'Our host will be short-lived through Cuchulainn in this way,' said Ailill. 'Let an agreement be carried from us to him: that he shall have the equal of Mag Murthemne from Mag Ai, and the best chariot that is in Ai, and the equipment of twelve men. Offer, if it pleases him better, the plain in which he was brought up, and three sevens of cumals [Note: The _cumal_ (bondmaid) was a standard of value.]; and everything that has been destroyed of his household (?) and cattle shall be made good, and he shall have full compensation (?), and let him go into my service; it is better for him than the service of a sub king.'
Mac Roth, the messenger of Ailill and Medb, went on that errand to Delga: it is he who encircles Ireland in one day. It is there that Fergus thought that Cuchulainn was, in Delga.
'I see a man coming towards us,' said Loeg to Cuchulainn. 'He has a yellow head of hair, and a linen emblem round it; a club of fury(?) in his hand, an ivory-hilted sword at his waist; a hooded tunic with red ornamentation on him.'
'Which of the warriors of the king is that?' said Cuchulainn.
'Vassal to the man down yonder,' said Loeg.
Cuchulainn was there in the snow up to his two thighs, without anything at all on him, examining his shirt.
Then Mac Roth asked Cuchulainn whose man he was.
'Vassal of Conchobar Mac Nessa,' said Cuchulainn.
'Where then is Cuchulainn?' said Mac Roth.
'What would you say to him?' said Cuchulainn.
Mac Roth tells him then all the message, as we have told it.
'Though Cuchulainn were near, he would not do this; he will not barter the brother of his mother for another king.'
He came to him again, and it was said to Cuchulainn that there should be given over to him the noblest of the women and the cows that were without milk, on condition that he should not ply his sling on them at night, even if he should kill them by day.
'I will not do it,' said Cuchulainn; 'if our slavewomen are taken from us, our noble women will be at the querns; and we shall be without milk if our milch-cows are taken from us.'
He came to him again, and he was told that he should have the slave-women and the milch-cows.
'I will not do it,' said Cuchulainn; 'the Ulstermen will take their slave-women to their beds, and there will be born to them a servile offspring, and they will use their milch-cows for meat in the winter.'