Explains Colum Cille’s use of the example of the Psalms in his defense of poetry, as seen in the poem Mo-chean duit a Colaim caidh (as ed. by Brian Ó Cuívin Éigse 12, 1967/68, pp. 165-172), by means of the analogy between the purchase of poems from a poet by a patron and that of the Psalms from David by God.