In this MS., as elsewhere bruidem, bruigen frequently means ‘a mansion’, ‘a castle’, as well as ‘a hostel’, or public place of entertainment. The old writers mention six rig-bruidens or royal hostels as existing in Ireland at this time. These were Bruiden dá Choca, ‘in a district which belongs to Meave and Ailill’; Bruiden dá Ger, or Bruiden mic Cecht da ren, in Connaught (Brefny); Bruiden Brúadaig, in Ulster; Bruiden Forgaill Manach (whose daughter, Eimhir, was the wife of Cuchulainn), beside Lusk; Bruiden dá Derga (Berga) in the east of Leinster; and Bruiden mic dá thó, also in Leinster. The definite number six may have been fixed upon, as Whitley Stokes suggests, to correspond with the six cities of refuge of the Hebrews, to which the bruidens of the Gael bore some analogy. All the bruidens, we are told, were asylums of the ‘red hand’—(Ba coimeirque laíme deirce nach bruiden (Rc. xxi. 314). The writer of this MS. would uphold the importance of the bruiden of Moda Minadhmadadh, and he gives details which add somewhat to our knowledge of the old Gaelic life. Two of the rules of the road which the brugaid or hospitaller observed,—‘welcome to all’, ‘refusal to none’,—need no explanation; they are in vogue now. Coire ansgoich, as here written, coire ansguith elsewhere, ‘the irremovable caldron’, is no doubt the caire ainric, ‘the never dry’ or ‘ever full caldron’ of The Laws. In each bruiden a caldron (or caldrons) stood which was never empty. Every guest, as he entered, had the privilege of thrusting a flesh fork into this caldron once. What he took up he might eat. But if he took nothing, he had not a second chance: In fer do theiged iar sin t-shligi, do berad in n-ail is in coire, ocus na tabrad don' chet gabhail, iss ed no ithed. Mani thucad ní do'n chét todall, ni berad a n-aill. (Irische Texte i 96). The function of the cerd in Moda's hostelry is new to me. He deals not with feasting, but with fighting. But the rendering I give of the cerd's triad is largely conjectural. The phrases were evidently technical and of definite meaning.