CHAPTER XV. — ACROSS THE MEARINGS AND AWAY
“Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth.
From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the North?”
CAMPBELL.
As for the boys, they proceeded joyfully after that pleasant skirmish and friendly encounter, both on account of the discomfiture of him who was reckoned the prime champion of the Ultonians, and because they were at large in Erin, with no one to direct them, or to whom they should render an account; and their happiness, too, was increased by the mettle, power and gallant action of the steeds, and by the clanking of the harness and the brazen chains, and the ringing of the weapons of war, and the roar of the revolving wheels, and owing to the velocity of their motion and the rushing of the wind upon their temples and through their hair.
Then Cuculain stood up in the chariot, and surveyed the land on all sides, and said—
“What is that great, firm-based, indestructible mountain upon our left hand, one of a noble range which, rising from the green plain, runs eastward. The last peak there is the mountain of which I speak, whose foot is in the Ictian sea and whose head neighbours the firmament.”
And Laeg said, “Men call it Slieve Modurn, after a giant of the elder time, when men were mightier and greater than they are now. He was of the children of Brogan, uncle of Milesius, and his brothers were Fuad and Eadar and Breagh, and all these being very great men are commemorated in the names of noble mountains and sea-dividing promontories.”
“Guide thither the horses,” said Cuculain. “It is right that those who take the road against an enemy should first spy out the land, choosing judiciously their point of onset, and Slieve Modurn yonder commands a most brave prospect.”
Laeg did so. There, in a green valley, they unharnessed the horses and tethered them to graze, and they themselves climbed the mountain and stood upon the top in the most clear air. Thence Laeg showed him the green plain of Meath extending far and wide, and the great streams of Meath where they ran, the Boyne and the Blackwater, the Liffey and the Royal Rye, and his own stream the Nanny Water, clear and sparkling, which was very dear to Laeg, because he had snared fish there and erected dams, and had done divers boyish feats upon its shores.
Cuculain said, “I see a beautiful green hill, shaped like an inverted ewer, on the south shore of the Boyne. There is a noble palace there. I see the flashing of its lime-white sides, and the colours of the variegated roof and around it are other beautiful houses. How is that city named O Laeg, and who dwells there?”
“That is the hill of Temair,” answered Laeg, “Tara’s high citadel. Well may that city be beautiful, for the seat of Erin’s high sovereignty is there. The man who holds it is Arch-king of all Erin.”