Strong were their witcheries,
Though they . . . .
After this I ran at them,
When . . . .
I ground them in small pieces
Between my two palms.
There was a cauldron in that fort:
It was the calf of the three cows,
Thirty joints of meat in its gullet
Were not its charge.
*****
Much gold and silver was there in it,
Splendid was the find:
That cauldron was given [to us]
By the daughter of the king.
The three cows we took them away,
They swam the sea:
There was of gold a load for two men,
To each of them on her neck.
When we went on the ocean
That was vast by the north,
The crew of my coracle was drowned
By the cruel tempest.
After this I brought,
Though it was a sharp danger,
Nine men on each of my hands
And thirty on my head;
Eight on my two sides
Clung to my body.
It is thus I swam the sea
Until I was in haven."
This curious poem tells us why so few of those who invaded Hades returned: they were overwhelmed by a cruel squall on the vast sea in the north. The previous Welsh poem reduces the survivors to seven, but Cúchulainn makes them sixty-four, while the sundry attempts of Irish history to give what appeared a more rational form to the story has reduced them to exactly thirty—-
