Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

128 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race[155]and reigned over Ireland ten years.From this invasion of the Gauls the name of the province ofLeinster is traditionally derived. They were armed with spearshaving broad blue-green iron heads called laighne (pronounced“lyna”), and as they were allotted lands in Leinster and settledthere, the province was called in Irish Laighin (“Ly-in”) afterthem—the Province of the Spearmen. 121Of Labra the Mariner, after his accession, a curious tale istold. He was accustomed, it is said, to have his hair cropped butonce a year, and the man to do this was chosen by lot, and wasimmediately afterwards put to death. The reason of this was that,like King Midas in the similar Greek myth, he had long ears likethose of a horse, and he would not have this deformity known.Once it fell, however, that the person chosen to crop his hairwas the only son of a poor widow, by whose tears and entreatiesthe king was prevailed upon to let him live, on condition that heswore by the Wind and Sun to tell no man what he might see.The oath was taken, and the young man returned to his mother.But by-and-by the secret so preyed on his mind that he fell intoa sore sickness, and was near to death, when a wise Druid wascalled in to heal him. “It is the secret that is killing him,” saidthe Druid, “and he will never be well till he reveals it. Let himtherefore go along the high-road till he come to a place wherefour roads meet. Let him there turn to the right, and the first treehe shall meet on the road, let him tell his secret to that, and heshall be rid of it, and recover.” So the youth did; and the firsttree was a willow. He laid his lips close to the bark, whisperedhis secret to it, and went home, light-hearted as of old. But it121 The ending ster in three of the names of the Irish provinces is of Norseorigin, and is a relic of the Viking conquests in Ireland. Connacht, where theVikings did not penetrate, alone preserves its Irish name unmodified. Ulster(in Irish Ulaidh) is supposed to derive its name from Ollav Fōla, Munster(Mumhan) from King Eocho Mumho, tenth in succession from Eremon, andConnacht was “the land of the children of Conn”—he who was called Conn ofthe Hundred Battles, and who died A.D. 157.