I have changed nothing in this ballad, except that I have repeated a line or two where the metre was defective, owing to the loss of some of the original words. The lines or words which I have interpolated, however, I have enclosed in brackets. There are a number of curious expressions in this ballad, as gealltaṁ, láirge, tiobaḋ, go fálta, i ḃfioċ gan tlás, róiṁ-aḋladaiḋ, cá treiḃ an leice, air ċor-litriḃ, gailleic, etc., some of which I do not well understand. Gealltaṁ seems an irregular plural of geall, a pledge; lairge means a thigh; fioċ gan tlás—more properly written fíoċ gan tlaṫas—means “anger without softness;” róiṁ-aḋlacaiḋ is a “burying ground;” cá treiḃ an leice appears to mean “what tribe does the stupid clown belong to;” at least, leice is given by O'Reilly in the sense of stupid person, and duine leice a slothful person; but I have never met or heard the word. Corra-litir is the Scotch Gaelic for the old Irish characters, and probably this is the meaning of the cor-litriḃ in the text. Fálta appears to mean “weak,” and tiobaḋ “terror;” but I do not know these words, and will not make this note longer by discussing any of the others. The second line of the ballad, as I heard it, ran áḋḃar eagla, “a cause of fear,” instead of áḋḃar aitis, "a cause of joy,” which last is probably wrong.
