Note 1 — Chapter XXXVI
Reading edition
This is a kind of rhetoric; some of these unrhymed outbursts were called rosg by the Irish. Irish literature is full of such pieces. Some of the Brehon Law though printed in prose seems to have been composed in it. Other examples are the cry of the Mór-rígan, or war-goddess, in the end of the Battle of Moytura.
"Peace to heav'n "Sith go neim Heav'n to earth Neamh go domhan, Earth neath heav'n Domhan fá neim Strength in each," etc. Neart i gcách," etc.
or the description of the Dun Bull of Cuailgne in the Táin Bo, or part of the first poem attributed to Finn mac Cool, or trie well-known eulogy on Goll the Fenian, or Mac Mhurighs incitement at the battle of Harlaw, or some of the verses in the preface to the Amra. About the last specimen of unrhymed poetry, in a species of Droighneach metre, I find in the Annals of Loch Cé on the death of Mac Dermot as late as 1568.
"Gég iothmar fhineamhna na n-éigeas ocus na n-ollaman, Craobh cumra cnuais na gcliar ocus na gcerbach, Dóss díona na ndámh ocus na ndeóraidh Bile buadha buan fhoscaidh na mbrughaidh ocus na mbiattach."