The Harvard Classics-Epic and Saga Part 33

Now Conall Cernach escaped from the Hostel, and thrice fifty spears had gone through the arm which upheld his s.h.i.+eld. He fared forth till he reached his father's house, with half his s.h.i.+eld in his hand, and his sword, and the fragments of his two spears. Then he found his father before his garth in Taltiu.

"Swift are the wolves that have hunted thee, my son," saith his father.

"'Tis this that has wounded us, thou old hero, an evil conflict with warriors," Conall Cernach replied.

"Hast thou then news of Da Derga's Hostel?" asked Amorgin. "Is thy lord alive?"

"He is _not_ alive," says Conall.

"I swear to G.o.d what the great tribes of Ulaid swear, it is cowardly for the man who went thereout alive, having left his lord with his foes in death."

"My wounds are not white, thou old hero," says Conall.

He shews him his s.h.i.+eld-arm, whereon were thrice fifty wounds: this is what was inflicted upon it. The s.h.i.+eld that guarded it is what saved it.

But the right arm had been played upon, as far as two thirds thereof, since the s.h.i.+eld had not been guarding it. That arm was mangled and maimed and wounded and pierced, save that the sinews kept it to the body without separation.

"That arm fought tonight, my son," says Amorgein.

"True is that, thou old hero," says Conall Cernach. "Many there are unto whom it gave drinks of death tonight in front of the Hostel."

Now as to the reavers, every one of them that escaped from the Hostel went to the cairn which they had built on the night before last, and they brought thereout a stone for each man not mortally wounded. So this is what they lost by death at the Hostel, a man for every stone that is (now) in Carn Lecca.

It endeth: Amen: it endeth.