burning fire. It was the Mor Reega, or Great
Queen, the far-striding, terrible daughter of Iarnmas (Iron-Death).
Her voice was like the shouting of ten thousand men. Dear to her were
these heroes. More she rejoiced in them feasting than in the battle
prowess of the rest.

When supper was ended, their bard, in his singing-robes and girt
around the temples with a golden fillet, stood up and sang. He sang
how once a king of the Ultonians, having plunged into the sea-depths,
there slew a monster which had wrought much havoc amongst fishers and
seafaring men. The heroes attended to his song, leaning forward with
bright eyes. They applauded the song and the singer, and praised the
valor of the heroic man who had done the deed. Then the Champion
struck the table with his clenched hands and addressed the assembly.
Wrath and sorrow were in his voice. It resembled the brool of lions,
heard afar by seafaring men upon some savage shore on a still night.

"Famous deeds," he said, "are not wrought now among the Red Branch. I
think we are all become women. I grow weary of these huntings in the
morning and mimic exercises of war, and this training of steeds and
careering of brazen chariots stained never with aught but dust and
mire, and these unearned feastings at night and vain applause of the
brave deeds of our forefathers. Come now, let us make an end of this.
Let us conquer Banba (Ireland) wholly in all her green borders, and
let the realms of Lir, which sustain no foot of man, be the limit of
her sovereignty. Let us gather the tributes of all Ireland, after many
battles and much warlike toil. Then more sweetly shall we drink, while
the bards chant our prowess. Once I knew a coward who boasted
endlessly about his forefathers, and at last my anger rose, and with a
flat hand I slew him in the middle of his speech, and paid no eric,
for he was nothing. We have the blood of heroes in our veins, and we
sit here nightly boasting about them: about Rury, whose name we bear;
and Macha the warrioress, who brought hither bound the sons of
Dithorba and made them rear this mighty Dun; and Kimbaoth son of
Fiontann; and my namesake Fergus, whose crooked mouth was no dishonor,
and the rest of our hero sires; and we consume the rents and tributes
of Ulster which they by their prowess conquered to us, and which flow
hither in abundance from every corner of the province. Valiant men too
will one day come hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, a