Colum Cille said to him: "From where do you come, youth?" said Colum Cille.
Respondit iuuenis: "I come," said the youth, "From lands of strange things, from lands of familiar things, so that I may learn from you the spot on which died, and the spot on which were born, knowledge and ignorance."
Respondit Colum Cille: "A question," said Colum Cille. "Whose was it formerly, this lough which we see?"
Respondit iuuenis: "I know that. It was yellow, it was flowery, it was green, it was hilly; it was rich in liquor, and strewn rushes, and silver, and chariots. I have grazed it when I was a stag; I have swum it when I was a salmon, when I was seal; I have run upon it when I was a wolf; I have gone around it when I was a human. I have landed there under three sails: the yellow sail which bears, the green sail which drowns, the red sail under which bodies were conceived (?). Women have cried out because of me, although father and mother do not know what they bear, with labour for living folk, with a covering for the dead."
Colum Cille said again to the youth: "And this sea to the east of us, what is under it?"
"Not hard to answer," said the youth: "There are long-haired men with broad territories beneath it; there are fearsome greatly-pregnant cows beneath it, whose lowing is musical; there are bovine oxen; there are equine horses; there are two-heads; there are three-heads -- in Europe, in Asia, in lands of strange things, in a great land, above its many borders, as far as its rivermouth (?).
"That is enough," said Colum Cille. Colum Cille arose as his followers watched, and went aside to speak with him and to ask him about the heavenly and earthly mysteries. While they were together thus for half the day, or from one hour to the next, Colum Cille's followers watched them from a distance. When they separated, they saw that the youth was suddenly hidden from them. They did not know where he went nor from where he came. When Colum Cille's followers were asking him to reveal to them something of what had passed between them, Colum Cille told them that he could not tell them even a single word of anything that he had been told (?); and he said that it was better for mortals not to know it. FINIT.
trans. John Carey
Was it myself, was it I
that would not know its warrior race?
I was not a man of little knowledge
until I was defeated in battle.
When we were in Bran's fortress,
drinking in the cold winter,
he did not bind strong men in my presence (?)
when my knowledge went to the high clouds.
"My knowledge reaches a pure well
in which there is the snare of a company of hundreds of women.
the [well-]wrought treasure of the company of women
would be a great find for the man who should find it.
"For wondrous are the pure treasures
that are in the side of Srúb Brain:
it would ransom a tribe, or more than two [tribes],
the price of the host of the great world, of the sons of a kingdom (?)
The prophetess answers-
Febul, dark and rich in horses,
used to proclaim it at the merrymaking:
I was not devoid of value
in the eyes of the king of Mag Fuinsidi.
Beautiful the plains over which we used to ride;
Beautiful the lands to which we used to go;
Beautiful the land where we used to encamp;
Beautiful the music which we used to hear.
Well do you bewail to companions
that our people should flee,
seeing that Mag Febuil of the white flowers
is a grey stony sea.
Beautiful were the bands of women
of the assembly in which we used to be with Bran;
sweetly would the king say:
"Though you go, come back again."
trans. adapted by John Carey from a translation by James Carney