following to Ireland, hoping to escape the flood-but in vain.'

3 Yet another legend, of much later origin, tells that one of the Lady Cesair's party did escape, namely, Finntann, a grandson of Bith, who kept afloat during the deluge-and lived afterwards, seemingly immortal, at Dun Tulcha in southwestern Kerry. Finntann reappeared in Irish history, on a notable occasion some thousands of years later, when, in the reign of Diarmuid MacCarroll, in the sixth century of our Era, this veteran, turned up at Tara to settle, by testimony taken from his long memory, a dispute about the limits of the Royal Demesne. Great was the awed wonder at the King's palace, when the old man arrived, preceded by nine companies of his own descendants, and followed by another nine. To prove the fitness of his memory, for testifying what had or had not been from the founding of Tara downward, he gave the wondering king and people some little idea of his age, by telling them the following story: "I passed one day through a wood in West Munster: I brought home with me a red berry of the yew tree, which I planted in the garden of my mansion, and it grew there until it was as tall as a man. I then took it out of the garden, and planted it in the green lawn of my mansion; and it grew in the centre of that lawn until an hundred champions could fit under the foliage, and find shelter there from wind, and rain, and cold, and heat. I remained so, and my yew remained so, spending our time alike, until at last it ceased to put forth leaves, from old age. When, afterwards, I thought of turning it to some profit, I cut it from its stem, and made from it seven vats, seven keeves, seven stans, seven churns, seven pitchers, seven milans and seven medars, with hoops for all. I remained still with my yew-vessels, until their hoops all fell off from decay and old age. After this I re-made them, but could only get a keeve out of the vat, and a stan out of the keeve, a mug out of the stan, a cilorn out of the mug, a milan out of the cilorn, and a medar out of the milanand I leave it to Almighty God that I do not know where their dust is now, after their dissolution with me, from decay."

CHAPTER VI

CONOR MAC NESSA

At the time of Christ, as said, there reigned over Ulster-residing at Emain Macha (Emania)-a king noted in ancient song and story, Conor MacNessa.

He was a great grandson of Rory Mor, a powerful Ulster ruler who had become monarch of Ireland, and who was the founder of the Rudrician line of Ulster kings.

The memory of Conor MacNessa is imperishably preserved in the tale of The Sons of Usnach and in the greater tale of The Táin Bo Cuailgne (Coolney)—not by any means with honour, in the former.

Emain Macha was the headquarters of the famed Knights of the Royal Branch-now more commonly known as the Knights of the Red Branch. And it was in the days of Conor, and at his court, that these warrior champions reached the climax of their fame. For he was himself a doughty champion, an .able leader, and a great man-inspiration sufficient for such band of chivalrous warriors as now rallied around him. In one of the tales of The Táin there is given by the herald MacRoth, a poetic description of this king, which at least tallies with what we would wish to think such royal king must be. Detailing to Queen Medb (Maeve) of Connaught and her courtiers, a description of what he saw at the enemy Ulster camp, MacRoth says: "A tall graceful champion of noble, polished, and proud mien, stood at the head of the party. This most beautiful of the kings of the world stood among his troops with all the signs of obedience, superiority, and command. He wore a mass of yellow, curling, drooping hair. He had a pleasing, ruddy countenance. He had a deep, blue, sparkling, piercing eye in his head and a two-branching beard, yellow, and curling upon his chin. He wore a crimson, deep-bordered, five-folding tunic; a gold pin in the tunic over his bosom; and a brilliant white shirt, interwoven with thread of red gold, next his white skin."

The deeds of the Red Branch Knights in Conor's day, over and over again chronicled by succeeding generations of poets and chron

iclers, have not been, and never will be, forgotten. And Conor MacNessa was part of it all.

His first wife was the Amazonian Medb (Maeve) just mentioned, a daughter of Eocaid, the Ard-Righ (High King) of Ireland. Afterwards, as queen of Connaught and the instigator of the great Connaught-Ulster war (commemorated in The Táin Bo Cuailgne) she, too, was destined to become immortal. From herwho needed a husband to whom she could be both master and mistress-Conor had to separate. He found his happiness with her sister, Ethne, whom he took to wife then, and who proved to be all that was indicated by her name-Ethne, that is "sweet kernel of a nut."

Conor was not only a warrior and a patron of warriors, but a patron of scholars and poets, also. His Ard-filé (chief poet) was the great Ferceirtne-to whom some writers of a thousand years ago were wont to ascribe a rude grammar of the Gaelic language, one of four books of ancient grammar, preserved in the Book of Leinster. "The place of writing this book," says the prefatory note to the grammar, "was Emania; the time was the time of Conor MacNessa, the author was Ferceirtne, the poet: and the cause of composing it was to bring the ignorant and barbarous to true knowledge."

Conor, patron of poetry and the arts, was a practical man who is said to have struck from learning the oppressive shackles of tradition that hitherto had cramped and bound it. Till his day the learned professions, both for sake of monopoly and of effect upon the multitude, used an archaic language that only the initiated understood, and that awed the mass of the people. Once, however, the young poet, Néide, son of Ferceirtne's predecessor at Conor's court, having just won his poetic laurels, came to the court of Conor, where finding the poet's mani-colored tuigin (mantle)— made of the skins and wings of birds-lying on the poet's chair, he assumed the mantle, and took the poet's seat. When Ferceirtne discovered this, he, highly indignant, rebuked Néide, commanding him to resign both the chair and the tuigin. King Conor, to whom the matter was referred, commanded that it should be decided by a learned controversy between the two poets. The occasion of the controversy, in the presence of the king, the court, and the general public, was a great one. But to every one's disappointment, though the two scholars disputed long, and no doubt learnedly, no one there-with the possible exception of the two principals was any wiser at the end than at the beginning. For they had used the obsolete language of the scholars.

Conor, provoked and disgusted, at once ordered that the professions should not henceforth remain in the hereditary possession of the ancient learned families-but should be thrown open to all, irrespective of family or rank.

Yet Conor's reverence for poets was such that he saved them from expulsion, when, once they were threatened with death or exile, because, having grown so vast numbers, and got to be lazy, covetous, tyrannous, they had become an almost unbearable burden upon the multitude. O'Curry, indeed, says that in Conor's time so far had the taste for learning of all kinds, in poetry, music, Druidism in particular, seized on the mind of the nation, that more than one-third of the men of Eirinn had then given themselves up to the unproductive sciences. Conor gathered twelve hundred poets, it is said, into his dominion, and protected them there for seven years, till the anger of the people had abated, and they could scatter themselves over Ireland once more.

The famous story of Deirdre and the Sons of Usnach, however though it be a legend splendidly elaborated by the poet, but yet, we may well suppose, based upon facts-would show that King Conor, for all his kingliness, was sometimes no better than kings are supposed to be. According to it, he betrayed the immortal Naoisi and his brothers, and drove the beautiful Deirdre to her death. The sorrows of Deirdre as told in the story of The Sons of Usnach is one of the Three Sorrows of Irish story-telling.1

1 Deirdre was the daughter of Conor's story-teller, Feidlimid, and was born on a night when Conor was at the house of Feidlimid. Conor's Druid there and then foretold that this babe would be the cause of misfortunes untold coming upon Ulster.

To prevent this, Conor took charge of the babe. Had her confined in a fort where she should be reared up, withcut seeing any one except a nurse and a tutor, and Conor's spokeswoman-and when she should reach maturity, he would make her his wife.

As a young maiden, however, she managed to see Naisi, eldest of the three sons of Usnach, and immediately fell in love with him, and asked him to elope with her. Accompanied by Naisi's two brothers, Andli and Ardan, they fled to Alba. After a time they had to leave Alba, because the king had seen the rare beauty of Deirdre and coveted her. So they went off upon one of the islands.

Conor's nobles, pitying the distress and sufferings of the wandering lovers, pleaded for their forgiving and recall. Conor appeared to consent to all this. Deirdre and the three sons of Usnach returned joyfully to Emania. On the green of Emania a body of Conor's friends, led by Eogan, fell upon the three sons of Usnach and slew them, and Conor then took the broken-hearted Deirdre to himself. For his treachery Fergus MacRigh whose honor Conor had pledged for the safety of the sons of Usnach, led a fierce assault upon Emania, in which Conor's son was slain, and 300 of his people, Emain itself pillaged and burned.

Deirdre was with Conor for a year, during which time she was never once seen to raise up her head, or smile. No amusement or kindness had any effect upon her, neither wit nor mirth could move the lowness of her spirit.

Incensed at her attitude, Conor at the end of the year, gave her to Eogan,

It is recorded that the Danes made descent upon Ireland in King Conor's day. They are said to have besieged, about this time, a stronghold on the site where now stands Dublin. The ancient seanachies tell in particular of one battle, fought at Emain Macha against the Danes, under their commander, Daball, the son of the King of Lochlinn (Denmark)—whereat Conor, having only youths to put in the field,against the invaders, had the youth's faces dressed with wool, so that their enemies, instead of being heartened to victory by knowing that an army of youngsters was coming against them, were instead disheartened by the idea that they were meeting battle-tried veterans.

Conor died by a brain-ball that sunk into his skull-fired by the hand of Cet MacMagach, the Connaught champion, whom he had pursued after a Connaught cattle raid.

The legend attached to Conor's death is curious. The .brainball fired by Cet did not directly kill him. It sank into his skulland his doctor, Faith Liag, would not remove it, because that would cause instant death. With care, Conor might live long, carrying the brain-ball. Henceforth, however, he must be moderate in all things, avoid all passion, all violent emotion and lead such a life of calm as kings in those days rarely knew.

Under Faith Liag's wise care Conor contrived to live and enjoy life for seven years. But, one time, his court was thrown into consternation by finding broad day suddenly turned into blackest night, the heavens rent by lightning, and the world rocked by thunder, portending some dread cataclysm. Conor asked his Druids and wise men for explanation of the fearful happening. The Druid Bachrach, a noted seer, told him that there had been in the East, in one of the many countries under the dominion of Rome, a singular man, more noble of character, more lofty of mind, and more beautiful of soul, than the world had ever before known, or ever again would know-a divine man, a God-man, who spent his life lifting up the lowly, and leading the ignorant to the light, and giving new hope to a hopeless world-one, too, who loved all mankind with a love that surpassed understanding-one, the touch of whose gentle hand gave speech to the dumb, sight to the blind, life

the chief of Fernmach, the man who for him had done the base deed to the sons of Usnach.

As they took her away from Conor's residence to the residence of Eogan, she wildly leaped from the chariot, her head struck a sharp rock, and she was killed.

Fergus MacRigh and his companions with 3,000 followers quitted Ulster after Conor's treachery, and went into Connaught where they took service in the army of Medb.