Arthur Herbert Leahy

“ Each one (of the three) was a pillar of war, yet not a single man has fallen at the hands of one of the three! Truly these heroes are great to be under such wisps of straw as axe the men of this castle! Most worthy is it of scorn that one man has wounded you three!"
"O woe is me," said Bricriu, "long is the length upon the ground of my
Papa Fergus, since one man in single combat laid him low!" ”

“ But thou shalt not stay," said Ailill Finn, "it has been told me that my wife loves thee!" "We must have a gift of cows then," said Fergus, "for a great need lies on us, even the sustenance of the troop who have gone with me into exile." "Thou shalt carry off no such present from me," he said, "because thou art not remaining with me on a visit. Men will say that it is to keep my wife that I gave thee what thou hast required. ”

“ Have ye journeyed here with a force of men? how great is the strength
of your band?"
"Seven score are there here for the fight," he said, "the warriors are
near at hand!"
"Wait here," said she; "to my sisters four I go of the news to tell:
"And with thee we side!" all the maidens cried, "and we trust we shall
aid thee well,"
Away from the princes the maidens sped, they came to their sisters four,
And thus they spoke: "From the Connaught land come men, who are here at
your door;
The sons of Ailill and Maev have come; your own true loves are they!" ”

“ Then the champions of Ulster arise, naked as they were, and make a strong and obstinate attack in their rage and in the might of their violence, so that they forced in the outer gateway till it was in the midst of the castle, and the men of Connaught go beside them. They storm the castle with great might against the valiant warriors who were there. A wild pitiless battle is fought between them, and each man begins to strike out against the other, and to destroy him. ”

“ Here is his wife here in the house of the king, here are his cows in the country in front of you." "Let thy aid come to us," says Conall. Little is my power, save guidance only." "This is Fraech," says Conall, and they are his cows that have been carried off." "Is the woman constant in your estimation?" she says. "Though constant in our estimation when she went, perchance she is not constant after coming." "The woman who frequents the cows, go ye to her; tell ye of your errand; of the men of Ireland her race; of the men of Ulster exactly." ”

“ His sons were called to Ailill, and he spoke with them. "Grateful is he, and a better journey does he go," said Maev, "who goes for the sake of his filial love." "Truly it shall be that it is owing to filial love that we go," said Mani Morgor. "But the reward should (also) for this be the better," said Mani Mingar; "it stands ill with our heroism, ill with our strength. ”

“ Breit may be a strip of woollen material, or a strip of land; so the meaning of a strip of flesh seems possible.
"I will beat thee from me," said he, "with the spear, till thy left or thy right eye bursts from thy head, and thou shalt never have healing from me, if thou leavest me not." "I shall in truth," she said, "be for thee as a white heifer with red ears, and I will go into a lake near to the ford in which thou art in combat against a man who is thine equal in feats, and one hundred white, red-eared cows shall be behind me and 'truth of men' shall on that day be tested ”

“ But the men of Ulster arise, and with them the people of Medb and of Ailill; and they laid waste the castle, and take Flidais out of the castle with them, and carry off the women of the castle into captivity; and they take with them all the costly things and the treasures that were there, gold and silver, and horns, and drinking cups, and keys, and vats; and they take what there was of garments of every colour, and they take what there was of kine, even a hundred milch-cows, and a hundred and forty oxen, and thirty hundred of little cattle. ”

“ Then the men attack him (Ailill Finn) : while they are storming the castle, and they could get no hold on him, a full week long went it thus with them. Seven times twenty heroes from among the nobles of Connaught fell during the time that they (endeavoured) to storm the castle of Ailill the Fair-haired.
"It was with no good omen that with which you went to this castle," said Bricriu. "True indeed is the word that is spoken," said Ailill mac Mata. "The expedition is bad for the honour of the Ulstermen, in that their three heroes fall, and they take not vengeance for them. ”

“ All these were the gifts that the fairy gave, and gaily they made their
start,
And to Croghan's [FN#3] hold, in that guise so brave, away did the host
depart.
[FN#3] Pronounced Crow-han.
On the fort stands a watchman to view them,
And thus news down to Croghan he calls:
"From yon plain comes, in fulness of numbers,
A great army to Croghan's high walls;
And, since Ailill the throne first ascended,
Since the day we hailed Maev as our Queen,
Never army so fair nor so splendid
Yet hath come, nor its like shall be seen." ”

“ In the south-west of Clare.
"We all," said Mani, "must go to one place, and some of you shall be sent to the cattle to summon the young men hither, and the maidens shall drive the cattle over the ford to Cruachan, and shall give Ailill and Medb tidings of the plight in which we are here." The maidens went to Cruachan, and told all the tale. "Thy sons are at Ath Briuin in distress, and have said that help should be brought to them." The men of Connaught with Ailill, and Medb, and Fergus, and the banished men of Ulster went to Ath Briuin to help their people. ”

“ The stress laid on the supernatural cow is peculiar to the version in the later manuscript, the only analogy in the eleventh century version is the semi-supernatural feeding of the army of Ireland, but in this it is a herd (buar) , not a single animal, that is credited with the feat, and there is really nothing supernatural about the matter; it is only the other version that enables us to see the true bearing of the incident. The version in the Glenn Masain Manuscript looks much more ancient in idea than that in the older texts, and is plainly capable of a mythic interpretation. ”

“ His castle was on the bank of the river Nemain, upon the northern side, he was a champion of renown for the guarding of the men of Munster; longer than his hand is the evil he hath wrought. To this man also they appeared, and "What are your names?" said he: "Tecmall and Coscrad (Gathering of Hosts, and Destruction) ," said they. "Gathering of Hosts is indeed good," said Corp Liath, "an evil thing is destruction": "There will be no destruction for thee, and thou shalt destroy the sons of kings and nobles": "And what," said Corp Liath, "is the next thing to be done?" ”

“ Gen-traide, and Gol-traide on cows and women who shall fall by Medb and
Ailill, men who shall perish by the hearing of art from them."
They cease from playing after that in the palace: "It is stately it has come," says Fergus. "Divide ye to us," says Fraech to his people, "the food, bring ye it into the house." Lothur went on the floor of the house: he divides to them the food. On his haunches he used to divide each joint with his sword, and he used not to touch the food part: since he commenced dividing, he never hacked the meat beneath his hand. ”

“ Bricriu approaches Fergus on his return, and induces him to go in the guise of an ambassador to Ailill the Fair, with the secret intention of carrying off Flidais. Fergus receives the sanction of Maev and her husband for his errand, and departs, but not as in the older version with a few followers; all the Ulster exiles are with him. Dubhtach, by killing a servant of Maev, embroils Fergus with the queen of Connaught; and the expedition reaches Ailill the Fair's castle. Fergus sends Bricriu, who has most unwillingly accompanied him, to ask for hospitality ”

“ He a poor man's look is wearing,
Never yet was greater woe!
After the dialogue with Fergus, Bricriu, with the poets that attend him, undertakes a journey to Ailill the Fair, to obtain from him the bounty that Fergus had promised but was unable to grant. He makes a fairly heavy demand upon Ailill's bounty, but is received hospitably, and gets all he had asked for, as well as honour for his poetic talents. He then asks about Ailill's wife Flidais, and is told about her marvellous cow, which was able to supply milk to more than three hundred men at one night's milking. ”

“ Forty is the number of her milch-cows, it is thine own son, Orlam mac Ailill, whom she loves. Let Orlam prepare for his journey with a stately troop of valiant men, also forty sons of those kings who dwell in the land of Connaught; and by me shall be given to them the same equipment that the other youths had who fell in yon fight, bridles and garments and brooches; [early in the morning shall count of the treasure be made, and now we go to our own land," said she] . ”

“ For the assembly of the Gamanrad were with Ailill, and each of the men of Domnan who had bidden himself to come to him to aid him: they were in the same place assembled in his castle; for he knew that the exiles from Ulster and Ailill and Medb with their army would come to him to demand the surrender of Fergus, for Fergus was under their protection.
This was the third race of heroes in Ireland, namely the Clan Gamanrad of Irross Donnan (the peninsula of Donnan) , and (the other two were) the Clan Dedad in Temair Lochra, and the Clan Rudraige in Emain Macha. ”

“ Three cows of them are in Alba of the North with the Cruthnechi (the Picts) ." "Query, what shall I do?" he says to his mother. "Thou shalt do a non-going for seeking them; thou wouldest not give thy life for them," she says. "Thou shalt have cows at my hands besides them." "Not so this," he says: "I have pledged my hospitality and my soul to go to Ailill and to Medb with my cows to the Spoil of the Cows from Cualnge." "What thou seekest shall not be obtained," says his mother. ”

“ The serpent catches him out of the water. "Let a sword come to me from you," he says; and there was not on the land a man who would dare to give it to him through fear of Ailill and Medb. After that Find-abair strips off her clothes, and gives a leap into the water with the sword. Her father lets fly a five-pronged spear at her from above, a shot's throw, so that it passes through her two tresses, and that Fraech caught the spear in his hand. He shoots the spear into the land up, and the monster in his side. ”

“ When the men must be fed of Ireland, led on the Raid for the
Cuailgne [FN#64] Kine!"
Thus Ailill spoke; and Queen Maev replied, "The men to perform that task
Right well I know; for our sons will go, if we for their aid but ask!
The seven daughters of Regamon do the Mani in love now seek:
If those maidens' hands they can gain by the deed, they will heed the
words we speak." ”

“ Inebriety seizes them, and music and amusement delight them. Ailill then said: "Bring ye all my gems to me." They were brought to him then, so that the were before him. "Wonderful, wonderful," says every one. "Call ye Find-abair to me," he says. Find-abair goes to him, and fifty maidens around her. "O daughter," says Ailill, "the ring I gave to thee last year, does it remain with thee? Bring it to me that the warriors may see it. Thou shalt have it afterwards." ”

“ The L.U. version makes Flidais assist in the War of Cualgne by feeding the army of Ailill each seventh day with the produce of her cows; she dies after the war as wife of Fergus; the Glenn Masain version, in the "Pursuit of the Cattle of Flidais," makes the Gamanrad clan, the hero-clan of the West of Ireland, pursue Maev and Fergus, and rescue Flidais and her cow; Flidais then returns to the west with Muiretach Menn, the son of her murdered husband, Ailill the Fair. ”

“ Ailill and Medb hold a conversation. "It shall drive at us several of the kings of Erin around us if he should carry off the daughter. What is good is, let us dash after him, and let us slay him forthwith, before he may inflict destruction upon us." ”

“ I have forty fosterlings, sons of the kings of Munster, to bring them up (to manhood) ; they are here in my company, there are forty cows to supply the needs of these, to supply my own needs are seven times twenty milch-cows [there are fifty men for this cause watching over them] . ”

“ The whole tone of the tale is very unlike the tragic character of those romances, which have been sometimes supposed to represent the general character of old Irish literature: there is not even a hint of the super-natural; the story contains no slaughter; the youthful raiders seem to be regarded as quite irresponsible persons, and the whole is an excellent example of an old Celtic: romance with what is to-day called a "good ending." ”

“ L.L. and Egerton make the end of this speech part of the story: "There was given to them one ox with bacon, with as much as they wished of beer, as a feast for them."
"Out of my house with you all, then!" said Ailill.
"That shall be," said Fergus; "we shall not begin to lay siege to thee and they betake themselves outside.
"Let a man come at once to fight me beside a ford at the gate of this castle!" said Fergus.
"That [FN#98] will not for the sake of my honour be refused," said Ailill; "I will not hand it (the strife) over to another: I will go myself," said he. He went to a ford against him. ”

“ Nia Segamain, that is seg (deer) are a main (his treasure) , for in his time cows and does were milked in the same way every day, so that he had great wealth in these things beyond that of all other kings. The Flidais spoken of above was the mother of Nia Segamain, Adammair's son, for two kinds of cattle, cows and does, were milked in the days of Nia Segamain, and by his mother was that fairy power given to him. ”