The Bishop of Cork being active in the matter, and the Eoganacht chiefs having sworn neither to attempt his life nor blind him, he seems to have been quite unsuspicious. We next find him met by O'Molloy's people in a pass between Kilmallock and Cork, and about to be put to death. One of the accounts says that he had the Book of the Gospels of Barri (belonging to the cathedral of Cork) on his breast, but that, as soon as he saw his death determined on, he flung it the distance of a bow-shot away in order that it might not be stained with his blood. A cleric witness of the base deed denounced this curse on the O'Molloy, (Maelmuadh):
"It is Aedh (Hugh) that shall kill thee, a man from the border of Aifi, On the north of the sun with the harshness of the wind. The deed thou hast done shall be to thee a regret: That for which thou hast done it thou shalt not enjoy. Perpetual shall be its misfortune; thy posterity shall pass away, Thy history shall be forgotten, thy tribe shall be in bondage; The calf of a pet cow shall overthrow thee at one meeting; Thou shall not conquer it, Aedhan shall slay thee."
"The north of the sun with the harshness of the wind" implied the burial of the treacherous chief on the north side of a hill, where the sun's rays would not reach his grave.
The denunciation of the bishop noticed the erics payable for the murder of the king, but so atrocious was the deed that Brian would not accept any recompense but the life of the culprit.
We extract a portion of the elegy made by Mahon's blind bard on the melancholy occasion:
"Loud to-day the piercing wail of woe
Throughout the land of Ui Toirdhelbhaigh, (Torloch.)
It shall be and it is a wail not without cause,
For the loss of the hero Mathgamhain.
"Mathgamhain, the gem of Magh Fail,
Son of Cennedigh, son of Lorcan;
The western world was full of his fame—
The fiery King of Boromha.
.....
"The Dal Cais of the hundred churches remember
How we overran Gaeth Glenn,
When upon the illustrious Fergal's shield
Mathgamhain's meal was cooked.
.....
"Although calves are not suffered to go to the cows
In lamentation for the noble Mathgamhain,
There was inflicted much evil in his day
By those who are in Port Arda."
The custom of the Gael in matters militant was to appoint the time and place for battles—however enraged one party might be with the other. Brian sent mortal defiance to Molloy, threatening to besiege him in his own dun if he did not attend the notice. Murchad, Brian's eldest son, and the Osgur of his day, defied the caitiff chief to single combat. So the challenge was accepted and the battle took place, a large body of the Danes fighting under the banner of Maelmuadh. This chief was slain either by the hand of Murchad, or put to death in cold blood by Aedhan in a lonely hut after the fight. In this latter case he lost his eyesight in the field of Bealach Leachta through the curse pronounced on him, and was subsequently killed in the hut as mentioned.
A few lines of the poetical invitation to battle sent by Brian are worth quotation:
"Go, Cogaran the intelligent!
Unto Maelmuadh of the piercing blue eye,
To the sons of Bran of enduring prosperity,
And to the sons of the Ui Eachdach.
.....
"Say unto the son of Bran that he fail not
After a full fortnight from to-morrow,
To come to Belach Lechta hither,
With the full muster of his army and his followers.
.....
"Whenever the son of Bran son of Cian shall offer
The Cumhal (blood fine) of my brother unto myself,
I will not accept from him hostages or studs,
But only himself in atonement for his guilt.
.....
"But if he do not come from the South
To Belach Lechta the evergreen,
Let him answer at his house
The Dal Cais [Footnote 283] and the son of Cennedigh.