Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Jeffrey Gantz [28]
There was great bounty, then, in Conare’s reign: seven ships being brought to Indber Colptha in June of every year, acorns up to the knee every autumn, a surfeit over the Búas and the Bóand each June, and an abundance of peace, so that no one slew his neighbour anywhere in Ériu – rather, that neighbour’s voice seemed as sweet as the strings of harps. From the middle of spring to the middle of autumn, no gust of wind stirred any cow’s tail; there was no thunder, no stormy weather in Conare’s reign.
Conare’s foster-brothers, however, grumbled about losing the prerogatives of their father and their grandfather – theft and robbery and plunder and murder. Every year, they stole from the same farmer a pig and a calf and a cow, in order to see what punishment the king would mete out and what damage the theft would cause to his reign. Every year, the farmer went to the king to complain, and every year the king replied ‘The three sons of Dond Désa are the thieves – go and speak with them.’ But every time the farmer went to speak with the three sons, they attempted to kill him; and he did not return to the king for fear of angering him.
Thereafter wilfulness and greed overcame the three sons; they gathered sons of the lords of Ériu about them and went plundering. Three fifties of them were practising in Crích Connacht when Mane Milscothach’s swineherd saw them, and he had never seen that before. He took to flight; they overheard him and followed. The swineherd cried out, then, and the people of each Mane came and seized the three fifties with their supernumeraries; they took these men to Temuir and appealed to the king, and he said ‘Let each man slay his son, but let my foster-brothers be spared.’ ‘Indeed, in-deed,’ said everyone, ‘that will be done.’ ‘Indeed not,’ replied Conare. ‘No lengthening of my life the judgement I have given. The men are not to be hanged – rather, let elders go with them that they may plunder Albu.’
This was done. The plunderers went to sea, and there they met the son of the king of the Bretain, Ingcél Cáech, the grandson of Conmac3; and they made an alliance with Ingcél that they might go and plunder with him. This is the destruction that Ingcél wrought: his father and his mother and his seven brothers were invited to the house of the king of his people, and all were slain by Ingcél in a single night. Then they crossed the sea to Ériu to seek a similar destruction, for that was owed to Ingcél.
In Ériu, there was complete peace during Conare’s reign, save that battle was proposed in Túadmumu between two men named Coirpre, both foster-brothers of Conare, and the matter was not put right until Conare arrived. ‘There was a geiss against his going to settle a quarrel before the quarrelers came to him, but he went all the same and made peace between them. He stayed five nights with each man, and there was also a geiss against that.
The quarrel having been settled, Conare made to return to Temuir. They passed Uisnech Mide, and after that, they saw forays being made from north and south and east and west, troops and hosts in turn, and naked men, and the land of the Uí Néill was a cloud of fire about them. ‘What is this?’ asked Conare. ‘Not difficult that,’ replied his people. ‘When the land burns, it is easy to see that the law has been broken.’ ‘Where will we go?’ asked Conare. ‘Northeast,’ said his people. So they went righthandwise round Temuir and lefthandwise round Brega, and Conare hunted the wild beasts of Cernae, but he did not perceive this