So the two of them set out for Tara on the morrow morn. And this was the retinue they had with them: a body-guard of outlawed men that had revolted against mac Con and other lords and had gathered themselves together at Corann under Luna, and four wolves that had been cubs with Cormac when the she-wolf suckled him.
When they came to Tara, the folk there wondered at the fierce-eyed warriors and the grey beasts that played like dogs around Cormac, and the lad was adopted as a pupil by the King, to be taught arms and poetry and law. Much talk there was of his coming, and of his strange companions that are not wont to be the friends of man, and as the lad grew in comeliness and in knowledge the eyes of all were turned to him more and more, because the rule of mac Con was not good.
So the time wore on, till one day a case came for judgment before the King, in which the Queen sued a certain wealthy woman and an owner of herds named Benna, for that the sheep of Benna had strayed into the Queen's fields and had eaten to the ground a crop of woad[[26]] that was growing there. The King gave judgment, that the sheep which had eaten the woad were to be given to the Queen in compensation for what they had destroyed. Then Cormac rose up before the people and said, "Nay, but let the wool of the sheep, when they are next shorn, be given to the Queen, for the woad will grow again and so shall the wool." "A true judgment, a true judgment," cried all the folk that were present in the place; "a very king's son is he that hath pronounced it." And they murmured so loudly against mac Con that his druids counselled him to quit Tara lest a worse thing befall him. So he gave up the sovranty to Cormac and went southward into Munster to rally his friends there and recover the kingdom, and there he was slain by Cormac's men as he was distributing great largesse of gold and silver to his followers, in the place called The Field of the Gold.
So Cormac, son of Art, ruled in Tara and was High King of all Ireland. And the land, it is said, knew its rightful lord, and yielded harvests such as never were known, while the forest trees dripped with the abundance of honey and the lakes and rivers were alive with fish. So much game was there, too, that the folk could have lived on that alone and never put a ploughshare in the soil. In Cormac's time the autumn was not vexed with rain, nor the spring with icy winds, nor the summer with parching heat, nor the winter with whelming snows. His rule in Erinn, it is said, was like a wand of gold laid on a dish of silver.
Also he rebuilt the ramparts of Tara and made it strong, and he enlarged the great banqueting hall and made pillars of cedar in it ornamented with plates of bronze, and painted its lime-white walls in patterns of red and blue. Palaces for the women he also made there, and store-houses, and halls for the fighting men—never was Tara so populous or so glorious before or since. And for his wisdom and righteousness knowledge was given to him that none other in Ireland had as yet, for it was revealed to him that the Immortal Ones whom the Gael worshipped were but the names of One whom none can name, and that his message should ere long come to Ireland from over the eastern sea, calling the people to a sweeter and diviner faith.
And to the end of his life it was his way to have wolves about him, for he knew their speech and they his, and they were friendly and tame with him and his folk, since they were foster-brothers together in the wild wood.
III
THE MARRIAGE OF KING CORMAC
It happened that in Cormac's time there was a very wealthy farmer named Buicad[[27]] who dwelt in Leinster, and had vast herds of cattle and sheep and horses. This Buicad and his wife had no children, but they adopted a foster-child named Ethne, daughter of one Dunlang. Now Buicad was the most hospitable of men, and never refused aught to anyone, but he kept open house for all the nobles of Leinster who came with their following and feasted there as they would, day after day; and if any man fancied any of the cattle or other goods of Buicad, he might take them home with him, and none said him nay. Thus Buicad lived in great splendour, and his Dún was ever full to profusion with store of food and clothing and rich weapons, until in time it was all wasted away in boundless hospitality and generosity, and so many had had a share in his goods that they could never be recovered nor could it be said of any man that he was the cause of Buicad's undoing. But undone he was at last, and when there remained to him but one bull and seven cows he departed by night with his wife and Ethne from Dún Buicad, leaving his mansion desolate. And he travelled till he came to a place where there was a grove of oak trees by a little stream in the county of Meath, near where Cormac had a summer palace, and there he built himself a little hut and tended his few cattle, and Ethne waited as a maid-servant upon him and his wife.