‘Go after them,’ says Conaire, ‘and offer them six oxen and six bacon-pigs, and my leavings, and gifts tomorrow, and so long as they shall be in my household no one to be among them from fire to wall.’
The lad then went after them, and overtook them not; but one of the three men answered and said:
‘Lo, my son, great the news. Weary are the steeds we ride. We ride the steeds of Donn Tetscorach(?) from the elfmounds. Though we are alive we are dead. Great are the signs; destruction of life: sating of ravens: feeding of crows22, strife of slaughter: wetting of sword-edge, shields with broken bosses in hours after sundown. Lo, my son!’
Then they go from him.