Stokes (ed.), Revue Celtique 9–10 — Irish text from the Book of the Dun Cow (LU) and the Yellow Book of Lecan (YBL), translated into modern British English. The voyage lasted three years and seven months.

¹ There was a famous man of the Eoganacht of Ninuss (that is, the Eoganacht of the Arans) — Ailill Edge-battle was his name. He was a stout soldier, the warrior-lord of his tribe and his own kindred. A nun — a mother superior of a church of nuns — slept with him, and they had a fair son between them both: Mael Duin, son of Ailill.

² This is how it came about that he was conceived and Mael Duin born. Once the king of the Eoganacht went into another territory and region, and Ailill Edge-battle in his company. They alighted and made camp on a mountain there. Near that mountain stood a nunnery. At midnight, when all in the camp had fallen asleep, Ailill went to the church. It was the hour when the nun came to strike the bell for matins. Ailill caught her hand, cast her down, and lay with her. Said the woman: “Unlucky is our plight — this is my time of conception.” “From where is your kindred, and what is your name?” she asked. Said the warrior: “Ailill Edge-battle is my name, of the Eoganacht of Ninuss in north Munster.” Then the king went home with plunder and hostages, and Ailill with him.

³ Soon after Ailill reached his own land, robbers of Leix slew him, burning Dubchluain upon him.

⁴ The woman bore a son after nine months’ space and named him Mael Duin. The child was afterwards taken secretly to the king’s wife, her friend, and she reared him — saying she was his mother. One nurse then reared him and the king’s three sons in one cradle, on one breast, at one lap.

⁵ Beautiful was his form; and few, it may be, in whom was ever flesh like his. He grew to be a young man fit for deeds of arms, high in spirit and pride and playfulness. His games surpassed all others — casting of the ball, running and leaping, stone-putting, and horsemanship. He had the victory in every one of them.

⁶ One day another young warrior quarrelled with him, with insolence and anger: “You,” said he, “who know not your clan or kindred, whose mother and father are unknown — you defeat us in every game on land or water or draughtboard!” Mael Duin was silent, for he had believed until then that he was the son of the king and queen, his fosterers. Then he said to his foster-mother: “I will neither eat nor drink till you tell me who are my mother and father.” “Why do you worry yourself with that?” said she. “Heed not the words of swaggering youths. I am your mother; and the love men of the lands bear me for a son is no greater than your love for me.” “That may be,” said he, “but I would know my own parents.”

⁷ His foster-mother went with him then and set him in his mother’s hand, and entreated her to tell him his father. “Begone,” said she, “from what you ask; for though you knew your father, you have no profit of it — nor would you be glad of it, for it is long since he was slain.” “It is the better for me to know,” said he, “whate’er be the manner of it.” Then his mother told him the truth: “Ailill Edge-battle of the Eoganacht of Ninuss was your father.”

⁸ He went then to his fatherland and his own people, and his foster-brothers with him — they too being warriors by then. His kindred rejoiced at him and made great wonder of him.

⁹ Some time after, a number of youths were casting stones in the churchyard of Dubchluain; and as Mael Duin planted his foot on the scorched site of the church, the stone he threw went the farther. Then a certain envious man of the church household, Briccne by name, said to Mael Duin: “It were better,” said he, “to throw at the bare burned bones of him who was burned here — for it is over his bones you are casting.” “Who is that?” said Mael Duin. “Ailill,” said he, “your father.” “Who slew him?” said Mael Duin. “Robbers of Leix slew him here,” said Briccne, “on this spot.” Then he cast the stone from him, drew his mantle about him, and went home sorrowful.

¹⁰ He asked the way to Leix, and skilled men told him it could only be reached by sea. So he went to Corcomroe to seek counsel and guidance of a druid who lived there — Nuca was the druid’s name, and from him Boirend Nucca is named. Nuca told him how to build a coracle, and of what skin it should be made, and bade him take only his own number — seventeen men or sixty according to another company — and told him the day on which he must set out, and that he must take no man, more or fewer, than the number named.

¹¹ So he built a coracle of three hides, and those were ready who should go with him — seventeen men, of whom two were German and Diuran the Stammerer.

¹² They put to sea on the day the druid appointed. When they had gone but a little from land, after hoisting sail, into the harbour came his three foster-brothers — the three sons of his foster-father and foster-mother — and cried to him to come back to take them with him. “Get you home,” said Mael Duin, “for though we should return, none shall go with me save the number I have here.” “We will go into the sea after you and be drowned there, unless you come back to us.” They cast themselves into the sea and swam far from land; and when Mael Duin saw that, he turned back lest they should drown, and took them into his coracle.

¹³ So they were until they drifted out of rowing reach; and that night till midnight they came upon two small bare islands with two fortresses on them. Then they heard from out the forts the cry and din of drunkenness and brawling and carousing; and this is what one man said to the other: “Stand aside,” said he, “for I am a better warrior than you: it was I who slew Ailill Edge-battle and burned Dubchluain over him — and no ill has yet been done me by his kindred, though you dared not do the like.”

¹⁴ “A victory within our reach!” said German and Diuran. “God has brought us straight and guided our prow before us. Let us go and slay these two forts, since God has shown us our enemies.”

¹⁵ While they spoke these words a great wind swept them out upon the ocean till morning, and after morning they saw neither land nor soil, nor knew where they went. Then said Mael Duin: “Leave the boat still without rowing, and wherever it shall please God to bring it, it will bring us.” They went then upon the great unbounded ocean, and Mael Duin said to his foster-brothers: “You it is who brought this upon us — you cast yourselves into the coracle after us, against the word of the seer and the druid. He told us we should not take aboard the number we were over you.” They had no answer but to be silent awhile.

¹⁶ Three days and three nights they had, and found neither land nor soil. On the morning of the third day they heard a sound from the north-east. “That is the voice of a wave on the shore,” said German. As daylight came to them, they made for the land; and as they were drawing lots who should go ashore, a great flock of ants, each the size of a foal, came down towards them on the strand and into the sea. What they wanted was to eat them and their coracle; so they fled, and had three days and three nights seeing neither land nor soil.

¹⁷ On the morning of the third day they heard the sound of a wave on a beach, and by daylight saw a high, great island, with terraces round about it. Each of the terraces was lower than the next, and trees stood thick about them, and great birds on the trees. They held counsel who should go to spy the island and see whether the birds were fierce. “I will go,” said Mael Duin. He went and searched the island, found no ill in it, ate his fill of the birds, and they brought some of them into the coracle with them.

¹⁸ Three days and three nights they had on the sea after that. On the morning of the fourth day they saw another great island. Its soil was sandy; and as they drew near its strand they saw a beast there like a horse — with clawed legs and short rough talons — that made great joy at them, pawing and prancing before them, for he longed to eat them and their coracle. “He is not glad of our coming,” said Mael Duin; “let us put off from the island.” So they did; and when the beast saw them fleeing, it went down to the strand and fell to digging the beach with its sharp talons, pelting them with stones — nor did they expect escape from it.

¹⁹ After that they went far, and from far away saw another great island. Then German drew the ill lot to go spy it. “We two will go,” said Diuran, “for never again in an island shall the lot fall upon me alone.” So the two went into the island. Great was its size and breadth; and they found long, wide greens within it and wondrous hoofprints of horses — each print the size of a ship’s sail, and within them they saw great hulls of nuts like kegs, and great plundered remnants of many men’s prey. They dreaded what they saw, and called their company to them to look at what they had found — who were likewise affrighted at the sight; and they all went swiftly and eagerly into their coracle.

²⁰ When they had gone a little from land they saw a great gathering on the sea at the island, which ran down to the island’s green; and thinner was each horse’s leg, and great was their uproar and din and clamour. And Mael Duin heard the strokes of the horse-whips at the assembly, and heard what each one said — “Bring the grey horse!” “Drive the dun iron-grey!” “Bring the white steed!” “My horse is swifter!” “My horse’s leap is better!” When they heard those words they fled with all their might, for they were certain it was an assembly of demons they had seen.

²¹ A full week they were rowing then in hunger and thirst, till they found a great high island with a great house on the sea’s strand. It had two doorways — one into the plain of the island, the other into the sea — with a stone valve to the sea door through which the waves of the sea cast the salmon into the middle of the house. They went into that house and found no one there. Then they saw a bed ready for the chief of the house alone, and a bed for every three of his company, and food for every three before each bed, and a glass vessel of good liquor before each bed, and a silver measure on each vessel. Then they ate that food and drank that liquor, and gave thanks to almighty God who had succoured them from hunger.

²² When they left that island they rowed a great while without food, hungry, till they came to an island about which was a great cliff on every side, and a long, slender wood growing there. As they passed it Mael Duin caught a branch of that wood in his hand; for three days and three nights the branch was in his hand, and the boat under sail the while along the cliff; and on the third day he found a cluster of three apples on the branch’s end. Each of those apples sufficed them for forty days and forty nights.

²³ Then they found another island with a stone wall about it. As they drew near, a great beast rose within and ran round the island. Swifter than the wind it went; then it leaped into the island’s height and there made a turning — its head below and its feet above — and thus it went: it turned within its skin, so that the flesh and the bones turned while the skin stayed unmoved; or else at another time the skin turned like a mill-wheel while the bones and flesh stayed still. After it had long done so it rose again and ran round the island as before. Then it went back to the same spot, and half its skin went revolving below unmoved while the other half swept round above like a millstone. This was its practice whenever it circled the island. Mael Duin and his people fled with all their might; the beast marked their flight, came down to the strand to seize them, and flung stones after them — one of which entered the coracle and pierced Mael Duin’s shield to the keel of the boat.

²⁴ Not long after they found another high island — a pleasant one with many great beasts like horses on it. Each beast took a piece out of another’s side and bore off the skin and flesh with it, till streams of crimson blood burst from their sides and the ground was full of it. They left that island swiftly, sighing, sorrowful, grieving, weary — nor knew they where in the world they should go, nor where they should find help or land or soil.

²⁵ Then they came to another great island, after great weariness of hunger and thirst — sad and lamenting after their long want of help. Many trees stood on that island, laden with fruit: great golden apples. Red little animals like pigs were under those trees; and the animals went to the trees and shook them, so the apples fell and they ate them. From morning to the sun’s setting they did so; but from sunset to morning they came not, staying in their dens underground. Many birds swam round that island on the outer waves; from morning to noon, farther and farther they swam from the island, and from noon to vespers, nearer and nearer they came to the island, till at sunset they entered it.

²⁶ Then they gathered the apples and ate them. “Let us go,” said Mael Duin, “into the island where the birds are — they are no worse to us than the beasts.” One of the men went to spy the island and called his comrades ashore to him. The ground was hot beneath their feet, so they could not stay for the heat — for it was a land of fire, and the beasts went down beneath the ground at evening. They brought a few of the apples with them as they went, eating them in the coracle. When dawn came the birds left the island and swam in the sea. Then the fiery beasts raised their heads from their dens and ate the apples until sunset, and when they went back into their dens the birds came after to eat the apples. Then Mael Duin and his company came and gathered all the apples they could that night — the apples staved off their hunger and thirst alike. They filled their coracle with the fruit as best they could, and went again upon the sea.

²⁷ When the apples were nearly spent, their hunger and thirst great, their mouths and nostrils full of the sea’s stench, they saw an island not large, with a fortress on it, and around it a high white wall as if built of burned lime, or as if it were all one rock of chalk. The fortress’s rampart was great and high above the sea, though it reached not the clouds; its houses were snowy-white and great about the wall. They entered the house — the largest of them — and saw no one there save a small cat playing on the four stone pillars in the middle, leaping from each pillar to the next. It looked down at the men but did not stop its play for them. Then they saw three rows of things on the house-wall round about, from one doorpost to the other: one row of brooches of gold and silver with their pins in the wall, another row of torques of gold and silver, each like the hoop of a vat, and the third row of great swords with hilts of gold and silver. The beds were full of white quilts and shining garments; there was a roasted ox and a flitch on the floor, and great vessels of good drink.

²⁸ “Is it for us that this is prepared?” said Mael Duin to the cat. It looked at him and went on playing. Mael Duin understood that the meal was set for them; they ate and drank and slept, and poured the rest of the liquor into the pitchers and packed up what remained of the food. When they rose to go, Mael Duin’s third foster-brother said: “Shall I take one of these torques with me?” “Not so,” said Mael Duin; “there is none to watch the house.” The man took the torque and brought it as far as the court’s centre — but the cat leaped after him through him like a fiery arrow, burned him to ashes, and went back to its pillar. Then Mael Duin soothed the cat with his words, set the torque back in its place, cleansed the ashes from the middle of the court, and cast them into the sea.

²⁹ Then they went into their coracle praising and magnifying the Lord.

³⁰ Early the third morning after, they saw another island, divided in two by a brazen wall through its middle. They saw two great flocks of sheep on it — a black flock on this side of the wall and a white flock on the far side. And they saw a great man tending the sheep: when he threw a white sheep over the wall to the black sheep’s side it turned black at once, and when he threw a black sheep back to the white side it turned white at once. They were afraid at the sight. “Well for us,” said Mael Duin, “if we cast two rods into the island. If they change colour, so shall we if we land.” So they cast a rod with black bark into the white sheep’s side, and it whitened at once; and they cast a rod with white bark into the black side, and it turned black at once. “That proof serves us,” said Mael Duin; “let us not go into the island — it may be we are no better than the rods.” So they put back from the island in fear.

³¹ On the third day after, they saw another great, broad island with a herd of fine swine on it. They killed a small pigling, but could not carry it, so heavy it was; they boiled it and brought it with them into the coracle.

³² Then they saw a great mountain on the island, and resolved to go look at it. Diuran and German went up the mountain and found before them a wide, shallow river. German dipped the haft of his spear into the river — it was consumed at once, as if fire had burned it — and they dared go no farther. Across the river they saw great dull oxen lying, and a huge man seated at them. German went behind a rock to pelt the oxen with his spear-butt. “Why do you pelt the poor calves?” said that great herdsman. “Where are their mothers?” said German. “On there mountain across the water,” said he. They returned to their comrades and told them the tale.

³³ They found an island not long after, with a great mill upon it, and a huge, swarthy miller at it. They asked him: “What mill is this?” “Not so,” said he — “nothing you know will you ask me, nothing will you recognize.” “No,” said they. “Half the grain of your country is ground here,” said he; “all that is bewailed in any land is ground in this mill.” At that they saw the heavy, countless loads on horses and men going to the mill, and coming from it too: everything that was given to it was carried westward. They asked the mill’s name. “The mill of Inber Tre-cenand,” said the miller. Then they signed themselves with the sign of Christ’s cross at what they had heard and seen, and went swiftly into their coracle.

³⁴ When they left that island of the mill they found a large island with a great multitude of people — all black in body and clothing, fillets about their heads, wailing without cease. The lot fell on one of Mael Duin’s foster-brothers to go into the island. When he went to the weeping people he too began to wail with them at once. Two men were sent to fetch him, but they knew him not among his fellows — he wept like the rest. Then said Mael Duin: “Let four of you go with weapons and bring the man by force — and look not on the land nor the air, but put your garments about your noses and mouths, breathe not the air of the land, and take not your eyes from your own men.” So it was done. The four went and brought back the two men by force. When they asked them what they had seen in the land, they said: “We know not — but what we saw others doing, that we did.”

³⁵ Then they went quickly from the island.

³⁶ Afterwards they saw another high island with four walls dividing it into four parts: a wall of gold, another of silver, the third of bronze, the fourth of crystal. Kings were in one quarter, queens in another, warriors in another, maidens in the fourth. A maiden came to meet them and brought them ashore and gave them food — like cheese it seemed to them, and whatever flavour each desired, that he found in it. And she dealt them liquor from a small vat, so that they slept three days and nights in drunkenness. The maiden ministered to them all the while. When they awoke on the third day, they were in their coracle upon the sea — nor did they ever see that island or that maiden again.

³⁷ Then they rowed away.

³⁸ They came to another island not large, with a fortress on it. A brazen door faced them and bronze fittings on it, and a glass causeway across the doorway; and as they stepped upon the causeway they fell back down. Then they saw a woman come out of the fortress with a pail in her hand. She lifted a glass slab from the causeway’s lower part, filled her pail from the spring beneath the causeway, and went back into the fort. “A housekeeper comes to meet Mael Duin!” said German. “Mael Duin indeed!” said she, closing the door behind her. Then they beat the bronze door and the bronze fittings upon it, and the sound they made was a sweet, soothing music that cast them into sleep till morning.

³⁹ When they awoke they saw the same woman come from the fort, her pail in her hand, and she filled it under the same slab. “Does the housekeeper come for Mael Duin?” said German. “A wonder of might is Mael Duin,” said she, closing the fort behind her. The same music lulled them till morning.

⁴⁰ For three days and nights it was so. On the fourth day the woman came towards them: beautiful was the one who came. A white mantle about her, a gold band through her hair, golden hair beneath; two silver sandals on her rosy-white feet, a silver brooch with studs of gold in her mantle, and a filmy silken shift next her white skin. “Welcome to you, Mael Duin!” said she, naming each man by his own proper name. “Long has your coming here been known and awaited.” Then she took them into a great house near the sea and drew up their coracle on land. They saw before them in the house a bed for Mael Duin alone and a bed for every three of his company. She brought them food in one basket like cheese or new rennet — a share for every three; whatever flavour each desired he found in it. She ministered to Mael Duin apart; then she filled her pail under the same slab and dealt them a drink for every three — and stopped when they had enough.

⁴¹ “A fitting wife for Mael Duin is this woman!” said every man of his company.

⁴² Then she went away with her basket and her pail.

⁴³ “Shall we speak to the maiden — will she lie with me?” Mael Duin’s people asked. “What profit to you if you speak to her?” said he.

⁴⁴ She came the next day. They said to her: “will you make friendship with Mael Duin, and lie with him, and why not stay here tonight?” She said she knew not, and had never known, what sin was. Then she went to her house, and came the next day at the same hour with her ministering; and when they were drunken and sated the same words were said to her.

⁴⁵ “Tomorrow,” said she, “an answer will be given you on that.” Then she went to her house, and they slept on their beds. When they awoke they were in their coracle on a rock, and they saw neither the island nor the fort nor the woman nor the place where they had been.

⁴⁶ As they left that place they heard from the north-east a great cry and singing as if of psalmody. That night and the next day till nones they rowed to learn what the cry or singing was. They saw an island, high and hilly, full of birds black and dun and speckled, calling and speaking loudly.

⁴⁷ From there they rowed a little and found another island not large — many trees on it and many birds on them. They saw a man on the island whose clothing was his own hair. They asked him who he was and of what kindred. “Of the men of Ireland am I,” said he. “I came on my pilgrimage in a little coracle, and it split under me soon after I left land. I went ashore again and set a sod of my land under my feet and pushed out upon the sea. In this place the Lord stayed that sod for me and made it a firm ground; and God adds a foot’s breadth to it every year, and a tree every year grows on it. The birds you see in the trees are the souls of my children and kindred, men and women — they are at prayer until Doomsday. Half a loaf and a measure of fish and spring-water God gives me; that comes to me every day through angels’ ministry. At nones comes another half-loaf and a measure of fish for every man and woman of them. The water of the spring suffices all.”

⁴⁸ When their three nights of guesting were full they took leave, and he said: “You shall all reach your land save one man.”

⁴⁹ On the third day after, they found another island with a golden wall about it and a floor white as down. They saw a man in it whose only clothing was the hair of his own body. They asked him what sustenance he lived on. “There is a spring in this island,” said he. “On Fridays and Wednesdays whey or water is drawn from it; on Sundays and martyrs’ feasts good milk comes from it; and on apostles’ feasts and Mary’s and John the Baptist’s and the great solemnities, ale and wine come from it.” At nones there came to them all from the Lord a half-loaf for each man and a measure of fish; they drank what they needed of the liquor given them from the island’s spring, and sleep came over them from that hour till the next day.

⁵⁰ When their three nights of guesting were done, the cleric sent them on their way, and they went and bade him farewell.

⁵¹ As they rowed long upon the waves they saw an island far off; and as they drew near they heard the sound of smiths striking a glowing mass on the anvil, all striking as one like the stroke of three or four. When they came near they heard one man ask another: “Are they close?” “Aye,” said another. “Who are they that you say come here?” “Little boys they seem, rowing in a little trough,” said he. When Mael Duin heard what the smiths said: “Let us go back,” said he, “and not turn the coracle — keep its stern before us, lest they mark our flight.” So they rowed with the coracle’s stern foremost. The same man in the smithy asked again: “Have they come to the harbour yet?” “They are still,” said the watcher, “they neither come in nor go out.” Not long after he asked once more: “What are they doing now?” “I think,” said the watcher, “they are fleeing — they are farther from the harbour now than they were before.” Then the smith came out of the smithy with a huge glowing mass in the tongs in his hand and hurled it after the coracle into the sea so that all the sea boiled — but it harmed them not, for they fled with all their might swiftly into the great ocean.

⁵² Then they rowed till they came upon a sea like green glass — so clear that the sun and the sand of the sea shone through it, and they saw neither monsters nor beasts among the rocks, only the bright sun and the green sand. A great while they rowed on that sea, and great was its splendour and its beauty.

⁵³ Then they came upon another sea like a cloud, and it seemed to them it would scarce bear the coracle. Looking down through it they saw beneath the sea a land with a fair land and a fortress, and they saw a huge, dreadful beast in a tree there, and droves of herds and flocks about the tree, and a man with weapons beside the tree — shield, spear, and sword. When the man saw the great beast in the tree he fled at once; the monster stretched its neck out of the tree, set its head on the back of the biggest ox of the herd, drew it into the tree, and devoured it at once in the twinkling of an eye. All the flocks and the herdsman fled at once; and when Mael Duin and his company saw that, great fear and dread seized them — they thought they could not pass under it without falling through, so thin it was as a cloud. Yet they rowed past it after great peril.

⁵⁴ Then they found another island, around which the sea rose up till it made great cliffs on every side. When the people of that land saw them, they set up a great shrieking around them, crying: “They are coming! they are coming!” for the length of their breath. Then they saw many people and many herds of cattle and horses and flocks of sheep; and a woman was pelting them from below with great nuts that fell on the waves’ crests about them. They gathered many of the nuts and carried them off. Then they went back from the island, and the shrieks ceased.

⁵⁵ “Where are they now?” said one band of them. “They have gone away,” said another band. “They are not so,” said another. As if it were one in a prophecy to destroy their land and drive them out — so it seemed.

⁵⁶ They reached another island where a wondrous thing befell them: a great stream rose up from the island’s shore and arched like a rainbow across the whole island, descending into the strand on the island’s far side. They passed beneath it without wetting, and speared great salmon out of it above onto the island’s ground below, so that the whole island was full of the fish’s smell — for there was none to gather them for their abundance. From Sunday’s evening till Monday’s ante-terce that stream moved not, but stayed still in the sea around the island. Then the greatness of the salmon wearied them; they filled their coracle with them and went back from that island upon the ocean.

⁵⁷ Then they rowed till they found a great silver pillar. It had four sides, and the breadth of each side was two strokes of the coracle’s oar — so the coracle was eight oar-strokes in circling it. No single sod of earth was about it, only the boundless ocean; and they saw not how it was below, nor how it rose above. A silver net ran down from its top far out from it, and the coracle sailed through a mesh of that net; and Diuran struck a blow of his spear’s edge through the mesh. “Harm not the net,” said Mael Duin, “for what we see is a great man’s work.” “For the praise of God’s name it is that I do this,” said Diuran, “that my tale may be the more believed; and it shall be offered by me on the altar of Armagh if we reach Ireland.” Two ounces and a half was its weight as measured afterwards in Armagh. Then they heard a great, clear, bright voice from the top of that pillar — but they knew not what it said or who spoke.

⁵⁸ Then they saw another island standing on a single foot — on one leg supporting it. They rowed about it seeking a way into it and found none; but beneath the foot below they saw a closed door under a lock. They knew that was the way into the island, and they saw a ploughland on its top — but they spoke with none, and none spoke with them. They went back.

⁵⁹ Then they reached a large island with a great plain and a great mountain-range, grassy and smooth, without heather. They saw a great high fortress on it, strong, near the sea, and a great adorned house within. Seventeen maidens were bathing there. They landed and sat on a hill facing the fort. “Sure it is,” said Mael Duin, “that bath is being made ready for us.” At the hour of nones they saw a rider on a victorious horse come to the fort — a good, well-caparisoned horse-cloth under him; a blue gathered hood about him, an embroidered crimson mantle on him, gloves of gold braid on his hands, a well-fitted strap on his feet. As he alighted, one of the maidens took the horse. Then a maiden came towards them: “Welcome your coming!” said she. “Come into the fort — the queen invites you.” So they went in and all bathed; and the queen sat on one side of the house with her seventeen maidens, and Mael Duin on the other side facing the queen with his seventeen men. A dish of good food was set before Mael Duin and a vessel of good liquor beside him, and a dish and a vessel for every three of his company. When they had eaten, the queen said: “How shall the guests sleep?” “As you shall say,” said Mael Duin. “As is right for the manner of your coming,” said she, “take each of you his mate from among those opposite, and let them go to the beds beyond.” Seventeen adorned beds with fair furnishings stood in the house. So the seventeen men lay with the seventeen maidens, and Mael Duin slept with the queen — and so until morning.

⁶⁰ They rose the next day. “Stay here,” said the queen, “and age shall not come on you — the age you have shall remain, and life everlasting shall be yours, and what came to you last night shall be yours every night without toil. Be not wandering longer from isle to isle upon the ocean!”

⁶¹ “Tell us how you are here,” said Mael Duin.

⁶² “Not hard to tell,” said she. “There was a good man in this island — the island’s king. To him I bore these seventeen daughters, and I am their mother. Their father died and left no male heir; so I took the kingship of this island after him, and I go every day to the great plain of the island to judge and decide the folk’s causes.”

⁶³ “But why do you leave us today?” said Mael Duin.

⁶⁴ “If I go,” said she, “what came to you last night shall not fail you. Stay but in your house and you need no toil — I go to judge the folk for your sakes.”

⁶⁵ They stayed three winter months on that island, and it seemed to them three years. “It is long we are here,” said one of the company to Mael Duin. “Why do we not go home?”

⁶⁶ “That is not well said,” said Mael Duin; “for in our own country we shall not find better than what we have here.”

⁶⁷ Then his company made a great murmur: “Great is the love Mael Duin bears the woman. Stay you then, if it be your will — we will go to our own land.”

⁶⁸ “I will not stay behind you,” said Mael Duin.

⁶⁹ One day when the queen had gone to judge, they went to their coracle — but she mounted her horse and cast a clew after them. Mael Duin caught it and it clung to his hand; a thread ran from the clew to her hand, and by the thread she drew the coracle back to the harbour. So they stayed with her three months more. Then they took counsel: “It is certain,” said his company, “that Mael Duin’s great love for his wife makes the clew cling to his hand to draw us back to the fort.” “Let another man catch the clew,” said Mael Duin, “and if it clings to his hand, let the hand be cut off.”

⁷⁰ So they went again to their coracle; she cast the clew after them, and another man caught it — and it clung to his hand. Diuran struck off his hand, and it fell with the clew. When she saw that, she began at once to wail and shriek, till the whole land was full of wailing and crying. In that wise they escaped from her out of the island.

⁷¹ For a great while after they drifted on the waves, till they found an island with trees like willows or hazels upon it, bearing wondrous fruit and great berries. They broke off a little branch, and cast lots who should first taste the fruit. The lot fell on Mael Duin; he pressed a drop of it into a vessel and drank — and sleep fell on him from that hour till the same hour next day, none knowing whether he was alive or dead, with red foam about his lips until he woke the next day. He said: “Gather this fruit, for it is a great treasure.” So they gathered it, mingling water with it to temper its inebriation and drowsiness, filled their vessels with it, and rowed from that island.

⁷² Then they came to another large island. One half of it was a wood of yews and great oaks, the other a plain with a little lake, and great flocks of sheep. They saw a small church and a fortress; they went to the church. An aged cleric stood in it, clad wholly in his own hair. Mael Duin asked him: “From where are you?”

⁷³ “I am the fifteenth man of the company of Brendan of Birr. We went on our pilgrimage into the ocean and came to this island; all have died save me alone, an old man.” Then he showed them Brendan’s tablet which they had brought on their pilgrimage, and they all did reverence to it, and Mael Duin kissed it.

⁷⁴ “Eat then of the sheep,” said the elder, “and take not more than your need.”

⁷⁵ So they were fed there on the flesh of the fat sheep.

⁷⁶ Another day, as they looked out from the island, they saw a cloud come from the south-west; and as they watched, they saw it was a bird — for they saw its wings in flight. It came to the island and alighted on a hill near the lake. They thought it would carry them off in its claws to the sea; but it brought a branch of a great tree — as big as one of the great oaks, a stout bough with a dense top of fresh leaves, bearing heavy fruit in abundance: red berries like clusters of grapes, only larger. They watched what it would do. It rested awhile from weariness, then began to eat the tree’s fruit.

⁷⁷ Mael Duin went then to the foot of the hill where the bird was, to see whether it would do him harm — and it did none. Then all his company came after him to the place. “Let one of us go gather some of the fruit of the bough before the bird.” A man went and gathered of the berries; the bird neither moved nor took notice. Then all eighteen went with their shields on their backs, and it did them no harm.

⁷⁸ At nones that day they saw two great birds of like age come from the south-west and settle before the great bird. After they had long been still they began plucking and stripping the lice from the jaws, eyes, and ears of the great bird. They were at it till evening, when the three of them began to eat the berries and the fruit of the bough. From next morning till midday they picked the old plumage from all its body, and the sheathing of the old feathers came off. At midday they stripped the berries from the bough, bruised them with their beaks against the stones, and cast them into the lake till its water was red. Then the great bird went into the lake and washed in it till day’s end; it came out and settled on another spot in the same hill, so the plucked lice should not return to it.

⁷⁹ On the next day the birds picked and preened its plumage with their beaks, as with a comb, till midday; then they rose a little and flew back the way they had come.

⁸⁰ The great bird stayed behind, pluming itself and shaking its wings till the third day; then at terce it rose and flew thrice round the island, alighted again briefly on the same hill, and flew off swiftly on the way it had come — faster and stronger its flight than before, so that all knew it was a renewal of its age from old age, as the prophet says: “Your youth is renewed as the eagle’s.”

⁸¹ Then said Diuran, beholding that wonder: “Let us into the lake to renew ourselves where the bird was renewed.” “No,” said his comrade, “the bird has left its venom there.” “Ill you speak — I will go first.” He went in and bathed, wetting his lips and drinking of the water. Sound were his eyes thereafter while he lived; no tooth fell from him, nor hair from his head, and he never knew weakness or infirmity again.

⁸² Then they took leave of the elder, and took provision of the sheep with them, put their coracle to sea, and sought the ocean.

⁸³ They found another great island with a wide, level plain. A great multitude was at play there, laughing ceaselessly. They drew lots who should go prove the island — it fell on Mael Duin’s third foster-brother. As soon as he landed he joined their play and laughter, as though he had been with them from birth. They waited long for him, and he came not; so they left him.

⁸⁴ Then they saw another island not large, with a wall of fire about it that swept continually round the isle. In the wall’s side was an open doorway; when the door came round facing them they could see the whole island within and all that was in it and all its dwellers — many fair people and many adorned garments, and vessels of gold in their hands at the feast, and they heard their ale-music. Long they were watching the wonder — and it seemed good to them.

⁸⁵ Not long after leaving that island they saw from far away among the waves a form like a white bird. They turned the coracle’s prow southward to look; as they rowed near they saw it was a man, clad only in his body’s white hair, kneeling on a broad rock. As they came to him they begged his blessing and asked how he came upon that rock.

⁸⁶ “From Torach indeed I came here,” said he, “and in Torach was I reared. I was cook there — an ill cook — for I sold the church’s food for treasures and jewels of my own, till my house was full of quilts, coverlets, clothing of every hue, linen and wool, brazen pails, small brazen cauldrons, and brooches of silver with gold pins; so that there was nothing that was sought of my house for any needful thing — books of gold, book-satchels adorned with bronze and gold. And I dug under the church-houses and bore out many treasures.

⁸⁷ “Great was my pride and my arrogance.

⁸⁸ “One day I was bidden to bring the corpse of a rustic of the folk for burial in the island. As I was at the burial I heard a voice from the ground beneath my feet: ‘Put not the sinner’s body over me — I am a holy, devout man!’

⁸⁹ “‘Between you and God,’ said I in my arrogance, ‘I will put it.’

⁹⁰ “‘Amen,’ said the holy man; ‘if you set him upon me, your mouth shall die of it within three days, and you shall be of hell, and he shall not remain here.’

⁹¹ “I said to the elder: ‘What will you give me if I lay the man not upon you?’

⁹² “‘Everlasting life dwelling with God,’ said he.

⁹³ “‘How may I know that?’ said I.

⁹⁴ “‘Not hard for you: the grave you dig shall be filled with sand at once — and it shall be plain to you from there that you can not put the man upon me, though you try.’

⁹⁵ “No sooner was the word spoken than the grave was filled with sand. So I buried the corpse in another place.

⁹⁶ “Another time I put my new coracle and its fine covering on the sea. I went aboard with my goods — I left nothing in my house, small or great, but I brought it with me, my quilts, my goblets, my cups. As I looked upon the sea in that wise and the sea was calm, great winds came and drew me out to sea till I saw neither land nor soil. My coracle stayed still in that place and would not move from the one spot. As I looked about on every side I saw on my right hand the man sitting upon the wave. He said: ‘Where go you?’

⁹⁷ “‘It delights me,’ said I, ’the way my vessel goes upon the sea.’

⁹⁸ “‘It would not delight you if you knew the band that is about you.’

⁹⁹ “‘What band is that?’ said I.

¹⁰⁰ “‘As far as your sight reaches over the sea and up to the clouds, it is all one troop of demons about you — for your covetousness and your pride, your theft and your other ill deeds. Know you why your coracle stands?’

¹⁰¹ “‘I know not,’ said I.

¹⁰² “‘Your coracle shall not move from this spot till you do my will.’

¹⁰³ “‘Maybe I shall not do it,’ said I.

¹⁰⁴ “‘Yet you shall suffer hell’s pains unless you do it.’

¹⁰⁵ “He came to me then and laid his hand on me, and I promised him his will.

¹⁰⁶ “‘Cast then,’ said he, ‘into the sea all the goods you have in the coracle.’

¹⁰⁷ “‘It is a pity,’ said I, ’that they should go to destruction.’

¹⁰⁸ “‘They shall not be destroyed — one shall profit by them.’

¹⁰⁹ “I cast them all into the sea save a small wooden cup. ‘Now go,’ said he, ‘and where your coracle stops, there stay.’ And he gave me a cup of whey-water and seven loaves for provision.

¹¹⁰ “I went as the wind bore my coracle, having loosed my oars and my boat. As I drifted among the waves I was cast on this rock; and I doubted whether the coracle was stayed, seeing no land — and I remembered the word that where my coracle stayed, there I should abide. I arose then and saw a little rock over which the wave flowed; I set my foot on it, and my coracle left me — and the rock rose up under me and the waves swept past. Seven years I was here on the seven loaves and the cup of whey-water, and when they failed I had but my cup of whey-water, and it dwelling with me still. Then I was in sorely straits. After my affliction, at nones, an otter brought me a fish out of the sea. I thought within me I could not eat the fish raw — and the otter cast it back into the sea and was away another while. The third day at nones it brought me the fish again out of the sea, and another otter brought flaming fire-wood; it set it down and blew with its breath till the fire blazed, and I cooked the fish. Seven more years I was in that wise — a fish was brought me daily with its fire, and the rock was made large. My cup failed me not for seven years. Then I was in straits again. On the third day at nones half a wheat loaf and a measure of fish were cast to me; my whey-cup left me, and a cup of like measure filled with good liquor came to me — it is in the rock here and is full every day. And neither wind nor rain nor heat nor cold touches me in this place. These are my tribulations,” said the elder.

¹¹¹ When the hour of nones came, there came to them a half-loaf and a measure of fish for every man of them, and they found in the cup that stood before the cleric on the rock enough liquor for them all. Then said the elder to them:

¹¹² “You shall all reach your land; and the man who slew your father, Mael Duin — you shall find him in a fortress. Slay him not, but forgive him, because God has saved you from many great perils — though you too are men deserving of death.”

¹¹³ They took leave of the elder then and went on their accustomed wandering.

¹¹⁴ After that they reached an island with many herds — oxen, cows, and sheep; no houses nor forts in it; and they ate of the sheep’s flesh. Then one of them said, seeing a great errach there: “That errach is like the falcons of Ireland.” “That is true,” said another band. “Watch it,” said Mael Duin, “till we see where the bird goes.” They saw it fly south-east from them — and they rowed after the bird the way it went. All that day they rowed till evening; at nightfall they saw a land like the land of Ireland. They rowed towards it and found a little island — the very one from which the wind had first borne them out to sea.

¹¹⁵ They beached their prow and went up into the fortress on the island, and stood listening; and the dwellers in the fortress were at table. They heard one of them say: “It were well for us if we saw Mael Duin.”

¹¹⁶ “That Mael Duin was drowned,” said another of them.

¹¹⁷ “Maybe it is he who shall wake you from your sleep,” said another.

¹¹⁸ “If he should come now,” said another, “what should we do?”

¹¹⁹ “Not hard to say,” said the head of the house: “a great welcome to him if he came — for he has been long in great tribulation.”

¹²⁰ Then Mael Duin struck the clapper against the door-valve.

¹²¹ “Mael Duin is here,” said he.

¹²² “Open then,” said the head of the house; “welcome is your coming.”

¹²³ They went into the house and were made great welcome, and new garments were given them. Then they recounted all the wonders God had shown them, as the prophet says: “Haec olim meminisse juvabit” — these things it shall one day be a joy to remember.

¹²⁴ Then Mael Duin went to his own country; and Diuran the Stammerer took the five half-ounces he had cut from the net and laid them on the altar of Armagh, in triumph and in commemoration of the miracles and great wonders God had wrought upon them. And they told their adventures from beginning to end, and all the perils and straits they had found on sea and land.

¹²⁵ Now Aed Finn, chief hermit of Ireland, set this tale in order as it stands here — that it might be for the delight of the mind, and for the folk of Ireland after him.