great-hearted children of Rury,
huge offsprings of the gods and giants of the dawn of time. For mighty
exceedingly were these men. At the noise of their running to battle
all Ireland shook, and the illimitable Lir trembled in his watery
halls; the roar of their brazen chariots reverberated from the solid
canopy of heaven, and their war-steeds drank rivers dry.

A vast murmur rose from the assembly, for like distant thunder or the
far-off murmuring of agitated waters was the continuous hum of their
blended conversation and laughter, while ever and anon, cleaving the
many-tongued confusion, uprose friendly voices, clearer and stronger
than battle trumpets, when one hero challenged another to drink,
wishing him victory and success, and his words rang round the hollow
dome. Innumerable candles, tall as spears, illuminated the scene. The
eyes of the heroes sparkled, and their faces, white and ruddy, beamed
with festal mirth and mutual affection. Their yellow hair shone. Their
banqueting attire, white and scarlet, glowed against the outer gloom.
Their round brooches and mantle-pins of gold or silver or golden
bronze, their drinking vessels and instruments of festivity, flashed
and glittered in the light. They rejoiced in their glory and their
might and in the inviolable amity in which they were knit together; a
host of comrades, a knot of heroic valor and affection, which no
strength or cunning, and no power seen or unseen, could ever release
or untie.

At one extremity of the vast hall, upon a raised seat, sat their young
king, Concobar Mac Nessa, slender, handsome, and upright. A canopy of
bronze, round as the bent sling of the Sun-god, the long-handed,
far-shooting son of Ethlend, encircled his head. At his right hand lay
a staff of silver. Far away at the other end of the hall, on a raised
seat, sat the Champion, Fergus Mac Roy, like a colossus. The stars and
clouds of night were round his head and shoulders, seen through the
wide and high entrance of the Dun, whose doors no man has ever seen
closed and barred. Aloft, suspended from the dim rafters, hung the
naked forms of great men clear against the dark dome, having the cords
of their slaughter around their necks and their white limbs splashed
with blood. Kings were they, who had murmured against the sovereignty
of the Red Branch. Through the wide doorway out of the night flew a
huge bird, black and gray, unseen; and soaring upwards sat upon the
rafters, its eyes like