Note 1006 — Chapter X · LEARNING AND LANGUAGE. (continued 2)

A son ... in one night. The transcriber seems to have blundered here, for there would be no great wonder in a boy being born ‘in one night’ (in oen oidche). He was probably misled by the shape of the siglum for id est (.1.) before the words mac bethad (which looks, in the codices A. L. and L. B., very like the siglum for fifty [.l.])[.l.]); and therefore, thinking that ‘fifty sons’ were meant, added in oen oidche, ‘in one night,’ to magnify the prodigy.