So be it! said Curithir. Are you the owner of the court? Not I, said Curithir; whence are you yourself? I am the poor fool of the Dessi, Mac Da Cherda is my name.

We have heard of you, said Curithir. Will you go into the court?.

I will, said he. Do me a favour, said Curithir. The tall woman who is there, tell her, using your own wits, to come to this well. What is your name? Liadain. What is yours? Curithir Otter's son. Right! quoth he. He goes into the house. She was there in her bed-room with four other women. Down he sat, but no notice was taken of him. 'Twas then he said: The mansion Which the pillars support— If any there be who have made a tryst, The behest for them is till sunset. It were timely one should visit thee, O well which art before the house, Around it larks Fair, hesitating (?), take flight. Darkness is on my eyes, I make nothing of indications, So that I call Liadain (the Grey Lady) Every woman whom I do not know. O woman with the firm foot, Thy like for great fame I have not found: Under nun's veil will not be known A woman with more sense. The son of the beast That stays at night under pools, As he waits for you, Pale-grey feet with points support him.

It is after this she went with Curithir, and they put themselves under the spiritual direction of Cummine the Tall, the son of Fiachna.

Good, said Cummine. It is many of my morsels that are offered up. The power of soul-friendship be upon you! Whether for you shall it be seeing, or talking together?

Talking for us! said Curithir. What will come of it will be better. We have ever been looking at each other.

So whenever he went around the grave-stones of the saints, her cell was closed upon her. In the same way his would be closed upon him whenever she went. 'Tis then she said: [Líadan] Curithir, once the poet, I loved; the profit has not reached me: Dear lord of two grey feet, It will be alas to be without their company for ever! The flagstone to the south of the oratory Upon which is he who was poet once, It is there I often go each day, At eve after the triumph of prayer. He shall have neither cow Nor yearlings nor heifers, Never a mate shall be At the right hand of him who once was a poet. Curithir says: Beloved is the dear voice that I hear, I dare not welcome it! But this only do I say: Beloved is this dear voice! Says the woman: The voice which comes to me through the wattled wall, It is right for it to blame me: What the voice does to me, is It will not let me sleep. [She expostulates with Cummine and exculpates herself.] Thou man, ill it is what thou dost, To name me with Curithir: He from the brink of Lough Seng, I from Kil-Conchinn.