This is a patchwork of extracts from different sources.
1. Fifteen-syllable lines, with caesura at eighth syllable; every
line ending in a trisyllabic word, rhyming (not always) with a word
preceding the caesura. A dissyllable or trisyllable precedes the
caesura. Rhythm of Tennyson's _Locksley Hall_, proceeding by stress
only, independent of vowel-quantity or hiatus. In line seven,
'Keranus' must be pronounced in four syllables, Kiaranus. Refers to
the wizard's prophecy, incident II.
2. Four lines, in _Locksley Hall_ rhythm, with a dissyllabic rhyme
running through the quatrain. Relates incident IX.
3. Four lines, twelve syllables trochaic, caesura at seventh syllable.
Each line ends with a trisyllable or a tetrasyllable, with dissyllabic
rhyme running through the quatrain. The rhythm is that of the
following line (which is intentionally misquoted to serve the present
purpose)--
"Gather roses while you may, time is still a-flying."
The incident is not recorded in the prose lives; but it appears in the
_Book of the Dun Cow_, in the story of the Birth of Aed Slaine (son of
King Diarmait, reigned A.D. 595-600). Diarmait, it appears, had two
wives (for, notwithstanding his friendship to Ciaran, he was but a
half-converted pagan), by name Mugain and Muireann. Muireann had the
misfortune to be bald, and Mugain, who, as is usual in polygamous
households, was filled with envy of her, bribed a female buffoon to
remove her golden headgear in public at the great assembly of Tailltiu
(Telltown, Co. Meath), so as to expose the poor queen's defect to the
eyes of the mob. The messenger accomplished her purpose, but Muireann
cried out, "God and Saint Ciaran help me in this need!" and forthwith
a shower of glossy curling golden hair flowed from her head over her
shoulders, before a single eye of the assembly had rested upon her.
Compare Ciaran's own experience, incident XLVI.
4. Three lines in the same metre, but apparently with three instead of
four lines in each rhyming stanza. Refers to incident XVIII.
5. Three lines in the same rhythm as extract 1, but with a different
rhyme-scheme; apparently three lines from a quatrain rhyming _abab_.
Refers to incident XLI.
6. Six lines in elegiac couplets. This probably refers to XLVI, but
without their original context the lines must remain obscure. In any
case the versifier has the story in a rather different form from the
prose writers, and appears to regard it as an incident of the boyhood
period.