Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Metrical Dindshenchas (Author: [unknown])
poem 12
Fornocht
- Bare is thy keep, O Druim Den!
bare and desolate thy rampart and thy site:
I see it, of the bloom that bedecked thee
from now till Doomsday shalt thou be bare.
- 5] Lovely are thy borders and thy outskirts,
pleasant the calling of cuckoos that dwell with thee,
radiant thy rampart, spacious and seemly,
thy keep of the oak woods and the green leafage.
- A shelter wast thou against need and sorrow;
10] thou wast a fence and a forest fortress,
our desire is to set back and front
against thy rampart and toward thy wide demesne.
- I in the west of Inis Fail,
thou in the east, a-blaze;
15] the pasturing herd grazes in the grass-meadow,
the meal is ground and the miller away.
- Seldom comes one that is Find's better;
all renown shall be humbled;
thou shalt be a lodging of tearful austere women,
20] though thou art grassgrown and bare.
p.99
- 'Twas to avenge thee, O Druim Den,
that Ossin and white-skinned Cailte
slew Unchi in his spite
at the Ford of Unchi Eochairbel.
- 25] One and thrice seven came thither
with Unchi corpulent and crooked-mouthed;
they were slain in their sevens
in the week about Samain-tide.
- Unchi (by reason of his warlike rage)
30] is bereft of his lean head;
tall men bore it off in silence,
zealously and in bareness.
p.101