Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Buile Suibhne (Author: [unknown])

paragraph 22

So Suibhne fared forth until he reached the church at Snamh dha En on the Shannon, which is now called Cluain Boirenn; he arrived there on a Friday, to speak precisely. The clerics of the church were then fulfilling the office of nones; women were beating flax, and one was giving birth to a child. ‘It is not meet, in sooth,’ said Suibhne, ‘for the women to violate the Lord's fast-day; even as the woman beats the flax,’ said he, ‘so were my folk beaten in the battle of Magh Rath.’ He heard then the vesper-bell pealing, whereupon he said:‘Sweeter indeed were it to me to hear the voices of the cuckoos on the banks of the Bann from every side than the grig-graig of this bell which I hear to- night’; and he uttered the lay: