There was a
dun in its midst. Scarlet and white were the walls of that dun.
There was a watch-tower on one side of the dun and a man there
sitting in the watchman's seat; a grianan on the other with
windows of glass. The roof of the dun was covered all over with
feathers of birds of various hues, and shone with a hundred
colours. The doorway was the narrowest which Naysi had ever seen.
The door pillars were of red yew curiously carved, having feet of
bronze and capitals of carved silver, and the lintel above was a
straight bar of pure silver. A knotted band or thickening ran
round the walls of the dun like a variegated zone, for the colours
of it were many and each different from the colours on the walls.
In the world there was no such prison as there was no such captive
as that prison held. Armed men of huge stature and terrible aspect
went round the dun. Their habiliments were black, their weapons
without ornament, the pins of their mantles were of iron. With
each company went a slinger having his sling bent, an iron bolt in
the sling, and his thumb in the string-loop, men who never missed
their mark and never struck aught, whether man or beast, that they
did not slay.
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