in his breast when he heard the thunder
of the great war-car and the mad whinnying of the horses that smelt
the battle afar. Soon he beheld them with his eyes, and the charioteer
with the golden fillet of his office, erect in the car, struggling to
subdue their fury. A gray, long-maned steed, whale-bellied,
broad-chested, behind one yoke; a black, ugly-maned steed behind the
other.

Like a hawk swooping along the face of a cliff when the wind is high,
or like the rush of the March wind over the plain, or like the
fleetness of the stag roused from his lair by the hounds and covering
his first field, was the rush of those steeds when they had broken
through the restraint of the charioteer, as though they galloped over
fiery flags, so that the earth shook and trembled with the velocity of
their motion, and all the time the great car brayed and shrieked as
the wheels of solid and glittering bronze went round, for there were
demons that had their abode in that car.

The charioteer restrained the steeds before the assembly, but
nay-the-less a deep pur, like the pur of a tiger, proceeded from the
axle. Then the whole assembly lifted up their voices and shouted for
Cuculain, and he himself, Cuculain the son of Sualtam, sprang into his
chariot, all armed, with a cry as of a warrior springing into his
chariot in the battle, and he stood erect and brandished his spears,
and the war-sprites of the Gaeil shouted along with them, to the
Bocanahs and Bananahs and the Genitii Glindi, the wild people of the
glens, and the demons of the air, roared around him, when first the
great warrior of the Gaeil, his battle-arms in his hands, stood
equipped for war in his chariot before all the warriors of his tribe,
the kings of the Clanna Rury, and the people of Emain Macha.

THE LITTLE WEAVER OF DULEEK GATE

BY SAMUEL LOVER

You see, there was a waiver lived, wanst upon a time, in Duleek here,
hard by the gate, and a very honest, industherous man he was, by all
accounts. He had a wife, and av coorse they had childhre, and small
blame to them, and plenty of them, so that the poor little waiver was
obleeged to work his fingers to the bone a'most to get them the bit
and the sup; but he didn't begridge that, for he was an industherous
craythur, as I said before, and it was up airly and down late with
him, and the loom never standin' still. Well, it was one mornin' that
his wife called to him, and he sitting very busy throwin' the shut