’Then we must make another cross.  If we do not make an end of him another will, for who can eat and sleep in peace while men like him are going about the world?  Ill should we stand before blessed Saint Benignus, and sour would be his face when he comes to judge us at the Last Day, were we to spare an enemy of his when we had him under our thumb!  Brother, the bards and the gleemen are an evil race, ever cursing and ever stirring up the people, and immoral and immoderate in all things, and heathen in their hearts, always longing after the Son of Lir, and Aengus, and Bridget, and the Dagda, and Dana the Mother, and all the false gods of the old days; always making poems in praise of those kings and queens of the demons, Finvaragh, whose home is under Cruachmaa, and Red Aodh of Cnocna-Sidhe, and Cleena of the Wave, and Aoibhell of the Grey Rock, and him they call Donn of the Vats of the Sea; and railing against God and Christ and the blessed Saints.’  While he was speaking he crossed himself, and when he had finished he drew the nightcap over his ears, to shut out the noise, and closed his eyes, and composed himself to sleep.

The lay brother found Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf, Brother Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother Peter sitting up in bed, and he made them get up.  Then they bound Cumhal, and they dragged him to the river, and they dipped him in it at the place which was afterwards called Buckley’s Ford.

‘Gleeman,’ said the lay brother, as they led him back to the guest-house, ’why do you ever use the wit which God has given you to make blasphemous and immoral tales and verses?  For such is the way of your craft.  I have, indeed, many such tales and verses well nigh by rote, and so I know that I speak true!  And why do you praise with rhyme those demons, Finvaragh, Red Aodh, Cleena, Aoibhell and Donn?  I, too, am a man of great wit and learning, but I ever glorify our gracious abbot, and Benignus our Patron, and the princes of the province.  My soul is decent and orderly, but yours is like the wind among the salley gardens.  I said what I could for you, being also a man of many thoughts, but who could help such a one as you?’

‘Friend,’ answered the gleeman, ’my soul is indeed like the wind, and it blows me to and fro, and up and down, and puts many things into my mind and out of my mind, and therefore am I called the Swift, Wild Horse.’  And he spoke no more that night, for his teeth were chattering with the cold.

The abbot and the friars came to him in the morning, and bade him get ready to be crucified, and led him out of the guest-house.  And while he still stood upon the step a flock of great grass-barnacles passed high above him with clanking cries.  He lifted his arms to them and said, ’O great grass-barnacles, tarry a little, and mayhap my soul will travel with you to the waste places of the shore and to the ungovernable sea!’ At the gate a crowd of beggars gathered