Verse 7, line 2.  Leis falmag dar sin tuaith, “By him Ireland (shall be roused) over the people.”  The omitted verb is apparently “to be,” as above.  Line 4 of the same verse is left untranslated in A.O., it is ata neblai luim luaith.  It seems to mean “There is nothing on the plain for bareness (luim) of ashes,” more literally, “There is a no-plain for, &c.”

Verse 9, lines 2, 3.  Isi ním dení cutal.  Ailbe do roid dia.  “It does not make sorrow for me; as for Ailbe, “God sent him” seems to be the sense; but the meaning of cutal is obscure.

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Line 8.  “Forty oxen as side-dishes,” lit. “forty oxen crosswise to it” (dia tarsnu).  The Rawlinson Ms. gives “sixty oxen to drag it” (dia tarraing).

Line 33.  “The son of Dedad.”  Clan Dedad was the Munster hero clan, having their fortress in Tara Luachra; they correspond to the more famous Clan Rury of Ulster, whose stronghold was Emain Macha.  Curoi of Munster seems to have been a rival hero to Cuchulain.

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Line 20.  “Pierced through with a spear.”  The different ways in which Ket claims to have conquered his rivals or their relations may be noted; the variety of them recalls the detailed descriptions of wounds and methods of killing so common in Homer.  There are seven victories claimed, and in no two is the wound the same, a point that distinguishes several of the old Irish romances from the less elaborate folk-tales of other nations.  Arthur’s knights in Malory “strike down” each other, very occasionally they “pierce through the breast” or “strike off a head,” but there is seldom if ever more detail.  In the Volsunga Saga men “fall,” or are “slain,” in a few cases of the more important deaths they are “pierced,” or “cut in half,” but except in the later Niebelungenlied version where Siegfried is pierced through the cross embroidered on his back, a touch which is essential to the plot, none of the Homeric detail as to the wounds appears.  The same remark applies to the saga of Dietrich and indeed to most others; the only cases that I have noticed which resemble the Irish in detail are in the Icelandic Sagas (the Laxdale Saga and others), and even there the feature is not at all so prominent as here, in the “Tain be Cuailnge,” and several other Irish romances, though it is by no means common to all of them.  It may be noted that the Irish version of the “Tale of Troy” shows this feature, and although it is possible that the peculiarity is due to the great clearness and sharpness of detail that characterises much of the early Irish work, it may be that this is a case of an introduction into Irish descriptions of Homeric methods.