An encounter that stops a warrior
During a festival Cú Chulainn catches birds for the assembled women. He then attacks a more extraordinary pair linked by a golden chain, despite warnings about their power. His shots fail until a spear damages one bird's wing. After falling asleep beside a pillar, he experiences two women beating him until he is nearly dead. A long sickness follows.
A messenger eventually offers recovery through contact with the women. Fand, separated from Manannán, desires Cú Chulainn; her sister Lí Ban seeks his help for her husband Labraid's war. The hero initially sends his charioteer Láeg to investigate. The otherworld is beautiful and richly provisioned, yet its inhabitants also need military aid.
Source: The Sick-Bed of Cuchulain — Leahy translation · The Sick-Bed of Cuchulain: festival birds, pillar vision, year of illness, Angus’s message and Láeg’s first journey
A powerful ally and a dangerous lover
Leahy explicitly interrupts the printed story to explain that two narrative versions have been joined. Ethne, present as the hero's wife in the opening, gives way to Emer in the continuation. The second account repeats parts of the recovery and messenger journey. Preserving that seam matters: a reader should not solve it by inventing events between the women.
Cú Chulainn joins Labraid, defeats opponents, and becomes so dangerously heated that cold water is needed to calm him. He spends a month with Fand before arranging another meeting in Ireland. Emer learns of the appointment and approaches with women carrying knives. A military triumph has led into a household crisis in which the combatant's superiority offers no satisfactory answer.
Source: The Sick-Bed of Cuchulain — Leahy translation · Editorial break after first return of Láeg; second journey, Labraid’s battle, cooling vats, month with Fand and Emer’s approach
Separation rather than conquest
Cú Chulainn initially praises Fand's beauty, rank, and accomplishments against Emer's objections. Emer answers that unfamiliar things can seem more desirable merely because they are new. Her grief recalls their former companionship. Fand and Emer then each offer to yield, transforming a confrontation between rivals into an acknowledgment of what each stands to lose.
Manannán arrives, and Fand chooses to leave with him. Cú Chulainn falls into distress and must be brought home; drinks of forgetfulness release him and Emer from their consuming memories. Manannán places an enduring barrier between the former lovers. The ending restores households through loss, forgetting, and separation, rather than allowing the hero to keep every relationship he desires.
Source: The Sick-Bed of Cuchulain — Leahy translation · Emer and Fand at the tryst; Manannán’s arrival; Cú Chulainn’s wandering, drinks of forgetfulness and separating cloak
- Period / witness
- Medieval Irish prose and verse preserved in medieval and early modern manuscript witnesses; Leahy translation 1905–1906.
- Recording context
- This entry concerns the literary version named in its passages, transmitted by Christian-era Irish manuscript culture and translated by A. H. Leahy. Legendary settings are not dates of composition or evidence for a single pre-Christian canon.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
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The Sick-Bed of Cuchulain — Leahy translation ↗
Anonymous Irish literary narratives; translated and arranged by Arthur Herbert Leahy (1857–1928) · Volume I, 1905; Project Gutenberg eBook released May 2004 and updated 29 June 2026
Edition & rights note