'My lord the king sent me, O Royal Bard,' she answered, 'because I am comely to look upon, and he bade me serve thee with food myself.'
'Take it away,' said Seanchan, 'thou art an unseemly girl, I know of none more ugly. I have seen thy grandmother; she sat on a wall one day and pointed out the way with her hand to some travelling lepers. How could I touch thy food?' So the maiden went away in sorrow.
And then Guaire the king was indeed angry, and he exclaimed, 'My malediction on the mouth that uttered that! May the kiss of a leper be on Seanchan's lips before he dies!'
Now there was a young serving-girl there, and she said to Seanchan, 'There is a hen's egg in the place, my lord, may I bring it to thee, O Chief Bard?'
'It will suffice,' said Seanchan; 'bring it that I may eat.'
But when she went to look for it, behold the egg was gone.
'Thou hast eaten it,' said the bard, in wrath.
'Not so, my lord,' she answered; 'but the mice, the nimble race, have carried it away.'
'Then I will satirise them in a poem,' said Seanchan; and forthwith he chanted so bitter a satire against them that ten mice fell dead at once in his presence.
''Tis well,' said Seanchan; 'but the cat is the one most to blame, for it was her duty to suppress the mice. Therefore I shall satirise the tribe of the cats, and their chief lord, Irusan, son of Arusan; for I know where he lives with his wife Spit-fire, and his daughter Sharp-tooth, with her brothers the Purrer and the Growler. But I shall begin with Irusan himself, for he is king, and answerable for all the cats.'