A geis is a kind of congenital or magically acquired injunction to do or avoid doing something which is possessed by high nobility in medieval Irish tradition. He holds it in his left hand and hids it under his left thigh, both of which become weakened in a subsequent battle, leading to his death. The seriously overdetermined metaphor here, reminiscent of Achilles, of course, is that one cannot uphold one's public obligations and private necessities at the same time and live. An interesting feature of the death tales of the Ulster heroes is that a woman is directly involved in setting off the fatal chain of events in each case, though the reasons offered are quite varied. There is, I think, an underlying argument in these stories that the combination of gessa and women is fatal no matter how you try to duck it.
Power kills, absolute power kills absolutely.
I agree wholeheartedly with Bruce. Performed upon the most private of parts, the punishment is the most public of rebukes. In this brief post I should like to draw attention to a lesser known text and body of texts that provide the framework for a condensed and minimalist realization of the heroic, far from the expansive and emotionally explorative monologue and dialogue of Arthurian heroes who have been so profitably discussed in recent days. My concern is heroic understatement and heroic self-disparagement which, I shall argue, is actually the most reduced form of its antithesis. Just at that moment Hjarrandi struck at Helgi, but he warded off the blow with his shield, and Hjarrandi's sword jerked into his face, striking his teeth, and cutting his lower lip.