“Welcome, O master Conaire!” quoth he.  “Though the bulk of the men of Erin were to come with thee, they themselves would have a welcome.”

When they were there they saw a lone woman coming to the door of the Hostel, after sunset, and seeking to be let in.  As long as a weaver’s beam was each of her two shins, and they were as dark as the back of a stag-beetle.  A greyish, wooly mantle she wore.  Her lower hair used to reach as far as her knee.  Her lips were on one side of her head.

She came and put one of her shoulders against the doorpost of the house, casting the evil eye on the king and the youths who surrounded him in the Hostel.  He himself addressed her from within.

“Well, O woman,” says Conaire, “if thou art a wizard, what seest thou for us?”

“Truly I see for thee,” she answers, “that neither fell nor flesh of thine shall escape from the place into which thou hast come, save what birds will bear away in their claws.”

“It was not an evil omen we foreboded, O woman,” saith he:  “it is not thou that always augurs for us.  What is thy name, O woman?”

“Cailb,” she answers.

“That is not much of a name,” says Conaire.

“Lo, many are my names besides.”

“Which be they?” asks Conaire.

“Easy to say,” quoth she.  “Samon, Sinand, Seisclend, Sodb, Caill, Coll,
Dichoem, Dichiuil, Dithim, Dichuimne, Dichruidne, Dairne, Darine,
Deruaine, Egem, Agam, Ethamne, Gnim, Cluiche, Cethardam, Nith, Nemain,
Noennen, Badb, Blosc, B[l]oar, Huae, oe Aife la Sruth, Mache,
Mede, Mod.”

On one foot, and holding up one hand, and breathing one breath she sang all that to them from the door of the house.

“I swear by the gods whom I adore,” says Conaire, “that I will call thee by none of these names whether I shall be here a long or a short time.”

“What dost thou desire?” says Conaire.

“That which thou, too, desirest,” she answered.

“’Tis a tabu of mine,” says Conaire, “to receive the company of one woman after sunset.”

“Though it be a tabu,” she replied, “I will not go until my guesting come at once this very night.”

“Tell her,” says Conaire, “that an ox and a bacon-pig shall be taken out to her, and my leavings:  provided that she stays tonight in some other place.”

“If in sooth,” she says, “it has befallen the king not to have room in his house for the meal and bed of a solitary woman, they will be gotten apart from him from some one possessing generosity—­if the hospitality of the Prince in the Hostel has departed.”

“Savage is the answer!” says Conaire.  “Let her in, though it is a tabu of mine.”

Great loathing they felt after that from the woman’s converse, and ill-foreboding; but they knew not the cause thereof.

The reavers afterwards landed, and fared forth till they were at Lecca cinn slebe.  Ever open was the Hostel.  Why it was called a Bruden was because it resembles the lips of a man blowing a fire.