Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Buile Suibhne (Author: [unknown])
paragraph 67
- Mournful am I to-night,
I am sad and wretched, my side is naked,
if folk but knew me
I have cause for lament.
p.127
- Frost, ice, snow, and storm,
forever scourging me,
I without fire, without house,
on the summit of Sliabh Eidhneach.
- I have a mansion and a good wife,
everyone would say that I was a prince;
'tis He who is Lord and King
has wrought my downfall.
- Wherefore did God rescue me from the battle
that no one was found there to slay me,
rather than that I should go step by step
with the hag of the mill?
- The hag of the mill at her house,
Christ's curse on her soul!
woe whosoever has trusted the hag!
woe to whom she has given his dog's portion!
- Loingseachan was on my track
throughout every wilderness in Erin,
until he lured me from the tree
what time he related my son's death.
- He carried me into the great house
wherein the host was feasting,
and bound me behind in the house (?)
face to face with my first love.
- The people of the house without reproach
playing games and laughing;
I and my folk in the house
leaping and jumping.
p.129
- Were it not for the hag of the house,
I would not have gone again into madness;
she besought me by Christ of Heaven
to leap for her a little while.
- I leaped a leap or two
for the sake of the Heavenly Father Himself;
the hag at her house said
that even so could she herself leap.
- Once more I leaped out
over the top of the fortress;
swifter than smoke through a house
was the flight of the hag.
- We wandered through all Erin,
from Teach Duinn to Traigh Ruire,
from Traigh Ruire to Benna Brain,
but the hag I did not elude.
- Through plain and bog and hillside
I escaped not from the slattern
until she leaped with me the famous leap
to the summit of Dun Sobairce.
- Thereafter I leaped down the dun,
nor did I step back,
I went out into the sea,
yonder I left the hag.
- There came then to the strand
the devil's crew to meet her,
and they bore away her body;
woe to the land of Erin in which it was buried!
p.131
- Once as I passed over Sliabh Fuaid
on a dark, black, gloomy night,
on the hill I beheld five heads,
having been cut off in one place.
- Said one of them of a sudden
harsh was the voice to me
a madman of Ulster, follow him
so that you drive him before you to the sea.
- I sped before them along the path
and I set not foot on ground;
both goat-head and dog-head
then began to curse.
- 'Tis right that I should get harm;
many a night have I leaped a lake,
many eyes of fond women
have I made weep.