enter the plain of Murthemne or into the land of Ross.  Three winter months is he there.[6] The youth is wounded, his limbs are out of joint.  Spancel-hoops hold his cloak over him.  There is not a hair from his crown to his sole whereon the point of a needle could stand, without a drop of deep-red [W.4737.] blood on the top of each hair, except his left hand alone which is holding his shield, and even there thrice fifty bloody wounds are upon it.  And unless ye avenge this betimes, ye will never avenge it till the end of time and of life.”

    [2-2] Stowe.

    [3-3] YBL. 44a, 9.

    [4-4] YBL. 44a, 13.

    [5-5] YBL. 44a, 13.

    [6-6] YBL. 44a, 15.

[LL.fo.94a.] “Fitter is death and doom and destruction for the man that so incites the king!” quoth Cathba the druid.  “In good sooth, it is true!” [1]said the Ulstermen[1] all together.

    [1-1] Stowe.

[2]Thereupon[2] Sualtaim went his way [3]from them,[3] indignant and angry because from the men of Ulster he had not had the answer that served him.  Then reared Liath (’the Roan’) of Macha under Sualtaim and dashed on to the ramparts of Emain.  Thereat [4]Sualtaim fell under his own shield, so that[4] his own shield turned on Sualtaim and the [5]scalloped[5] edge of the shield severed Sualtaim’s head, [6]though others say he was asleep on the stone, and that he fell thence onto his shield on awaking.[6] [7]Hence this is the ’Tragical Death of Sualtaim.’[7]

    [2-2] Stowe.

    [3-3] Stowe.

    [4-4] Stowe.

    [5-5] YBL. 44a, 28.

    [6-6] YBL. 44a, 32-33.

    [7-7] Stowe.

The horse himself turned back again to Emain, and the shield on the horse and the head on the shield.  And Sualtaim’s head uttered the same words:  “Men are slain, women stolen, cattle lifted, ye men of Ulster!” spake the head of Sualtaim.

“Some deal too great is that cry,” quoth Conchobar; “for yet is the sky above us, the earth underneath and the sea round about us.  And unless the heavens shall fall with their showers of stars on the man-like[a] face of the world, or unless the ground burst open in quakes [8]beneath our feet,[8] or unless the furrowed, blue-bordered ocean break o’er the tufted brow of the earth, will I restore [W.4756.] to her byre and her stall, to her abode and her dwelling-place, each and every cow and woman of them with victory of battle and contest and combat!”

    [a] Reading with LL. 5027 and 5975, which gives better meaning than the
    expression ‘fort-face,’ of LL.

    [8-8] Stowe.

Thereupon a runner of his body-guard was summoned to Conchobar, Findchad Ferbenduma (’he of the copper Horn’) to wit, son of Fraech Lethan (’the Broad’), and Conchobar bade him go assemble and muster the men of Ulster.  And in like manner, in the drunkenness of sleep and of his ‘Pains,’ Conchobar enumerated to him their quick and their dead, and he uttered these words:—­