304 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



127. There is a month wheu a king does not go accompanied but by 

 three (lit. does not go but four). What are the four ? King and judge and 

 two in servitorship. "Wliat month does he go in this wise ? The month of 

 sowing. 



128. To be wounded in the back, too, in fleeing from combat gives him a 

 vassal's dire, unless it be that he has gone through them (his enemies) [and so 

 receives a wound in the back], for it is in such a case that dire for a king's 

 back is paid as for his front. 



129. There is, too, a weekly order in the dutj' of a king, to wit : Sunday 

 for drruking ale, for he is no rightful ruler who does not provide ale for every 

 Sunday ; Monday for judgment, for the adjustment of tuatha ; Tuesday for 

 playing chess ; Wednesday for watching deer-hounds at the chase : Thursday 

 for the society of his wife; Friday for horseracing; Saturday for judging 

 cases.' 



IV 336. — 130. There are three fastings which do not aggrieve (?) a king : 

 (first), if a king be at a cauldron that has leaked : fasting when there 

 has been default (in providing) a joint of his supply (?), but so that evil men 

 are not sent to slay him ; fasting when there has been refusal (of hospitality), 

 for (in that case) he is entitled to more than (he loses by) the offence, since he 

 is entitled to his honourprice. 



131. Question — Who is proper and right to make a king's food ? A man 

 of action of three captures. What are these ? A man who makes a capture 

 in single combat by piercing the (other} man through his shield ; a man who 

 takes a man alive, capturing him in combat ; a man who kills a stag with one 

 stroke, finishing him ; a man who takes a prisoner without aid (?) ; a man who 

 captures a champion in front of an army so that he falls from one thrust.' 



132. There are, too, three exactions for which they do not sue a king : 

 exaction from an (external) tv.ath that avoids him when he invades it : exaction 

 when there is an external king with him in his own tv.ath, if he reach not his 

 man ; exaction of dry cattle in waste land that have come in over the border. 

 He makes restitution to everyone to whom the cattle belong in the two last 

 exactions, but he does not make restitution in the first, unless it be an 

 unrightful invasion.'' 



' Apparently the king on Monday sits as judge in matters of state, on Saturday in 

 ordinary litigation. Wiere the plural, tuatha, appears, the irrit^rhas a superior king in 

 view. The programme is, no doubt, artificial, and serves to set forth a statement of a 

 king's ordinary occupations — hospitality, presiding in his court, outdoor sports, and 

 domestic life. 



- Possibly an original three has been expanded to five by a later writ-er. 



' Here, as in many other passages, invasion of a neighbouring territory is regarded as 

 a lawful form of levying a claim. In the first instance, the claim being evaded, the 



