We see all on every side, and yet no one seeth us, the cloud of the sin of Adam it is that encompasses us from the reckoning.

O woman, if thou wilt come to my strong people, it is top of head of gold shall be on thy head, unsalted pork, new milk and mead for drink shalt thou have with me there, O fair-haired woman.

Line 2.  Hi fil rind.  The meaning of rind (?) music) is uncertain.

Line 3.  Is barr sobarche folt and.  This line is often translated as “hair is wreathed with primrose”:  the image would be better, but it is not the Irish.  Barr is “top of head,” and folt is “hair.”

Line 4.  Is and nad bi mui na tai.  Muisse is in old Irish the possessive of the first sing when followed by a noun it becomes mo, when not so followed it is mui; tai is also found for do.  O’Curry gave this line as “there is no sorrow nor care.”

Lines 7 and 10.  Is li sula lin ar sluag and is li sula ugai luin are so similar that is li sula must mean the same in both, and cannot mean “splendour of eyes” in the first case unless it does so in the second.  The idea in the first case seems to be that the hosts are reflected in the eyes; it is so rendered in the verse translation.  A blackbird’s egg has a blue ground, but is so thickly powdered with brown spots of all shapes that it looks brown at a distance.  At first I was inclined to take the idea to be “hazel” eyes, but comparing line 7, it seems more likely that the idea is that all sorts of shapes appear in the pupil.

Line 12.  The translation of annam as a “wilderness” is very doubtful, it more probably is “seldom”; and the line should be “seldom will it be so after knowledge of, &c.”

Line 16.  This has always been rendered “no youth there grows to old age.”  But the Irish is ni thecht oac and re siun, and re siun can only mean “before an old (man).”  The sense possibly is, that as men do not become feeble with advancing years, the younger man has not the same advantage over his elders in the eyes of women that he has in this world.

Line 17.  Teith millsi, “smooth and honey-sweet” (Meyer, MacCongl., p. 196).

Line 24.  Compare a story of some magical pigs that could not be counted accurately (Revue Celtique, vol. xiii. p. 449).

Line 31.  Muc ur, “unsalted pork”; see Glossary to Laws, p. 770; also MacConglinne (Kuno Meyer), p, 99.

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Line 23.  “He ascended.”  Fosrocaib for sosta:  fosrocaib is an unknown compound (=fo-sro-od-gaib).  Perhaps frisocaib for sosta, “mounted on the heights.”

Line 29.  Co brainni a da imdae, “to the edges of his two shoulders”; see braine, in Meyer’s Contributions.

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Line 19.  “Casting their light on every side,” cacha air di = cacha airidi, “in every direction.”

Line 25.  “If thou dost obtain the forfeit of my stake,” mad tu beras mo thocell.  For tocell see Zimmer, Kuhn’s Zeitsch., xxx. 80.