At length Ferdia found an unguarded moment upon his opponent and wounded him sorely. Cuchulinn, unable to endure this, or Ferdia’s stout quick strokes and tremendous great blows at him, called for the gaebolg. It was a weapon that used to be let down the stream and cast from between the toes. It made the wound of one spear in entering the body, but it had thirty barbs to open, and could not be drawn out of a person’s body until it was cut out. So Laeg set the gaebolg down the stream, and Cuchulinn caught it between the toes of his foot and threw an unerring cast of it at Ferdia. “That is enough now indeed,” said the wounded man. “I fall of that.” Thereafter a trance, a faint, and a weakness fell on Cuchulinn as he saw the body of Ferdia. But Laeg roused him, and then he began to lament and mourn, and to utter a panegyric over his slain rival as David did over Jonathan:— O Ferdia (he said) treachery hath defeated thee. Unhappy was thy fate— Thou to die, I to remain,— Grievous for ever is our lasting separation. When we were far away, yonder With Scathath, the gifted Buanand, We then resolved that till the end of time We should not be hostile one to the other. Dear to me was thy beautiful ruddiness, Dear to me thy perfect form, Dear to me thy clear grey-blue eye, Dear to me thy wisdom and thine eloquence. There hath not come to the body-cutting combat, There hath not been angered by manly exertion, There hath not borne shield on the field of spears Thine equal, O ruddy son of Daman. Never until now have I met, Since I slew Aoife’s only son, Thy like in deeds of battle, Never have I found, O Ferdia. Finnamhair, daughter of Meve, Notwithstanding her excellent beauty, It is putting a _gad_ on the sand or sunbeam For thee to expect her, O Ferdia. He continued to gaze on his fallen friend, and when at length, tempted by his charioteer to come away and get healed of his grievous wounds, he said, “We will leave now, O my friend Laeg, but every other combat and fight that ever I have made was to me but as a game and a sport compared to the combat and the fight of Ferdia.” There is a most beautiful rendering of his further eulogy in Dr. Sigerson’s _Bards of the Gael and Gall_. Here it is. The repetition and rhythm have been adapted from the original:— Play was each, pleasure each, Till Ferdia faced the beach; One had been our student-life, One in strife of school our place, One our gentle teacher’s grace, Loved o’er all and each.