Carn Eolairg: Irish "hill or heap of stones." The pair seem to be sitting on the east side of Lough Foyle (Febul), on the north coast of Ireland.

Mongán:A reference to Mongán, a prince of a small Ulster kingdom called Dal nAraide. He died around 625 AD, according to the annals, but within 100 years of his death, supernatural Otherworld legends have begun to surround him and his life. His real father was supposedly Mannanan, the Irish god of the sea, and he was reputed to be able to travel aback and forth from the Otherworld and to have traveled through the ages in various forms. This secondary title to the piece appears to have been a later addition to the manuscript, so the original author of the conversation may not have had Mongán in mind at all when writing it.

Colum Cille:Colum Cille was one of the greatest Gaelic saints, born in Derry, Ireland and eventual founder of the monastary at Iona. He is often associated with an interest in esoteric, pre-Christian knowledge, especially in the form of poetry. Adomnan's Life of Columba seems to have evidence that some people viewed Colum Cille with suspicion, and there may have been a body of tales such as this one depicting Colum Cille behaving in a slightly suspect manner.

From where do you come?:This phrase or a variation thereof seems to be a standard greeting for people that appear to have come form the Otherworld (cf Adv. of Condlae) The youth responds to this fairly simple question with a more complex one, which Colum Cille avoids in favor of asking the youth another question in return, also difficult. There may be some sort of subtle testing/word play going on here. Colum Cille's questions may be seen not so much as requests for information as ways of opening the youth's mind and getting him to remember things that he does not know he knows. In this way, the saint is answering the youth's question about the place where knowledge is born, i.e. here, by the lake. Extraordinary memory is always tied in Irish literature to a specific place, and the memory is usually concerned with explaining the history, meaning and origin of the place in question. cf Túan, one of the "undying remembers" who lives through the ages in various forms, but must always return to a specific cave to make the transformation and retain all his memory.

Respondit iuuenis:This and the others like it are standard latin tags marking conversational exchanges.

Strange things, familiar things: This is a fairly common description of the Otherworld, perhaps making reference to the fact that the Otherworld is present everywhere around us at all times, but we are unable to perceive it.

Strewn rushes: A reference to the rushes that were strewn on the floor of the hall for a feast, this phrase implies that there was much hospitality and generousity in the lost kingdom which the youth is describing. The influence of this passage can be seen in later Otherworld tales, such as the Voyage of Bran.

Shape-Changing: This passage, with its list of various animals, is perhaps the most often quoted in the whole piece. It appears to be a reference to the reincarnation doctrine of the druids, which is attested in other places. The youth claims to have been a stag and wolf before the flood and a seal, fish and human after it.

Three sails: This curious passage about sails has no parallel in extant Irish literature, and is open to much interpretation. It uses the familiar metaphor of seeing life as a journey on sea, the stages of life being marked by the sails. The order of the sails is strange, however, for it seems to go Birth, Death, Conception as opposed to the more intuitive Conception, Birth, Death. This may be another aspect of the reincarnation idea, which would perceive death as a movement onto a new journey as opposed to the end of all journeying. A similar idea is expressed by a Roman poet who says "according to the druids, death was only the middle of a long life."

Women have cried out: Usually taken as a reference to women's lamentation at death, implying that the youth has already died, despite being present on the hill with Colum Cille.

Do not know what they bear: This phrase expresses the somewhat disturbing idea that parents never know what their child has been or has done in a previous existence when he is born into their lives.

This sea: Colum Cille and the youth are sitting on the East side of the lough, so the sea in question would be the Irish Sea, off the north coast of Ireland.

Greatly-pregnant cows:The phrase meant here is probably cows "with great udders with much milk" which is close in Irish to what is here translated as "greatly-pregnant". In any case, the emphasis is on fertility and abundance in the land. While the land under the lake is spoken of as being in the past, it is implied that the land under the sea is presently existing as the two speak.

Two-heads: Creatures with mulitiple heads are always sinister, frightening and monsterous things in Irish literature. Giants are often described as having mulitiple heads.

In Europe, in Asia: The references here to far away lands are a merging of the native tradition, which places the Otherworld underwater or underground, with fantastic tales coming from outside of Ireland that speak of faboulous and magical lands which are far away, across the water.

Suddenly hidden: As in the Adventure of Condlae, movement to the Otherworld seems to rely more on becoming invisible/shifting between perceptions that actual physical journeying.

Could not tell them: Knowledge of the Otherworld is often presented as being secret knowledge. The readers are told some of it, but never all, for it ultimatly lies beyond mortal ability to know it. In one of Colum Cille's most famous supernatural encounters, he meets with angels on the "Hill of Angels" and keeps the knowledge gained from them secret as well. The hill is referred to as síthean, which is the Scots-Gaelic equivilant of Irish síd, a supernatural mound.

Conclusion:Why would Colum Cille, the great Christian saint, be portrayed as learning from pagan supernatural beings in these stories? There is a common device in historical records of resting the authority of the history on a native "undying rememberer," a being who has traveled through the ages and remembers everything and passes it on to the cleric who writes everything down just before the remember is baptized and dies. This way of transmitting of knowledge, usually geneological, allows the new order to learn from the old ways, but still clearly presents the pagan, native tradition as being past its time. The only problem with this interpretation of this piece, however, is that Colum Cille very specifically does not pass the information on to the audience, and the knowledge that is invoked is not really historical. The distant past is discussed, but just as a pretext for talking about past lives, a distinctly un-Christian idea. It's almost as if Colum Cille is being initiated into the older pagan tradition. Some evidence exists for this type of relatiohsip between the early monks/scholars and their predecessors.

Febul: Lough Febuil is supposedly named after this King Febul, but in reality it was probably the other way around. Febul is not a personal name found in any texts, so the person Febul was probably created to explain the origin of the lake already called Lough Febuil. Febuil is not attested in Irish either, but it is cognate with Welsh gwefl "lip" So this would be the Lake of the lip, referring to its landscape features. Febul's son Bran is probably also constructed this way, from references to srúb Brain literally "beak, snout of the raven," but later interpreted as "headland of Bran."

Intro:This fragment of text, which appears to be untouched by Christian influences, consists only of speeches between two people. There is no framing narrative of any kind, other than the title and the single identification of a change in speaker. The narrative setting may be the same sort as seen in the conversation of Colum Cille & the youth, namely that the druid and prophetess are sitting on the shore of the lake, discussing what used to be there.

Battle: This reference in completely mysterious, but could be interpreted as a reference to the coming of Christianity, when druidism was "defeated." If this is the case, there would be an attendant implication that the man speaking is many centuries old.

Bind strong men: This phrase may mean that while the druid was functioning as a prophet, he was the most powerful man in the court, but it is very ambigious.

High clouds: The druid is speaking here about his visions and prophecies, in suggestively shamanic terminology. After this line, the tense of the speech changes from the past to the present, so it could be that the next 2 stanzas are quotations from his prophecy.

Treasure of the company of women: The druid apparently has a vision of the underwater Otherworld, where women guarded some kind of fabulous treasure at the bottom of a well.

Devoid of value:The prophetess is remembering back even farther than the druid, to the days of Bran's father Febul, when she was apparently his consort and honored for her youth and beauty.

Mag Fuinsidi: This would appear to be the name of the kingdom under the lake, as it would have been known in Febul's day (ie before it became named after him)

Our people should flee: There seems to be an implication that although the druid or the prophetess foresaw the flooding of the kingdom, there were ignored. Now only the two of them remain to remember the "glory days".

Conclusion This somewhat puzzling and tantalizing fragment has been interpreted as a precursor to the well-known Voyage of Bran. The conversation seems to refer to a now lost adventure of Bran, wherein he traveled to the bottom of a well to steal treasure from Otherworld women, who flooded the kingdom in revenge.