INTRODUCTIOX. xvii 



And Finn was loth to do it. However, he put his thumb into his moutb, 

 and chevved it to the bone, and thence to the marrovv, and thence to the 

 sap, and knowledge was revealed to him, and he spoke : ' The time will 

 come,' said he, ' in which there will be monks in this place in which 

 we are to-night, serving the almighty lord who has made heaven and 

 earth, sun and moon, the air with its great . . . and truly this spot will be 

 a place of bells and cells to the end of the world. And this battle of 

 Ventry will be fought for a day and a year, and there will be fresh 

 fighting every single day to the end of the year, and a great number will 

 fall on either side, but I know not which of us will obtain victory, for the 

 blood of my finger and the fat and the marrow are exhausted.' Then 

 spoke Oscur to Lugach and to Cailte mac Ronain : ' Come with me, 

 warriors,' said he, ' to visit the good hero who is watching the harbours, 

 and that we may have leisure to redden our hands in the blood of 

 the foreigners, before the fianns of Erinn join us to-morrow.' They 

 went on to the cairn of the watch. Then desire of sleep came over 

 Oscur and he said : ' Stay with me, ye warriors,' said he ' that I may 

 take a little sleep here, for I shall be the better for it for the fight 

 to-morrow.' And he lay down on the cairn, and Mac Lugach on h's 

 right side, and Cailte on his left. 



That was the hour and the time that the King of the World told his 

 captains to go ashore and to bring him spoil. And they went ashore and 

 raised a great shout, and the people of the ships raised a shout at the 

 same time. 'I svvear,' said Cailte, 'that I have gone round the whole 

 world, but never before did I hear such a number of human voices in one 

 spot.' Then Oscur at this shout leapt in his sleep nine furrows from the 

 cairn, and raised himself up, and he had a battle club to break a battalion 

 in his left hand and a sword in his right, and he went in a hostile rush 

 among the host of the King of the World, and gave two blows against 

 each other with his club and with his sword, and it is said, never before 

 or after was there onc double-blow through which more mcn fell than 

 (through) those mighty blows that the powerful Oscur dcalt among the 

 hosts of the King of the World, for there lay nine times nine in their bed 

 of blood from it. When Conncrithir and Glas the son of Dreman heard 

 the noise of those blows, they understood that it was Oscur that was 

 among the foreignerS; and they went towards hini. And Oscur placed 



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