On the morning of the morrow, they made ready to set out again, but the chief men among them consulted together first, what way they could best keep the peace between so many troops and tribes and families; and it is what they settled, to put every troop under its own leader, and to let it, great or small, take a road of its own. And besides that, they consulted who would be the best man to put over the whole army, to lead them and to show them the way. And they all said Fergus would be the best, for he had been king of Ulster seventeen years, until Conchubar put him out of the kingship, and he had stopped on in Ulster after that until the time Conchubar killed the sons of Usnach in spite of the guarantee he had given them.
So Fergus was made leader of the whole army; but as they went on,
