The text followed is that of the Book of Leinster as printed by Windisch in Irische Texte, vol. i.; the later Harleian manuscript’s readings given by Windisch have been taken in a few cases where the Leinster text seems untranslatable.  There is a slightly different version, given by Kuno Meyer in the Anecdota Oxoniensia, taken from Rawlinson, B. 512, a fifteenth-century manuscript, but the text is substantially that of the Leinster version, and does not give, as in the case of the tale of Etain, a different view of the story.  The verse passages differ in the two versions; two verse passages on pages 37 and 46 have been inserted from the Rawlinson manuscript, otherwise the rendering follows the Leinster text.

The style of the tale is more barbaric than that of the other romances, but is relieved by touches of humour; the only supernatural touch occurs in one of the variations of the Rawlinson manuscript.  Some of the chief variations en in this manuscript are pointed out in the notes; the respectful men on of Curoi mac Dari, who seems to have been a Munster hero, overshadowed in the accepted versions by the superior glory of Ulster, may be noted; also the remark that Ferloga did not get his cepoc, which seems to have been inserted by a later band of a critic who disapproved of the frivolity of the original author, or was jealous for the honour of the Ulster ladies.

MAC DATHO’S BOAR

FROM THE BOOK OF LEINSTER (TWELFTH-CENTURY MS.)

With some Additions from Rawlinson, B. 512, written about 1560

A glorious king once hold rule over the men of Leinster; his name was Mesroda Mac Datho.  Now Mac Datho had among his possessions a hound which was the guardian of all Leinster; the name of the hound was Ailbe, and all of the land of Leinster was filled with reports of the fame of it, and of that hound hath it been sung: 

Mesroda, son of Datho,
Was he the boar who reared;
And his the hound called Ailbe;
No lie the tale appeared! 
The splendid hound of wisdom,
The hound that far is famed,
The hound from whom Moynalvy
For evermore is named.

By King Ailill and Queen Maev were sent folk to the son of Datho to demand that hound, and at that very hour came heralds from Conor the son of Ness to demand him; and to all of these a welcome was bid by the people of Mac Datho, and they were brought to speak with Mac Datho in his palace.

At the time that we speak of, this palace was a hostelry that was the sixth of the hostelries of Ireland.; there were beside it the hostelry of Da Derga in the land of Cualan in Leinster; also the hostelry of Forgall the Wily, which is beside Lusk; and the hostelry of Da Reo in Breffny; and the hostelry of Da Choca in the west of Meath; and the hostelry of the landholder Blai in the country of the men of Ulster.  There were seven doors to that palace, and seven passages ran through it; also there stood within it seven cauldrons, and in every one of the cauldrons was seething the flesh of oxen and the salted flesh of swine.  Every traveller who came into the house after a journey would thrust a fork into a cauldron, and whatsoever he brought out at the first thrust, that had he to eat:  if he got nothing at the first thrust, no second attempt was allowed him.