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of being so visited was sought for with pride and satisfaction 
by the kings of Ireland. 
Seanchan having consulted with his people, they decided 
on giving the distinguished preference of their first visitation 
to his own provincial king, Guairé the Hospitable, king of Con- 
nacht. They were received hospitably and joyfully at the 
king’s palace, at the place now called Gort, in the county of 
Galway. During the sojourn of Senchan at Gort, his wife, 
Bridget, on one occasion sent him from her own table a 
portion of a certain favourite dish. Senchan was not in his 
apartment when the servant arrived there; but the dish was 
left there, and the servant returned to her mistress. On Sen- 
chan’s return, he found a dish from his wife’s table on his 
own ; and, eagerly examining it, he was sadly disappointed at 
finding that it contained nothing but a few fragments of gnawed. 
bones. Shortly after, the same servant returned for the dish, 
and Senchan asked what its contents had been. The maid 
explained it to him, and the angry poet threw an unmistake- 
able glance of suspicion onher. She, under his glance, at once 
asserted her own innocence, and stated at the same time, that 
as no person could have entered the apartment from the time 
that she left until he returned to it, the dish must have been 
emptied by mice.* 
Senchan believed the girl’s account, and vowed that he 
would make the mice pay for their depredations, and then he 
composed a metrical satire on them. Of this we have but two 
and an half quatrains, of which the following is a literal trans- 
lation :— 
Mice, though sharp their snouts, 
Are not powerful in battles ; 
I will bring death on the party 
For having eaten Bridget’s present. 
* Luchis the generic name, and is qualified by mor, big, as Luch Mhor, 
abig mouse, or arat. The modern Francach, literally a Frenchman, now used 
for a rat, is not found in any ancient Irish document known to the writer. 
