The kingly prisoners were all brought to Aileach, where they were feasted for five months; and the following list of their bill of fare will show that they lived well. Let the same poet tell it:-- "Ten score hogs--no small work, Ten score cows, two hundred oxen, Were slaughtered at festive Aileach For Muircheartach of the great fetters. "Three score vats of curds, Which banished the hungry look of the army, With a sufficiency of cheering mead, Were given by magnanimous Muircheartach." When the five kings were feasted--and it is to be hoped fattened--for five months, Muircheartach brought them to the chief king or emperor, Donacha, and gave them up to him. The following extraordinary dialogue, taken from the same poem, occurs between them. Muircheartach says: "'There are the noble kings for thee.' Said Muircheartach, the son of Niall; 'For thou, O Donacha, it is certain to me, Art the best man of the men of Erin.' "_Donacha._ "'Thou art a better man thyself, O King, With thee no one can vie; It is thou who didst take captive the noble kings, O Muircheartach, son of the great Niall.' "_Muircheartach._ "'Thou art better thyself, O Donacha the black haired, Than any man in our land; Whoever is in strong Tara It is he that is monarch of Erin.' "_Donacha._ "'Receive my blessing, nobly, O son of Niall Glundubh, bright, pure; May Tara be possessed by thee, O Prince of the bright Loch Foyle![9] "'May thy race possess Moy Breagh,[10] May they possess the white-sided Tara, May the hostages of the Gael be in thy house, O good son, O Muircheartach!'" It is sad to know that this extraordinary poem, with its uniqueness, its dramatic power, and its raciness of the soil and of the time, notwithstanding the fact that it was translated and published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy over forty years ago, is to-day hardly any more known than it was when it lay unheeded and unknown in the archaic Gaelic of the tenth century. It might, for all the notice that has been taken of it, as well not have been translated at all. No other people on earth would have treated such an archaic literary gem with such coldness and contempt. It would seem as if the Irish people were losing not only their soul but their brains. If such a poem were written in Finnish or in Ojibaway it could not have been more ignored than it has been by a people who call themselves intellectual.