Early Irish Myths and Sagas - Jeffrey Gantz [33]
‘Explain that, Fer Rogain,’ said Ingcél. ‘What is that great light yonder?’ ‘I do not know it,’ said Fer Rogain, ‘unless it is the fire of a king.’ ‘May God not bring that man here tonight. It is grievous,’ said the sons of Dond Désa. ‘What are the properties of his reign in Ériu?’ Ingcél asked. ‘His reign is good,’ replied Fer Rogain. ‘Since he became king, no cloud has obscured the sun from the middle of spring to the middle of autumn. Not a drop of dew falls from the grass until noon; no gust of wind stirs a cow’s tail until evening. No wolf takes more than one bull calf from every enclosure during the year, and seven wolves remain by the wall of his house as a guarantee of this agreement; there is a further guarantee, moreover, and that is Mace Locc, who pleads their case in Conare’s house. Each man’s voice seems to his neighbour as melodious as the strings of harps, and that because of the excellence of law and peace and goodwill throughout Ériu. It is in Conare’s reign that we have the three crowns of Ériu: the crown of corn, the crown of flowers and the crown of acorns. May God not bring that man here tonight. It is grievous. It is a pig that falls before acorns. It is a child who is aged. It is grievous his shortness of life.’
‘I would be most satisfied if he came here,’ said Ingcél. ‘It would be one destruction for another. This destruction would be no more difficult for me than was the destruction of my mother and my father and my seven brothers and the king of the country that I did for you as my part of the bargain.’ ‘True, true,’ said the evil-doers who had accompanied the raiders. The raiders started out from Trácht Fuirbthen, then, and each man took with him a stone for the making of the cairn, for this is the distinction that the fiana instituted between a destruction and a rout: they erected a pillar stone for a rout but built a cairn for a destruction. Since this was to be a destruction, the raiders made a cairn, and they built it far from the house lest they be seen or heard.
After that, the raiders held a council, in the place where they had made the cairn. ‘Well then,’ said Ingcél to those who knew the country, ‘what is nearest to us?’ ‘Not difficult that: the hostel of Da Derga, the royal hospitaller of Ériu,’ these men answered. ‘A good chance, then, that chieftains will be seeking their fellows in that hostel tonight,’ said Ingcél. It was decided, then, that one of the plunderers should go and look to see how things were in the house. ‘Who should go to look?’ it was asked. ‘Who but I?’ said Ingcél. ‘For it is to me that the debt is owed.’
Ingcél then went to spy upon the hostel with one of the three pupils in his eye, and he adjusted his eye so as to cast a baleful look upon the king and the youths about him, and he looked through the wheels of the chariots. He was perceived from the house, however, and so he hurried away until he rejoined the raiders. They had formed circles, one about the other, in order to hear the news, and in the centre of the circles were the six chieftains: Fer Gel, Fer Gar, Fer Rogel, Fer Rogain, Lomnae Drúth and Ingcél Cáech.
‘What is there, Ingcél?’ asked Fer Rogain. ‘Whatever it is,’ answered Ingcél, ‘the customs are regal, the tumult is that of a host and the noise is that of princes. Whether or not there is a king there, I will take the house in payment of the debt, and I will plunder there.’ ‘We leave it to you, Ingcél,’ said Conare’s foster-brothers, ‘save that we should not destroy the house until we know who is inside.’ ‘Did you look the house over well, Ingcél?’ Fer Rogain asked. ‘My eye made a quick circuit, and I will accept it in payment just as it is,’ said Ingcél. ‘Although you take the house, it is yours by right,’ said Fer Rogain. ‘Our foster-father is inside, the high king of Ériu, Conare son of Eterscélae. Whom did you see in the champion