Serglige Con Culainn agus Óenét Emire. Tenth- and 11th-century Irish narrative, known in English as The Wasting Sickness of Cúchulainn or The Sickbed of Cúchulainn and The Only Jealousy of Emer; it is most often referred to by the truncated title
Serglige Con Culainn. The text in the 12th-century
Book of the Dun Cow [
Lebor na hUidre] combines two versions of earlier composition, causing some incoherence in the surviving narrative; as the full title suggests, what we have may derive from two earlier stories. Cúchulainn's wife is known first as
Eithne Ingubai and secondly as
Emer.
The men of
Ulster are assembled at
Mag Muirtheimne during
Samain when a flock of beautiful birds settles on a nearby lake. Learning that all the women desire the birds, one for each shoulder, Cúchulainn hunts them and gives two to each noble woman so that none is left for his wife. He promises her two different birds, who are linked with a golden chain and sing a sleep-inducing song. After only grazing them with his spear, Cúchulainn falls into a deep sleep while seated next to a pillar-stone. In a dream he sees two women, one in green, the other in red, laughing and whipping him, at first playfully but then so severely that all the strength drains from his body: thus his wasting sickness. Wakened, he asks to be carried to the Téte Brec [twinkling hoard] of
Emain Macha.
Here Cúchulainn lies prostrate for almost a year, until shortly before the next Samain, when an
otherworldly man appears next to his bed, offering a cure in a cryptic song. Identifying himself as
Angus (1), the son of
Áed Abrat, he invites Cúchulainn to come with him to Mag Cruachna (Co. Roscommon), where he will be healed and where Angus's sister
Fand is longing to be with him. Cúchulainn is then carried back to the pillar-stone where he was stricken, and there meets a beautiful woman. Dressed in green, she is one of the two who whipped him in his dream. Identifying herself as
Lí Ban [paragon of women], she says she means no further harm and instead seeks Cúchulainn's friendship. She brings greetings from her husband,
Labraid Luathlám ar Claidib [swift hand on sword] of Mag Mell, who promises him Lí Ban's beautiful sister Fand, now released from her husband
Manannán mac Lir, in return for only one day of service in fighting Labraid's enemies, Senach Siaborthe,
Eochaid Iúil, and
Eochaid Inber. Cúchulainn is intrigued with the offer, especially remembering Fand's renowned beauty, but as he is still on his sickbed he sends his charioteer
Láeg to investigate for him. Láeg sails with Lí Ban in a bronze boat to an island where they are greeted by Fand and her company of women, as well as by Labraid, who expresses his disappointment that Cúchulainn has not come. On his return Láeg regales Cúchulainn with descriptions of Mag Mell. After Láeg calls for her, Emer also visits Cúchulainn, urging him to rise from his sickbed; she chides him for being weakened by ‘woman-love’, and calls for him to throw off his wasting sickness. He then arises, and finds that his weariness has passed from him. Shortly after, by the pillar-stone where he had slept, Cúchulainn again encounters Lí Ban, who bids him again to come to Mag Mell. Not wishing to respond to a woman's call, Cúchulainn again sends Láeg on his behalf, who travels over land this time; once there he again finds Labraid, together with a regent, Fáilbe Finn. On his return, Láeg again reports on the wonder of what he has found and tells Cúchulainn he would be a fool for not going forth.
Cúchulainn then harnesses his chariot for a ride with Lí Ban and Láeg to Mag Mell, where he receives an enthusiastic welcome. At Labraid's request he makes reconnaissance of the vast enemy encampment. Undaunted, Cúchulainn asks that Labraid and his retainers retreat so that he may prepare for battle alone. He stands solitary guard all night and at dawn falls into his ríastrad [battle fury], transforming his countenance into a vision of terror. So heated is the fury that he is immersed three times in a vat of cold water to help him overcome it. Thus resolved, Cúchulainn makes short work of Senach Siaborthe and Eochaid Inber; and he spears Eochaid Iúil as the latter bathes in the river. All of Mag Mell rejoices at the victory, none more than Fand, with whom Cúchulainn makes love continually for the next month. Bidding her farewell, Cúchulainn agrees to tryst with her by the
yew tree at Ibor Cind Tráchta, near the modern town of Newry, Co. Down. Emer learns of the assignation shortly after, although Cúchulainn and Láeg try to keep it from her. In her own fury, she leads fifty women with whetted knives to the appointed spot at the appointed time, seeking vengeance. But the unexpected follows. After hearing Emer's speech on men's lust for what they do not have and their rejection of the familiar, Cúchulainn pledges that he wishes to live with her for ever. Seeing their love, Fand asks to be abandoned. And when Emer sees the unselfishness of Fand's love, she asks to be left behind. Each woman would award her lover to the other. This impasse is resolved by the unanticipated arrival of Manannán mac Lir, Fand's husband, who takes her away with him. Cúchulainn, disconsolate, then wanders the mountains of
Munster, unwilling to drink or eat, until the
druids give him a vial of forgetfulness. Emer also drinks and forgets her jealousy. And Manannán shakes his cloak between Cúchulainn and Fand so that they may never meet again. The standard modern text in Irish was edited by Myles Dillon,
Serglige Con Culainn, Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series, 14 (1953); translation,
Scottish Gaelic Studies, 7 (1951), 47–88. See also A. H. Leahy,
Heroic Romances of Ireland, i (London, 1905), 51–85; T. P. Cross and C. H. Slover (eds.),
Ancient Irish Tales (New York, 1936), 176–98. Despite its title, W. B. Yeats's drama
The Only Jealousy of Emer (1919), prose version
Fighting the Waves, is not an adaptation.
