Page:The courtship of Ferb (Leahy).djvu/72

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The Courtship of Ferb

Donnell. Maev also followed with her host behind Donnell and his men. Thus far runs the tale of the Vision of Maev, and the cause of the war that she made.

Now we return to tell of the doom of Mani. He held the palace till sunrise, and pleasant was the dawn of the day; but no cheerful or pleasant rest for him and his foes had been found that night. And when those two warring hosts saw each other by daylight, they bethought them anew of their quarrel, each of them desiring to do each other hurt, and thus began Conor to urge on his followers to the fight: "Had it been Ulstermen that I had with me," said he, "this battle would not have been fought in such fashion as it hath been by the Fomorians." Courage rose high in the hearts of all the Fomorians as they heard this rebuke, and stubbornly and vehemently they rushed to the fight, and they ceased not from it till they had entered through the door of the royal palace. The palace into which they had come was fair and of great renown; evil and sad was the fate that befell it. There were, moreover, thirty drinking bowls, with white silver from Spain on the rims of the bowls. Also there were two hundred drinking horns made from the horns of oxen, with chasings of gold and of silver, and thirty beakers of silver and thirty of brass.

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