Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Metrical Dindshenchas (Author: [unknown])
poem 8
p.51
Lagin I
The princes were slain round their king
(it was an ill deed, it was matter for wrath):
the Dumb Exile of martial might burnt
Cobthach Cael, son of Ugaine.
5] Till that crime, Tuaim Tenbath was the name
of the noble kingly hold, the noted hill,
till Labraid full of valour sacked it,
when he made a slaughter of its young men.
From the day he was slain (this is sooth)
10] even Cobthach Cael, with his thirty kings,
till the birth of the Son of Mary
is five hundred years ever pure.
The beginning of struggle and strife was
the vengeance of Cobthach on Loegaire:
15] thereby fell Cobthach of the cairn
by the grandson of Loegaire fierce and fell.
There came on the march to that slaying
Labraid and thirty hundred of the Dub-Gaill
in a muster, warlike and staunch,
20] with their deep-blue lances.
From those lances thenceforth
were the men of Leinster called the Spearmen;
at the hand of the Dumb Exile, with heavy disaster,
by these lances Cobthach Cael was slain.
25] This doom shall abide with his family till the Last Day
that there be war between kindred kings:
the destruction of Oilill and Loegaire
at the hand of Cobthach Cael was the first slaying.
p.53