At the end of twenty days when everything was conjectured to be going on well, he said it were right to look what end had come to poor Dobhran, and [bade] open the grave.
Dobhran was walking on the floor of the grave [when the roof was taken off]. When Dobhran saw that the grave was opened and when he heard all the world round it, he gave an expert leap out of it to the mouth of the grave and he put up his two hands on high on the mouth of the grave. He supported himself on the [edge of the] grave [by his hands.] There was a big smooth meadow going up from Iona and much rushes on it. All the rushes that Dobhran's eyes lit upon grew red, and that little red top is on the rushes ever.
Columcille cried out and he on the far side, "Clay! clay on Dobhran's eyes! before he see any more of the world and of sin!"
They threw in the clay upon him then and returned to their work. And nothing any more went against Columcille until he had Iona finished.
BRUADAR AND SMITH AND GLINN.
A Curse
PREFACE.
This extraordinary piece of cursing cannot properly be called folk-lore. It is purely pagan in spirit, though the poet has called upon the Deity under all the appellations by which he was known to the Gaels, as King of Sunday (see the story of Shaun the Tinker), the One Son, the King of the Angels, the King of Luan (Monday or Judgment day), the King of Brightness, the Son of the Virgin, etc. I know nothing certain about the circumstances which gave rise to this amazing effusion. It cannot be very old, however, since the last verse mentions the "black peeler." Possibly it was composed not more than seventy years ago. The poet has cleverly interwoven the names of his three enemies in all sorts of different collocations. I give the piece as of interest though not actual folk-lore. It was first published in Iris-leabhar na Gaedhilge by Father Dinneen. For the original and other curses of the same nature, see "Religious Songs of Connacht," vol. II., p. 274.