wont of a good king to retreat."

[1-1] YBL. 45b, 22.

[2-2] YBL. 45b, 23-26.

[3-3] Stowe.

[4-4] Stowe and H. 1. 13.

[5-5] Stowe and H. 1. 13.

"Who should fitly go thither?" asked all. "Who but macRoth our chief runner
yonder," [6]answered another group of them.[6]

[6-6] Stowe and H. 1. 13.

[W.5023.] MacRoth went his way to survey the great wide-spreading plain of
Meath. Not long was macRoth there when he heard something: A rush and a
crash and a clatter and a clash. Not slight the thing he judged it to be,
but as though it was the firmament itself that fell on the man-like face of
the world, or as though it was the furrowed, blue-bordered ocean that broke
o'er the tufted brow of the earth, or as though the ground had gone asunder
in quakes, or as though the forest fell, each of the trees in the crotches
and forks and branches of the other. But why give further accounts! The
wood's wild beasts were hunted out on the plain, so that beneath them the
grassy forelocks of the plain of Meath were not to be seen.

MacRoth hastened to tell this tale at the place where were Ailill and Medb
and Fergus and the nobles of the men of Erin. MacRoth related the whole
matter to them.

"What was that there, O Fergus?" asked Ailill; [1]"to what likenest thou
it?"[1] "Not hard [2]for me to say what it resembled.[2] It was the rush
and tramp and clatter that he heard," said Fergus, "the din and thunder,
the tumult and turmoil [3]of the Ulstermen.[3] It was the men of Ulster
[4]arising from their 'Pains,'[4] who have come into the woods, the throng
of champions and battle-heroes cutting down with their swords the woods in
the way of their chariots. This it was that hath put the wild animals to
flight on the plain, so that the grassy forelocks of the field of Meath are
hidden beneath them!"

[1-1] YBL. 46a, 2.

[2-2] YBL. 46a, 1-2.

[3-3] Stowe and H. 1. 13.

[4-4] YBL. 46a, 3-4.

Another time macRoth surveyed the plain and he saw something: A heavy, grey
mist that filled [5]the glens and the slopes,[5] [6]the upper void and
veil,[6] the space between the heavens and earth. It seemed to him that
[7]the hills[7] were islands in lakes that he saw rising up out of the
sloping [W.5044.] valleys of mist. It seemed to him they were wide-yawning
caverns that he saw there leading into that mist. It seemed to him it was
all-white, flaxy sheets of linen, or sifted snow a-falling that he