Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Metrical Dindshenchas (Author: [unknown])

poem/story 2

ESS RUAID II

  1. There came a soldier to Aed ruad, if any care to hear tell of him; a match for a hundred men was the goodly soldier, and the wage of a hundred men satisfied him.
  2. To have one man's portion of meat and drink, to be match for a hundred in the hour of weapons, those were the soldier's terms that came one day to Aed.
  3. Unfamiliar here is the story of the soldier of the troop-girt son of Badorn: though he did the deed openly, few there are that know of it.
  4. ‘Stay with me for a year, and thou shalt have this, fair soldier: bind on us all thine asking, and perform all thy promise.’
  5. At the year's end the blameless soldier demanded his wage: ‘I will never give’, quoth Aed, ‘aught but the like wage as any soldier gets.’
  6. While they were in quarrel thereabout, in the same way, after the year was done, the king of the strongholds and towers entered the rapids to bathe.
  7. Up rose the soldier fiercely, holding his tall spear-shafts: he roused his sureties against Aed in presence of the men of Erin.

    8. p.9

  8. ‘Though thou set the sea against me,’ said the comely high-king of Erin, ‘thou shalt never get from me aught but the same as any soldier.’
  9. He set the sea against him in presence of the men of Erin, so that Aed Ruad was drowned by the water, for the sake of the soldier's wage.
  10. The name Ess Ruaid fixed from that day upon the rapid, and shall abide for ever: Ess Duind was formerly its name from Dond son of Dubán, son of Bile.
  11. The first blameless soldier to receive hire or wage was Fiachu son of Nemed, before all: of the race of the Lagin was that soldier.