cuchulain. Are you so changed,
Or have I grown more dangerous of late?
But that’s not it. I understand it all.
It’s you that have changed. You’ve wives and children now,
And for that reason cannot follow one
That lives like a bird’s flight from tree to tree.—
It’s time the years put water in my blood
And drowned the wildness of it, for all’s changed,
But that unchanged.—I’ll take what oath you will:
The moon, the sun, the water, light, or air,
I do not care how binding.
conchubar. On this fire
That has been lighted from your hearth and mine;
The older men shall be my witnesses,
The younger, yours. The holders of the fire
Shall purify the thresholds of the house
With waving fire, and shut the outer door,
According to the custom; and sing rhyme
That has come down from the old law-makers
To blow the witches out. Considering
That the wild will of man could be oath- bound,
But that a woman’s could not, they bid us sing
Against the will of woman at its wildest
