“Say to the cold Aed Allan that I have been oppressed by
a feeble enemy: 

Aed Roin insulted me last night at Cill Cunna of the sweet
music.”

Aed Allan made these verses on his way to battle to avenge the insult: 

“For Cill Cunna the church of my spiritual father,
I take this day a journey on the road. 
Aed Roin shall leave his head with me,
Or I shall leave my head with him.”

The further history of that same year, 733, is best told in the words of the Annals:  “Aed Allan, king of Ireland, assembled his forces to proceed into Leinster, and he arrived at the Ford of Seannait (in Kildare).  The Leinstermen collected the greatest number they were able, to defend their rights against him.  The king Aed Allan himself went into the battle, and the chieftains of the north along with him.  The chieftains of Leinster came with their kings into the battle, and bloodily and heroically was the battle fought between them.  Heroes were slaughtered and bodies were hacked.  Aed Allan and Aed, son of Colgan, king of Leinster, met each other, and Aed son of Colgan was slain by Aed Allan.  The Leinstermen were killed, slaughtered, cut off, and dreadfully exterminated in this battle, so that there escaped of them but a small remnant and a few fugitives.”

To round out the picture, to contrast the two streams of the nation’s life, let us give this, from the following year:  “734:  Fifth year of Aed Allan.  Saint Samtain, virgin, of Cluain Bronaig (Longford), died on December 19.  It was of her that Aed Allan gave this testimony: 

“Samtain for enlightening various sinners,
A servant who observed stern chastity,
In the wide plain of fertile Meath
Great suffering did Samtain endure;
She undertook a thing not easy,—­
Fasting for the kingdom above. 
She lived on scanty food;
Hard were her girdles;
She struggled in venomous conflicts;
Pure was her heart amid the wicked. 
To the bosom of the Lord, with a pure death,
Samtain passed from her trials.”

X.

The raids of the Northmen.

A.D. 750-1050.

Aed Allan, the king who so feelingly wrote the epitaph of the saintly virgin Samtain, needed an epitaph himself four years later, for he fell in battle with Domnall son of Murcad son of Diarmaid, who succeeded him on the throne.  It is recorded that, in the following year, the sea cast ashore a whale under the mountains of Mourne, to the great wonder of those who dwelt by the hill of Rudraige.  Thus do the Chronicles establish their good faith, by putting on record things trifling or grave, with equal impartiality.