Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Expulsion of the Dessi (Author: Unknown)

paragraph 19

They did so. And Dil accepted the gift, and the girl divided it and opened (?)... before them. Dil, however, was blind. Then, when he was drunk, the maiden asked him before his two foster-sons: ‘O my venerable (father)’ said she, ‘will there be rescue for the Dessi now?’ ‘Indeed, there will be,’ said Dil, ‘if the sun rise upon them in battle-order and they slay and wound no one. For he who will first slay or wound any one of the other host to-morrow morning, shall not inhabit this land till Doom.’ ‘Perhaps there will be no

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slaying then,’ said the girl, so that the young men should hear it. ‘If I were in the company of the Dessi, I should by magic shape a man into a red cow, so that the men of Ossory would kill that cow.’