'It is for us they fight,' said Ailill.

'They shall not come with us,' said Medb.

'Let them stay then,' said Ailill.

'They shall not stay,' said Medb. 'They will come on us after we
have gone,' said she, 'and seize our land against us.'

'What is to be done to them?' said Ailill; 'will you have them
neither stay nor go?'

'To kill them,' said Medb.

'We will not hide that this is a woman's plan,' said Ailill; 'what
you say is not good!'

'With this folk,' said Fergus, 'it shall not happen thus (for it is
a folk bound by ties to us Ulstermen), unless we are all killed.'

'Even that we could do,' said Medb; 'for I am here with my retinue
of two cantreds,' said she, 'and there are the seven Manes, that
is, my seven sons, with seven cantreds; their luck can protect
them,' (?) said she; 'that is Mane-Mathramail, and Mane-Athramail,
and Mane-Morgor, and Mane-Mingor, and Mane-Moepert (and he is
Mane-Milscothach), Mane-Andoe, and Mane-who-got-everything: he got
the form of his mother and of his father, and the dignity of both.'

'It would not be so,' said Fergus. 'There are seven kings of
Munster here, and a cantred with each of them, in friendship with
us Ulstermen. I will give battle to you,' said Fergus, 'in the
middle of the host in which we are, with these seven cantreds, and
with my own cantred, and with the cantred of the Leinstermen. But I
will not urge that,' said Fergus, 'we will provide for the warriors
otherwise, so that they shall not prevail over the host. Seventeen
cantreds for us,' said Fergus, 'that is the number of our army,
besides our rabble, and our women (for with each king there is his
queen, in Medb's company), and besides our striplings. This is the
eighteenth cantred, the cantred of the Leinstermen. Let them be
distributed among the rest of the host.'

'I do not care,' said Medb, 'provided they are not gathered as they
are.'

Then this was done; the Leinstermen were distributed among the host.

They set out next morning to Moin Choiltrae, where eight score deer
fell in with them in one herd. They surrounded them and killed them
then; wherever there was a man of the Leinstermen, it was he who
got them, except five deer that all the rest of the host got. Then
they came to Mag Trego, and stopped there and prepared their food.
They say that it is there that Dubthach sang this song:

'Grant what you have not heard hitherto,
Listening to the fight of Dubthach.