Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Metrical Dindshenchas (Author: [unknown])
poem 69
Mag Mucrime
- Mag Mucrime, that all extol,
the plain where we shall go as familiar visitors,
the plain full of homes and householders,
the kin of fair-haired Eochaid possessed it.
- 5] A land for tillage, smooth and rough alike,
long, wide, and shining;
a flat country where girded swords are seen,
full of oak woods laden with oak fruit.
- "A secret," saith every fortunate host,
10] "is the legend of Mag Mucrime:
needful is the help of sage or bard,"
saith each of them," to illuminate it."
- From the cave of Cruachu, where they were used to dwell,
came a black herd of magical nature,
15] and a demon urged the lean stock
towards Medb and Ailill.
- It was a wondrous property of the herd of swine
a hundred men busy counting them on the same hill,
though they stayed till doomsday counting them,
20] no two would find them alike in number.
- They ravaged fruit and sheen
in the tuneful province of Connacht,
so that nought was left but ruin and blight
in every district that they visited.
p.385
- 25] Ailill and Medb came
to hunt them and number them aright:
and they were found upon the bright sands
in their lairs in Mag Fraich.
- The hunters set to chase them one by one,
30] and to count them right heedfully;
to Medb at Belach na Fert
they were brought all together at a marsh.
- One pig, nimble as a deer, made a spring,
and Medb caught hold of his strong leg,
35] and with the haste of danger he left
his skin in one of her hands.
- From the day that the wild swine were counted
east and west in Mag Fraich,
(it severs not from truthful tales)
40] the plain is called Mag Mucc-rima.
p.387