One can see at a glance how bald and brief is all this, because it is a précis, and vellum was scarce. I venture to say that no bard ever told it in this way. The scribes who first committed this to parchment, say in the seventh or eighth century, probably wrote down only the leading incidents as they remembered them. They may not have been themselves either bards, ollavs, or story-tellers. It is chiefly in the later centuries, after the introduction of paper, when the economising of space ceased to be a matter of importance, that we find our sagas told with all the redundancy of description, epithet, and incident with which I suspect the very earliest bards embellished all those sagas of which we have now only little more than the skeletons. Compare, for instance, the ancient version which I have just given, with the longer modern versions which have come down to us in several paper manuscripts, of which I here use one in my own possession, copied about the beginning of the century by a scribe named O'Mahon, upon one of the islands on the Shannon. In the first place this version tells us that on his arrival at Scathach's mansion he finds a number of her scholars and other warriors engaged in hurling outside the door of her fortress. He joins in the game and defeats them--this is a true folk-lore introduction. He finds there Naoise, Ardan, and Ainnlè, the three sons of Usnach, celebrated in perhaps the most touching saga of this whole cycle, and another son of Erin with them. This is a literary touch, by one who knew his literature.[8] Learning that he is come from Erin, they ask news of their native country, and salute him with kisses. They then bring him to the Bridge of the Cliffs, and show him what their work is during the first year, which was learning to pass this bridge. "Wonderful," says the saga, "was the sight that bridge afforded when any one would leap upon it, for it narrowed until it became as narrow as the hair of one's head, and the second time it shortened until it became as short as an inch, and the third time it grew slippery until it was as slippery as an eel of the river, and the fourth time it rose up on high against you until it was as tall as the mast of a ship." All the warriors and people on the lawn came down to see Cuchulain attempting to cross this bridge. In the meantime Scathach's _grianán_ or sunny house is described: "It had seven great doors, and seven great windows between every two doors of them, and thrice fifty couches between every two windows of them, and thrice fifty handsome marriageable girls, in scarlet cloaks, and in beautiful and blue attire, attending and waiting upon Scathach."