e place of faulty reckoning, has
them right, to the day and hour. It is only in quite modern times that
we have reached sufficiently accurate knowledge of the moon's movements
to vindicate the old Ulster Annalists, who began their work not less
than a hundred and fifty years before the battle we have just recorded.

Nor should we exaggerate the condition of the time, thinking of it as
altogether given over to ravaging and devastation. Even though there
were two or three expeditions and battles every year, these would only
affect a small part of the whole country. Over all the rest, the tending
of cattle in the glades of the forest, the sowing and reaping of wheat
and oats, the gathering of fruit and nuts, continued in quiet
contentment and peace. The young men practiced the arts of war and
exercised themselves in warlike games. The poets sang to them, the
heralds recounted the great doings of old, how Cuculain kept the ford,
how Concobar thirsted in his heart for Deirdre, how the son of Cumal
went to war, how golden-tongued Ossin was ensnared by the spirits. The
gentle life of tillage and the keeping of cattle could never engage the
whole mental force of so vigorous a race. What wonder, then, that, when
a chieftain had some real or imagined wrong to avenge, or some adventure
to propose,--what wonder that bold spirits were ever ready to accompany
him, leaving the women to their distaffs and the tending of children and
the grinding of corn? Mounting their horses, they rode forth through the
woods, under the huge arms of the oak-trees; along the banks of
swift-gliding rivers, through passes of the lowering hills. While still
in familiar territory, the time of the march was passed in song and
story. Then came increased precaution, and gradually heightened pulses
marked the stages of the way. The rival chieftain, warned by his scouts
and outlying tribesmen, got word of their approach, and hastily
replenishing his granaries and driving the cattle into the great circle
of his embankments, prepared to meet the coming foe. Swords, spears,
bows, arrows were the arms of both sides. Though leather tunics were
common, coats of mail came only at a later date. The attackers under
cover of the night sped across the open ground before the fort, and
tried to storm the fortress, the defenders meanwhile showering down
keen-pointed arrows on them from above. Both parties, under the
chieftains' guidance, fought fiercely, in a fever of excitem