[3] Ar abela no ar lainni an molta. This word Abél for "quick," "rapid," though neither in O'Reilly's nor Windisch's nor the Scotch Gaelic dictionaries, is a common one in the spoken language of West Connacht. It occurs twice in the "Three Shafts of Death," where it is mistranslated by "awful," but it must be carefully distinguished from M. I. Abdul, Keating's Adhbhal. The word is not known in Waterford, and my friend the late Mr. Fleming, who was the chief authority in the Royal Irish Academy on the spoken language, and who hailed from that county, was, I believe, unacquainted with it.
[4] This translation is evident nonsense, but I cannot better it. The original is "Ric in sithbe sitlas mag."
[5] Is é immoro adíabul, i.e., afhillind, i.e., doemnad, ut est hoc, i.e.,
"Águr águr iar céin chéin
Bith i péin, phein ni síth síth,
Amail cách cách, co bráth bráth,
In cech tráth tráth, cid scíth scíth."
My translation is in the exact metre of the original, and conveys in English the manner in which the heptasyllabic Irish lines were pronounced, in which, despite of what some continental scholars have advanced, there is, I believe, no alternation of beat or stress at all, and neither trochee nor iambus. O'Beirne Crowe mistranslates águr by "I ask."
[6] Ros was chief poet of Erin in the time of St. Patrick, and is said to have helped him in redacting the Brehon Law.
[7] Ferceirtné was the poet at Conor mac Nessa's Court in the first century B.C., who contended in the "Dialogue of the Two Sages," see above p. [240].
[8] See above for réin being used for sea, p. [10].
[9] The translation is doubtful. Dr. Sigerson has well versified it in his "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 116. The original has a curious metrical effect not unlike that other piece attributed to Finn, quoted above p. [275]. It might be printed thus—
Scél lém duib Roruad rath
Dordaid dam Rocleth cruth,
Snigid gaim Rogab gnath
Rofaith sam. Giugrand guth.
Gaeth ard huar, Rogab uacht
Isel grian Ete én,
Gair arrith Aigre ré
Ruthach rían. E, mosclé.