Line 10.  “Three wands of yew.”  This looks like an early case of a divining-rod.

Line 21.  “Hath smitten thee,” rotirmass for ro-t-ormaiss, “hath hit thee.”

Line 29.  “They ruined,” “docuas ar,” an idiomatic phrase; “they overcame,” an idiomatic phrase.  Compare Annals of Ulster under years 1175, 1315, 1516.

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Line 2.  “Messbuachalla.”  This makes Etain the great-grandmother of Conary, the usual account makes her the grandmother, so that there is here an extra generation inserted.  Yet in the opening she and Eochaid Airem are contemporary with kings who survived Conary!

Line 4.  “The fairy host, &c.”  The order of the words in the original is misleading and difficult sithchaire and Mider are the subjects to ro choillsiut and to doronsat.

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Line 12.  That there should be adjusted)” fri commus, lit. “for valuation,” but commus has also the sense of “adjusting.”

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Line 4.  “Since he for a long time, &c.,” fodaig dognith abairt dia sirsellad.  See Meyer’s Contributions, s.v. abairt.

Line 23.  “To gaze at her.”  Up to this point the L.U. version (exclusive of the Prologue) bears the character of an abstract, afterwards the style improves.

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Line 2.  “But it shall not be in the abode, &c.”  Windisch seems to have mimed the point here, he considers these lines to be an interpolation.

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Line 5.  Following Windisch’s suggestion, this poem has been placed here instead of the later place where it occurs in the text.  This famous poem has been often translated; but as there appear to be points in it that have been missed, a complete literal rendering is appended: 

O fair-haired woman, will you come with me into a marvellous land wherein is music (?); the top of the head there is hair of primrose, the body up to the head is colour of snow.

In that country is no “mine” and no “thine”; white are teeth there, black are eyebrows, the colour of the eyes is the number of our hosts, each cheek there the hue of the foxglove.

The purple of the plain is (on) each neck, the colour of the eyes is (colour of) eggs of blackbird; though pleasant to the sight are the plains of Fal (Ireland), they are a wilderness (7) for a man who has known the Great Plain.

Though intoxicating to ye the ale of the island of Fal, the ale of the Great Country is more intoxicating a wonder of a land is the land I speak of, a young man there goes not before an old man.

Stream smooth and sweet flow through the land, there is choice of mead and wine; men handsome (?) without blemish, conception without sin, without crime.