Note 4-4 — Footnotes.

Then it was that the same two striplings surprised him, namely, the two sons of Nera son of Nuathar son of Tacan, while engaged in that feat. And they vied which of the twain 4would be the first to fight and contend with Cuchuain, which of them4 would inflict the first wound upon W. 680. him and be the first to behead him. Cuchulain turned on them, and straightway he struck off their four heads 1from themselves 2Eirr and Indell2 and 3from Foich and Fochlam,3 their drivers,1 and he fixed a head of each man of them on each of the prongs of the pole. And Cuchulain let the horses of the party go back in the direction of the men of Erin, to return by the same road, their reins loose 4around their ears4 and their bellies red and the bodies of the warriors dripping their blood down outside on the ribs of the chariots. 5Thus he did,5 for he deemed it no honour nor deemed he it fair to take horses or garments or arms from corpses or from the dead. And then the troops saw the horses of the party that had gone out in advance before them, and the headless bodies of the warriors oozing their blood down on the ribs of the chariots (6and their crimsoned trappings upon them6). The van of the army waited for the rear to come up, and all were thrown into confusion of striking, that is as much as to say, into a tumult of arms.