The Protecting Tree
A.D. 621

The thunderous shining waves have spanned
    The ocean and the solid land,
And Conaing too, for all his skill,
Swamped in his wicker coracle.

At Conaing in his little boat
    The woman throws her hair of foam,
And then she turns away to gloat
    Upon the tree that guards his home.


Note: On the drowning of Conaing in the Irish Sea. The tree which the
sea-wife mocks is the tree of Tortu, the sacred tree of Conaing’s
family. The form—that of the double epigram in contrasting metres—is,
so far as I know, peculiar to Irish literature.



Source: Frank O'Connor; The Little Monasteries; Dublin; Dolmen
Press; 1963, 1976 1976 ed.; p.44