Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The destruction of Da Derga's Hostel (Author: [unknown])

section 87

The Room of Mac cecht, Conaire's battle-soldier.

There I beheld another room with a trio in it, three half-furious45 nobles: the biggest of them in the middle, very noisy [...], rockbodied, angry, smiting, dealing strong blows, who beats nine hundred in battle-conflict. A wooden shield, dark, covered with iron, he bears, with a hard [...] rim, a shield whereon would fit the proper litter of four troops of ten weaklings on its [...] of [...] leather. A [...]


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boss thereon, the depth of a caldron, fit to cook four oxen, a hollow maw, a great boiling, with four swine in its mid-maw great [...]. At his two smooth sides are two five-thwarted boats fit for three parties of ten in each of his two strong fleets.

A spear he hath, blue-red, hand-fitting, on its puissant shaft. It stretches along the wall on the roof and rests on the ground. An iron point upon it, dark-red, dripping. Four amply-measured feet between the two points of its edge.

Thirty amply-measured feet in his deadly-striking sword from dark point to iron hilt. It shews forth fiery sparks which illumine the Mid-court House from roof to ground.

'Tis a strong countenance that I see. A swoon from horror almost befell me while staring at those three. There is nothing stranger.

Two bare hills were there by the man with hair. Two loughs by a mountain of the [...] of a blue-fronted wave: two hides by a tree. Two boats near them full of thorns of a white thorntree on a circular board. And there seems to me somewhat like a slender stream of water on which the sun is shining, and its trickle down from it, and a hide arranged behind it, and a palace house-post shaped like a great lance above it. A good weight of a plough-yoke is the shaft that is therein. Liken thou that, O Fer rogain!


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