"Great be áinBóCúthe plague, The plague of Tuath-Bressi![c] Great be the storm, Ulster's battle-storm round Conchobar!
"Their women will they defend, For their herds will they fight At Garech and Ilgarech, On the morning after the morrow!"
[W.5003.] Then [1]when the hosts were assembled at Garech and Ilgarech,[1] Dubthach was awakened from his sleep, so that Nemain brought confusion on the host and they fell trembling in their arms under the points of their spears and weapons, so that an hundred warriors of them fell dead [LL.fo.95b.] in the midst of their camp and quarters at the fearfulness of the shout they raised on high. Be that as it would, that night was not the calmest for the men of Erin that they passed before or since, because of the forebodings and predictions and because of the spectres and visions that were revealed to them.
[1]HERE FOLLOWETH THE ARRAY OF THE HOST[1]
[2]While these things were being done, the Connachtmen by the counsel of Ailill, Medb, and Fergus, resolved to send messengers from thence to spy out the men of Ulster, to make certain if they had taken possession of the plain.[2] [W.5011.] Said Ailill: "Truly have I succeeded," said he, "in laying waste Ulster and the land of the Picts [3]and Cualnge[3] from Monday at Summer's end till Spring's beginning. We have taken their women and their sons and their children, their steeds and their troops of horses, their herds and their flocks and their droves. We have laid level their hills after them, so that they have become lowlands and are all one height. For this cause, will I await them no longer here, but let them offer me battle on Mag Ai, if so it please them. But, say here what we will, some one shall go forth [4]from us[4] to watch the great, wide plain of Meath, to know if the men of Ulster come hither. And, should the men of Ulster come hither, I will in no wise be the first to retreat [5]till battle be given them,[5] for it was never the wont of a good king to retreat."
"Who should fitly go thither?" asked all. "Who but macRoth our chief runner yonder," [6]answered another group of them.[6]
[W.5023.] MacRoth went his way to survey the great wide-spreading plain of Meath. Not long was macRoth there when he heard something: A rush and a crash and a clatter and a clash. Not slight the thing he judged it to be, but as though it was the firmament itself that fell on the man-like face of the world, or as though it was the furrowed, blue-bordered ocean that broke o'er the tufted brow of the earth, or as though the ground had gone asunder in quakes, or as though the forest fell, each of the trees in the crotches and forks and branches of the other. But why give further accounts! The wood's wild beasts were hunted out on the plain, so that beneath them the grassy forelocks of the plain of Meath were not to be seen.