Nor should we exaggerate the condition of the time, thinking of it as altogether given over to ravaging and devastation. Even though there were two or three expeditions and battles every year, these would only affect a small part of the whole country. Over all the rest, the tending of cattle in the glades of the forest, the sowing and reaping of wheat and oats, the gathering of fruit and nuts, continued in quiet contentment and peace. The young men practiced the arts of war and exercised themselves in warlike games. The poets sang to them, the heralds recounted the great doings of old, how Cuculain kept the ford, how Concobar thirsted in his heart for Deirdré, how the son of Cumal went to war, how golden-tongued Ossin was ensnared by the spirits. The gentle life of tillage and the keeping of cattle could never engage the whole mental force of so vigorous a race. What wonder, then, that, when a chieftain had some real or imagined wrong to avenge, or some adventure to propose,--what wonder that bold spirits were ever ready to accompany him, leaving the women to their distaffs and the tending of children and the grinding of corn? Mounting their horses, they rode forth through the woods, under the huge arms of the oak-trees; along the banks of swift-gliding rivers, through passes of the lowering hills. While still in familiar territory, the time of the march was passed in song and story. Then came increased precaution, and gradually heightened pulses marked the stages of the way. The rival chieftain, warned by his scouts and outlying tribesmen, got word of their approach, and hastily replenishing his granaries and driving the cattle into the great circle of his embankments, prepared to meet the coming foe. Swords, spears, bows, arrows were the arms of both sides. Though leather tunics were common, coats of mail came only at a later date. The attackers under cover of the night sped across the open ground before the fort, and tried to storm the fortress, the defenders meanwhile showering down keen-pointed arrows on them from above. Both parties, under the chieftains' guidance, fought fiercely, in a fever of excitement, giving no heed to wounds, seeing nothing but the foe and the battlements to be scaled. Then either a successful sortie broke the ranks of the assailants and sent them back to their forest camp in wild disorder, or, the stockade giving way, the stormers swept in like a wave of the sea, and all was chaos and wild struggle hand to hand. Whatever the outcome, both sides thought of the wild surge of will and valor in that hour as the crowning event of their lives.