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Editions

• K. Meyer (ed), ‘König Guaire und Oennu maccu Laigse’, Archiv für celtische Lexikographie 3 (1907) 1-2.
• S. H. O’Grady (ed & tr), Silva Gadelica. 2 Vols.  (London 1892) 401, 437.
  

Manuscripts

• Egerton 1782
  
• H.3.18
  

Date

• Middle Irish period (could be older)
  

Characters

• Óenu maccu Loígse, coarb of Clonmacnoise and confessor of Guaire Aidne
  
• Guaire Aidne, king of Uí Fíachrach Aidne (d. 663 / 666 AU)
  

Notes

• This text is part of the Cycle of Guaire Aidne of Connacht.
• The Egerton copy exhibits some of the odd orthography characteristic of parts of that manuscript.
  

(Meyer's text).  One day, Guaire seizes the only son of a female farmer for going into his garden, and he demands that the widow pay seven cumala (a lot of money) in reparations or else he will put her son to death.  When the distraught woman begs Óenu for help, the cleric teaches her a quatrain to recite to Guaire, which she does.  Though obscure in places, the essential purpose of the poem is to remind the king of his own mortality.  He releases the widow's son, but vows he will get back at the cleric.  Then one day, a bondsman accidentally kills a horse for which Óenu had paid one hundred milch-cows.  Óenu demands that the bondsman pay him the full value of the horse.  The bondsman goes to the king who gives him a quatrain of his own to recite to the cleric.  Again, the verse is obscure in parts, but its purpose is to remind Óenu of the importance of clerical austerity.  Having heard the poem, Óenu accepts a single cow as payment.  Throughout their lives, Guaire and Óenu were always trying to one-up each other.