Book Extract 3

O hag, said Sweeny, searing are the tribulations I have suffered; many a terrible leap have I leaped from hill to hill, from fort to fort, from land to land, from valley to valley.

For the sake of God, said the hag, leap for us now a leap such as you leaped in the days of your madness.

And thereupon Sweeny gave a bound over the top of the bedrail till he reached the extremity of the bench.

My conscience indeed, said the hag, I could leap the same leap myself.

And the hag gave a like jump.

Sweeny then gathered himself together in the extremity of his jealousy and threw a leap right out through the skylight of the hostel.

I could vault the vault too, said the hag and straightway she vaulted the same vault. And the short of it is this, that Sweeny travelled the length of five cantreds of leaps until he had penetrated to Glenn ne nEachtach in Fiodh Gaibhle with the hag at her hag’s leaps behind him; and when Sweeny rested there in a huddle at the top of a tall ivy-branch, the hag was perched there on another tree beside him. He heard there the voice of a stag and he thereupon made a lay eulogizing aloud the trees and the stags of Erin, and he did not cease or sleep until he had achieved these staves.

Bleating one, little antlers,O lamenter we likeDelightful the clamouringFrom your glen you make.

O leafy-oak, clumpy-leaved, You are high above trees, O hazlet, little clumpy-branch – The nut-smell of hazels.

O alder, O alder-friend, Delightful your colour, You don’t prickle me or tearIn the place you are.
O blackthorn, little thorny-one,O little dark sloe-tree;O watercress, O green-crowned,At the well-brink.

O holly, holly-shelter,O door against the wind,O ash-tree inimical,Your spearshift of warrior.

O birch clean and blessed,O melodious, O proud,delightful the tangleof your heard-rods.

What I like least in woodlandsFrom none I conceal it –Stirk of a leafy-oak,As its swaying.

O faun, little long-legs, I caught you with grips,I rode you upon your backFrom peak to peak.

Glen Bolcain my home ever,It was my haven,many a night I have trieda race against the peak.

(From fujifilmstudentawards.co.uk)