un to
himself." Then the ballad continues at once--for its method is terse and
its transitions abrupt throughout--to give us the words of the men who
meet Connlaoch on his landing:--

"Where have you been, O tender gallant,
Riding like a noble's son?
Methinks by the way of your coming,
You are wandering or astray."

And Connlaoch answers the taunt and the challenge implied:--

"My coming is over seas from the land
Of the High King of the World,
To prove my merry prowess
Athwart the high chiefs of Erin."

(It seemed to me characteristic that the stock epithet of valour should
be "merry" or "laughing.") The ballad added no reply (though in Miss
Brooke's version at this point there is a dialogue of warnings), but
went on to tell in the shortest possible words how Conall Cearnach ("the
Victorious") rode out from Emain Macha and met the challenger:--

"Out started Conall, not weak of hand,
To get news of the noble's son.
Bitter and hard was the way of it;
Conall was tied by Connlaoch."

"'Bring word from us to Hound's head,'
Said the King in fierce sullen tones,
To Dundalk sunny and bright,
To the Hound, Dog's jaw."

Then Cuchulain (thus described by versions of the nickname won when he
broke the jaws of Culann's hound) made answer:--

"Hard for us is hearing of the captivity
Of the man whose plight is told;
And hard it is to try the venom of blades
With the warrior that bound Conall."

But the messenger pleads:--

"Do not think but to go to the rescue
Of the destroying keen dangerous warrior,
Of the hand that had no fear for any,
To loose him, and he fettered."

Then (as Miss Brooke in the majestic manner of the eighteenth century
puts it):--

"Then with firm step and dauntless air,
Cucullin went and thus the foe addrest,
Let me, O valiant knight (he cried),
Thy courtesy request,
To me thy purpose and thy name confide."

And so on through a sonorous description of dialogue and fight till:--

"At length Cucullin's kindling soul arose,
Indignant shame recruited fury lends;
With fatal aim his glittering lance he throws,
And low on earth the dying youth extends."

Or, as I translate almost literally from James Kelly's version, which is
considerably briefer than the text which Miss Brooke has so volubly
expanded:--

"Out set the Hound of the keen, smooth bl