The text of the following poem is taken from the Book of Leinster, a ms. of about the middle of the twelfth century, preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and recently reproduced in lithographic facsimile. The poem begins p. 206b and ends on the first line of p. 207b. It contains in fifty-four quatrains 216 heptasyllabic lines. I know of no other copy. A free metrical version by the late Dr Anster was published in the , vol. 39, where it is entitled , and the poem is noticed in O'Curry's , p. 305.

The teller of the tale introduces himself as Guaire the Blind. But it soon appears that this is a new name for Oisin (Ossian), the famous son of Find mac Cumaill, whose return to earth, after dwelling 300 years in the Tír na n-Óg, is told so well in a poem printed in the , vol. 4, pp. 234–278, and whose blindness is mentioned in the same book, p. 8. The story now published is not devoid of imagination, and, from the literary point of view, the description of the quartette shrieked by the three-headed hag, the trunk with its solitary eye, the nine headless bodies and the nine bodiless heads has a certain amount of ghastly effectiveness. Moreover, it illustrates various superstitions, manners and customs. Consider the spear with a spell of venom (l. 35), the spits of rowan-tree (l. 158), the sunrise dispersing evil phantoms1. Compare Dasent's , 2d ed., 1859, p. 347: So the Troll turned round, and, of course, as soon as he saw the sun, he burst. (ll. 187–192), the cooking of horseflesh (ll. 157–164), barter (l. 23), and horseracing (ll. 13–20). The poem, lastly, throws some light on the topography of Kerry (see lines 69–89): it contains some words and forms of philological interest, which are mentioned in the notes; and it illustrátes the metrical rules recently investigated by professors Windisch and Thurneysen.