" "Seize him," cried the King to
his attendants; "Eisirt shall pay dearly in chains and in prison for
that scornful speech against our glory."
Then Eisirt was put in bonds, and he repented him of his brag; but ere
they dragged him away he said, "Grant me, O mighty King, but three
days' respite, that I may travel to Erinn to the court of Fergus mac
Leda, and if I bring not back some clear token that I have uttered
nought but the truth, then do with me as thou wilt."
So Iubdan bade them release him, and he fared away to Erinn oversea.
[Illustration: "They all trooped out, lords and ladies, to view the
wee man"]
After this, one day, as Fergus and his lords sat at the feast, the
gatekeeper of the palace of Fergus in Emania heard outside a sound of
ringing; he opened the gate, and there stood a wee man holding in his
hand a rod of white bronze hung with little silver bells, by which
poets are wont to procure silence for their recitations. Most noble
and comely was the little man to look on, though the short grass of
the lawn reached as high as to his knee. His hair was twisted in
four-ply strands after the manner of poets and he wore a
gold-embroidered tunic of silk and an ample scarlet cloak with a
fringe of gold. On his feet he wore shoes of white bronze ornamented
with gold, and a silken hood was on his head.
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