"Och! da gcluinfeadh sise anocht Naoise bheith fá bhrat i gcré, Do ghoilfeadh sise go beacht, Acht do ghoilfinn-se fá seacht lé." [8] Who had slain Náoise at Conor's bidding, in the older version. CHAPTER XXVI THE TÁIN BO CHUAILGNE The greatest of the heroic sagas and the longest is that which is called the Táin Bo Chuailgne,[1] or "Cattle-Raid of Cooley," a district of Ulster contained in the present county of Louth, into which Oilioll and Méadhbh [Mève], the king and queen of Connacht, led an enormous army composed of men from the four other provinces, to carry off the celebrated Dun Bull of Cooley. Although there is a great deal of verbiage and piling-up of rather barren names in this piece, nevertheless there are also several finely conceived and well-executed incidents. The saga which, according to Zimmer, was probably first committed to writing in the seventh or eighth century, is partially preserved in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, a manuscript made about the year 1100, and there is a complete copy of it in the Book of Leinster made about fifty years later. I have chiefly translated from a more modern text in my own possession, which differs very slightly from the ancient ones. The story opens with a conversation between Mève, queen of Connacht, and Oilioll her husband, which ends in a dispute as to which of them is the richest. There was no modern Married Women's Property Act in force, but Irish ladies seem to have been at all times much more sympathetically treated by the Celtic tribes than by the harder and more stern races of Teutonic and Northern blood, and Irish damsels seem to have been free to enjoy their own property and dowries.[2] The story, then, begins with this dispute as to which, husband or wife, is the richer in this world's goods, and the argument at last becomes so heated that the pair decide to have all their possessions brought together to compare them one with another and judge by actual observation which is the most valuable. They collected accordingly jewels, bracelets, metal, gold, silver, flocks, herds, ornaments, etc., and found that in point of wealth they were much the same, but that there was one great bull called Finn-bheannach or White-horned, who was really calved by one of Mève's cows, but being endowed with a certain amount of intelligence considered it disgraceful to be under a woman, and so had gone over to Oilioll's herds. With him Mève had nothing that could compare. She made inquiry, however, and found out from her chief courier that there was in the district of Cuailgne in Louth (Mève lived at Rathcroghan in Roscommon) a most celebrated bull called the Dun Bull of Cuailgne belonging to a chieftain of the name of Darè. To him accordingly she sends an embassy requesting the loan of the bull for one year, and promising fifty heifers in return. Darè was quite willing, and promised to lend the animal. He was in fact pleased, and treated the embassy generously, giving them good lodgings