Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Jeffrey Gantz [32]
The boat of the sons of Dond Désa held a champion, one powerful with arms, baleful at the prow of the boat, a lion implacable and terrifying, Ingcél Cáech grandson of Conmac. Wide as an oxhide the one eye in his head; seven pupils in it, and all black as a beetle. The síze of a heifer’s cauldron each of his knees; the size of a reaping basket each of his fists. The size of a cheese on a withe each of his buttocks; as long as an outer yoke each of his shins. And the five thousand landed at Trácht Fuirbthen, with ten hundred in every thousand.
Conare went into the hostel, then, and everyone took his seat, geiss or no geiss; the three Deirgs sat down, as did Fer Calliu, with his pig. Da Derga came to them after that, with three fifties of warriors: each man had long hair to the nape of his neck and a short green mantle reaching to his buttocks; each man wore short, speckled trousers and carried a great thorn club with a band of iron round it. ‘Welcome, popa Conare,’ said Da Derga. ‘If the greater part of the men of Ériu were to accompany you, I would still feed them.’
As they were there in the hostel, a woman appeared at the entrance, after sunset, and sought to be let in. As long as a weaver’s beam, and as black, her two shins. She wore a very fleecy, striped mantle. Her beard reached her knees, and her mouth was on one Side of her head. She put one shoulder against the doorpost and cast a baleful eye upon the king and the youths about him, and Conare said to her from inside the house ‘Well then, woman, what do you see for us, if you are a seer?’ ‘Indeed, I see that neither hide nor hair of you will escape from this house, save what the birds carry off in their claws,’ the woman replied. ‘It is not ill fortune that we prophesied, woman,’ said Conare. ‘Neither do you usually prophesy for us. What is your name?’ ‘Cailb,’ she replied. ‘A name with nothing to spare, that,’ said Conare. ‘Indeed, I have many other names,’ she said. ‘What are they?’ asked Conare. ‘Not difficult that,’ she replied. ‘Samuin, Sinand, Sesclend, Sodb, Saiglend, Samlocht, Caill, Coll, Díchoem, Díchuil, Díchim, Díchuimne, Díchuinne, Dárne, Dárine, Der Úane, Egem, Agam, Ethamne, Gnim, Cluche, Cethardam, Nith, Nemuin, Nóenden, Badb, Blosc, Bloar, Úaet, Mede, Mod.’ And she recited these in one breath, and standing on one foot, at the entrance to the house.
‘What do you want, then?’ Conare asked. ‘Whatever pleases you,’ she answered. ‘There is a geiss against my admitting a single woman after sunset,’ said Conare. ‘Geiss or not,’ replied the woman, ‘I will not go until I have had hospitality from this house tonight.’ ‘Tell her,’ said Conare, ‘that she will be sent an ox and a salted pig and the leftovers if only she will go elsewhere tonight.’ ‘Indeed, if the king cannot spare a meal and a bed in his house for one woman, if the hospitality of the sovereign in this hostel is no more, then something will be gotten from someone else, someone of honour,’ answered the woman. ‘Savage her reply,’ said Conare. ‘Let her in, then, despite the geiss against it.’ After this conversation with the woman, and her prophecy of doom, a great fear came over the host, but no one knew why.
The raiders, meanwhile, reached land and advanced as far as Lecca Cind Slébe. The hostel was always open, and that is why it was called a hostel, for it was like the mouth of a man when he yawns. Each night, Conare kindled a huge fire, a boar in the forest. Seven outlets it had, and when a log was taken from its SíDe, the extent of the flames