rd called to
this day Ath-uince, the ford of Uince. Returning homewards, Find found
his house desolate, and the song he sang still holds the memory of
his sorrow.

Two poems he made, on the Plain of Swans and on Roirend in Offaly, full
of vivid pictures and legends; and one of romantic tragedy, telling how
the two daughters of King Tuatal Tectmar were treacherously slain,
through the malice of the Leinster king. But of romances and songs of
fair women in the days of Find, the best is the Poem of Gael, who
composed it to win a princess for his bride.

Of fair Crede of the Yellow Hair it was said that there was scarce a gem
in all Erin that she had not got as a love-token, but that she would
give her heart to none. Crede had vowed that she would marry the man who
made the best verses on her home, a richly-adorned dwelling in the
south, under the twin cones of the Paps, and within sight of Lough Leane
and Killarney. Cael took up the challenge, and invoking the Genius that
dwelt in the sacred pyramid of Brugh on the Boyne he made these verses,
and came to recite them to yellow-haired Crede:

"It would be happy for me to be in her home,
Among her soft and downy couches,
Should Crede deign to hear me;
Happy for me would be my journey.
A bowl she has, whence berry-juice flows,
With which she colors her eyebrows black;
She has clear vessels of fermenting ale;
Cups she has, and beautiful goblets.
The color of her house is white like lime;
Within it are couches and green rushes;
Within it are silks and blue mantles;
Within it are red gold and crystal cups.
Of its sunny chamber the corner stones
Are all of silver and yellow gold,
Its roof in stripes of faultless order
Of wings of brown and crimson red.
Two doorposts of green I see,
Nor is the door devoid of beauty;
Of carved silver,--long has it been renowned,--
Is the lintel that is over the door.
Crede's chair is on your right hand,
The pleasantest of the pleasant it is;
All over a blaze of Alpine gold,
At the foot of her beautiful couch...
The household which is in her house
To the happiest fate has been destined;
Grey and glossy are their garments;
Twisted and fair is their flowing hair.
Wounded men would sink in sleep,
Though ever so heavily teeming with blood,
With the warbling of