulness, like breath in a bladder, until he became a terrible, fearful, many-coloured Tuaig, and he became as big as a Fomor, or man of the sea, the great and valiant champion in perfect height over Ferdia.” So close was the fight they made now that the Bocanachs and Bananachs, and wild people of the glens, and demons of the air screamed from the rims of their shields, and from the hilts of their swords, and from the hafts of their spears.